OSCARS 2018

Oscars 2018: A moment of reckoning for the transgender community

AWARDS-OSCARS/FOREIGNFILMRECEPTION Transgender lead actor Daniela Vega, whose "A Fantastic Woman" got an Oscar nomination | Reuters

When President Donald Trump decreed that no transgender persons would be allowed to serve openly in the military, Hollywood collectively raised its voice in protest. Celebrities like Lena Dunham, Olivia Munn, James Corden and Demi Lovato tweeted their support for the community. “I just want to tell the transgender community that I love you and you ARE supported no matter what,” said Lovato.

I wish that the support extended onscreen as well. Unfortunately, very few Hollywood movies have treated transgender issues in an empathetic and objective manner. In essence, most movies have tilted toward one of two stands – they’ve either been outrightly transphobic (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Silence of the Lambs, The 40-year-old virgin) or they’ve exoticised the experience of being transgender in films like Dallas Buyers Club. In it, Jared Leto’s character, a drug addict and a prostitute, reinforced every stereotype there ever has been about being transgender. In The Danish Girl, Eddy Redmayne portrays Lili Elbe, a transgender person whose life is dominated by the number of surgeries she has to do to become a woman. The real Lili Elbe, critics have pointed out, was so much more than just her ‘trans-ness’.

Trans men and women have also asked for more representation in Hollywood, especially when it comes to roles depicting their community. The industry loves to cast cis men and women in trans roles. Actors jump at such opportunities because it’s their best bet at bagging an Oscar. Leto won it for the best supporting actor in the Dallas Buyers Club and Hillary Swank for her portrayal of a trans person in Boys Don’t Cry. Redmayne missed it narrowly to Leonardo DiCaprio.

According to a 2015 survey by GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), only 22 of the 126 releases from the major studios in 2015 included characters identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. “Transgender representation is shockingly low with only one character in the mainstream releases of 2015—whose brief appearance served as a punchline to laugh at when her identity is released,” it said.

That’s why it’s a big deal that this year, two films, one made by a transgender and another starring one, have been nominated for the Oscars. Transgender director Yance Ford’s Strong Island, nominated for best documentary, is about the murder of Ford’s brother. Best foreign film nominee A Fantastic Woman stars Chilean transgender actor Daniela Vega. The great thing about these films is that they go beyond mere questions of identity. In his film, Ford does not explore his own identity as a transgender person. Instead, Strong Island, through interviews and archival material, tells the story of his brother’s murder by a white man in 1992. A Fantastic Woman is more about love and loss than about being transgender. It is about the romance between Vega and Orlando, her lover played by Francisco Reyes, and having to prove her right to mourn him when Orlando dies.

Sebastian Lelio, the director of A Fantastic Woman, said the film is about the limits to our empathy. “About what we are willing to allow from others, where we draw the line in terms of which people are legitimate or which acts of love are legitimate or not,” he said.

The visibility of transgender people in the US is at an all-time high with people like the Wachowsky siblings (of the Matrix fame) and Caitlyn Jenner coming out as transgender. Despite this, violence against transgender persons have been on the rise in the country. The Human Rights Campaign (a civil rights organisation working for LGBTQ rights) documented the murder of 25 members of the transgender community in 2017, a rise from the 21 in 2015 and 23 in 2016. In this climate of hate, it’s important that the media, which has an incredible power to influence mindsets and opinions, portray the nuances and complexities of being transgender. Hollywood needs to go beyond coming-of-age and formulaic stories of teens transitioning from one gender to another. The relative strangeness of this theme ensures there’s high possibility it is misused for mere sensationalising of transgender identity. We also need to move away from stereotypes; transgender persons are not all sex workers who wear tawdry wigs and speak with an exaggerated accent.

It’s hard to say whether Strong Island and A Fantastic Woman will play any significant role in changing common perceptions about transness. Whether they win an Oscar or not, they have set the standard for how trans issues should be represented in the media.

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