Robin Of House Hill Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 She is one brave woman. http://abriluno.com/ugandan-presidents-daughter-admits-she-is-gay/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brook Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 The comments to that suggest it might be a parody site?If not that's somewhere beyond brave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 2, 2014 Share Posted March 2, 2014 Damned internet. :frown5: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Now, I know who is to blame. http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/02/should-a-transgender-person-not-jared-leto-have-been-cast-in-dallas-buyers-club.html Quebec filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée, who directed Dallas Buyers Club, spoke to CBC's Jian Ghomeshi, who asked whether he ever considered casting a transgender actor. "Never. [Are] there any transgender actors?" he said. "I'm not aiming for the real thing. I'm aiming for an experienced actor who wants to portray the thing." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 My Facebook friends know I changed my mind about Jared Leto's portrayal of a transgender woman in Dallas Buyer's Club, but since I was one of many who bad-mouthed the performance on Twitter, I figured I'd be fair and say something online, publicly, when an opportunity occurred to comment about an article published by advocate.com. The last I looked, my comment was right below the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 A nice article. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnshore/2014/02/christians-be-thee-not-discombobulated-by-transgender-people/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tellus Explorer Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Just read it, didn't think I would read the whole thumb lol but I did. Thanks for sharing Robin :thumpsup: I think it's great that even Christians are writing and accepting their true selves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Nice song by an Iranian singer. Don't think the ayatollahs approve. http://youtu.be/378BihV0kqU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viserion Stormborn Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I'm really annoyed by the Leto criticism. The movie would not have been made without movie stars hence the need to cast one. So there would be no conversation about it else wise. I'm sure there are plenty of indie films starting transgender actors playing transgender characters, the difference is nobody saw those and they didn't win oscars. Enough with the PC police. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 Don't tell me how I'm allowed to feel, if I take issue with yet another trans character having to fit the only mold that is allowed for a trans character in hollywood I'll be pissed off. I don't believe that harmful portrayals are necessarily better than no portrayal, as someone whose personal realisation was substantially delayed by such negative depictions, so even if his performance is brilliant I can be angry about it being showered with awards while ignoring the problematic nature of it, nor any tip of the hat to the community whose oppression he is using for inspiration. You can disagree with my criticism and you can not like it, but you don't get to tell condescendingly tell me I'm just being PC Police. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I'm really annoyed by the Leto criticism. The movie would not have been made without movie stars hence the need to cast one. So there would be no conversation about it else wise. I'm sure there are plenty of indie films starting transgender actors playing transgender characters, the difference is nobody saw those and they didn't win oscars. Enough with the PC police. The transgender community is not a monolithic group that has a single opinion on issues that effect it. I'd prefer that statements such as yours, attempting to turn it into one, weren't made. I would prefer that transgender characters were portrayed by transgender actors. I'd prefer that the transgender characters portrayed in movies in a more positive light. That said, I found Leto's performance magnificent. I may have reservations about how he views transgender people since expressing admiration for the, "Rayons of the world", as he did at the Golden Globe awards, didn't cut it for me. The director's insensitivity and the makeup artist's incompetence, didn't make me happy either. Surprisingly, the character, Rayon, didn't bother me anywhere near that of Bree in Transamerica, who was a hyper-feminine, timid stereotype. Rayon, on the other had, was world-wise and able to stand up to what life threw at her. Her fear was death, not the abuse that was hurled at her. In short, I liked her. Karaddin and I don't agree on this. Neither of us are PC Police. Please don't tell us what to think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 Just to be clear, my point of view isn't that I have an issue with this kind of character existing, my issue is that this kind of character (broadly) are the only kinds of trans characters that exist in hollywood. You want to make this movie? Fine, but balance it out with some other kinds of portrayals. I also object to the way he behaved in acceptance speeches and other things like that - ie my objections are on a meta level and not a criticism of his acting performance, I can't comment on that as I haven't and won't see the movie (all else aside I've not been remotely in the right emotional space for that kind of movie lately). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillio Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I know what you mean, my mother-in-law was admitted to a Mental Health Institution about the time "one flew over a cuckoo's nest" was released, still haven't watched that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Karaddin,I agree fully with your last post. I'm not sure what it is about Rayon that I connected with, except that for all her flaws, she had a strength that overruled my aversion to her drug addiction and how she supported herself. I don't know if that makes any sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viserion Stormborn Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Sorry if I've caused offense. I've been under the impression (due to articles like this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/03/jared-leto-oscar-transgender_n_4890061.html) that the Transgender community's main objection has been the that Leto (straight/white/male/CIS actor) was cast to begin with. If you feel his portrayal/performance itself is an offensive stereotype then of course I cannot comment on that. But I don't think he should be written off just because he's a non-trans actor playing that character, especially in a mainstream movie like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Of House Hill Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Sorry if I've caused offense. I've been under the impression (due to articles like this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/03/jared-leto-oscar-transgender_n_4890061.html) that the Transgender community's main objection has been the that Leto (straight/white/male/CIS actor) was cast to begin with. If you feel his portrayal/performance itself is an offensive stereotype then of course I cannot comment on that. But I don't think he should be written off just because he's a non-trans actor playing that character, especially in a mainstream movie like this. There are several realities about DBC. The acting reality is that Leto's performance was phenomenal. I watched the movie twice...in one day...and cried both times. The social/political reality is that there was never any consideration that a transgender actor be considered for the part. The economic reality is that the entertainment industry will do what it thinks will make money, rather than what is right. The unreality is the makeup artist that did Leto's makeup. Currently, Hollywood serves up transgender characters in the following categories. Pathetic, hyper-feminine, awkward, timid, reckless, dying, dead. There are no portrayals of lawyers, doctors, cops, etc., who only incidentally are transgender. Why? Because the bulk of the audience that provides the industry its revenue is white/cis/hetero-normative and they won't buy tickets to see those characters. Laverne Cox in OITNB is an anomaly, and even there, the character is not mainstream. It will take more years than I'll be around, before Hollywood changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerraPrime Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 There will be phases. Tom Hanks' win for "Philadelphia" was not without criticism from the gay community, as well. The march to mainstream acceptance is slow and there will be Hollywood portrayals that straddle exploitation and acceptance. It is important to remember, too, that for most people, they still don't know a trans* person in real life. To them, they still have not connected that trans* people exist in all walks of life in all sorts of professions and stations of life. In this regard, I don't think Hollywood is particularly behind the time. But I think the phase will pass with time, and with increased visibility of the topic. That said, I do find some of the criticisms against the casting choice problematic. I think it was a huffpo piece I read where the author spent half the article explaining why a cis gender man cannot portray a trans-identified woman accurately while dancing around why it's ok for a straight actor to portray a gay character. It was not convincing to me, at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeping Sore Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 It's interesting to look at the history of African-Americans on screen as a comparison. Phase 1 - total invisibility, Phase 2 - appearing as comic relief- character actors like Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel (Mammy in Gone With the Wind). Phase 3 - the Sydney Poitier model of the Black Man as an uninpeachable paragon - a corrective to prevailing stereotypes.(followed closely by the popular and transgressive Blaxpoitation genre, probably in part a reaction against liberal high-mindedness.) Phase 4 - Flaws and complexity, e.g. Denzel Washington in Training Day. Black man as a deeply flawed, complex individual inspiring both involuntary admiration and moral revulsion. Denzel's character here transcends any representation of his race. I think the modern viewer needs to see flaws in order to invest themselves in a character, and with Rayon I think the DBC filmmakers were probably going for a Phase 4 character, it's just that all they could think to put in as flaws were Phase 2 stereotypes. So IMO complex characters not relying on stereotypes are what is called for, not Phase 3 paragons, as audiences just don't buy into perfect characters anymore. ETA: @Terror- was writing this while you were posting- it looks as though we were thinking along similar lines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viserion Stormborn Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Or a gay actor to portray a straight character, for that matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeping Sore Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Not to belabor the point, but you would think for example Laverne Cox could easily play a cis woman. There's no reason a trans actor should be relegated strictly to trans roles. I'm wondering what people thought of the audacious gender-blind casting in Cloud Atlas, by the most powerful trans woman in the entertainment industry, Lana Wachowski? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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