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The Daily Cardinal Est. 1892
Friday, March 29, 2024
Conor Murphy

Digital TV leads in transgender roles

I didn’t watch much of MTV’s Video Music Awards this year, but the one clip I did see was 15 seconds of Laverne Cox dancing and singing along to Beyoncé’s performance. Most of the crowd around her looked disinterested in the whole affair, but Cox was turning it out in the aisle. After watching, and re-watching the clip, my reaction was the same: I just kept shouting “YAAAAS” at my computer, if you’ll forgive my stanning.

Cox has garnered acclaim over the last year as a rising star, both for her role on Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” and as the first transgender woman to receive an Emmy nomination. Humble and well-spoken, Cox ran circles around visibly awkward interviewers this past year in discussing her gender identity and has informed American media consumers on the proper lexicon for describing trans individuals.

GLAAD, formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, released their annual report card of the portrayal of minorities on television on Wednesday. This report, which aggregates the characters and actors on various networks, brought some good news for those interested in queer media: 3.9 percent of characters on prime-time television for the 2014-’15 season identified as LGBT, a .6 percent increase from last year.

But with the good news comes the bad; the report revealed that only one character in prime-time television identifies as transgender, Cole on ABC Family’s “The Fosters.” The rise of lesbian, gay and bisexual characters across network and premium channels has helped to further represent cisgender, queer individuals, but to see more prominent depiction of trans characters, you need to log onto Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Cox, a trans woman, made waves this year for her portrayal of Sophia Burset, a trans woman on Netflix’s original series “Orange is the New Black.” The show’s creator, Jenji Kohan, devoted an entire episode in the show’s first season to showing Sophia’s transition and the various personal and medical obstacles facing trans women.

While Cox’s role on the show isn’t as a series regular, Netflix broke ground as one of the first outlets to give backstory to a trans character, and help to humanize the character. Many network and prime-time crime shows have featured trans characters in the past, but usually as bit parts, or as the focus of a single episode.

This relegation of trans characters to one-and-done parts pushes back the progress made through shows like “Orange is the New Black.” Showing trans characters without any backstory takes away from their humanity, type of relegation that gay, lesbian and bisexual characters have fought for years to overcome.

Another online, subscription-based outlet is also helping to showcase the challenges of transitioning for male-to-female, or MTF, transgender individuals. Amazon released the first season of “Transparent,” on September 26. After watching the pilot episode with my roommates last week, I binged watched the entire season on Sunday afternoon, which I will admit with no shame.

“Transparent” follows Morton Pfefferman, played by a transcendent Jeffrey Tambor, who comes out to his three children as a trans woman named Maura. The show jumps between Maura and her three adult children, who come to terms with Maura’s revaluation in their own ways. While having a trans woman main character is striking in itself, the recurring characters help to add a greater sense of reality to the show’s setting.

Creator Jill Soloway splices the present day with scenes from the family’s past, showing how she started to realize more about her gender identity, and how Maura helped her then-wife, played by Judith Light, understand why she had to be honest with herself and everyone around her.

Both “Orange is the New Black” and “Transparent” represent two seminal moments in queer television. The former places a trans woman into a setting and doesn’t point out her gender identity as something out of the ordinary, and the latter helps media consumers to understand the process of coming to terms with one’s gender identity, at any age.

Controversy still surrounds cisgender (someone whose gender identity matches with the sex they were assigned at birth) actors playing trans roles. Jared Leto faced this when he played a trans woman in “Dallas Buyers Club,” a role that led to an eventual Oscar, but activists were quick to point out some of his more problematic statements on trans rights. Tambor playing a trans woman may draw criticism, but so far has been praised for his realism in the role of Maura.

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As a cisgender man, I hope to see more trans actors playing trans characters, and the continued dominance of cisgender actors playing trans roles continues their subjugation in the media. While far from perfect, the media landscape is changing for trans characters, and these roles are only the beginning for a more accurate cross-section of the diversity of transgender individuals.

If you have questions, or would like to change my mind on something I’ve discussed, please feel free to email me at cmurphy5@wisc.edu.

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