At This Stage: When it comes to transgender rights, we live in a society on the cusp of a major epistemological shift. This leap moves away from binary gender norms, which position men as mutually exclusive to that of women. We are moving towards a culture that welcomes gender-nonconformity and fluidity, with more diverse ways of inhabiting the world. We just want people to be themselves. It is no surprise that break out stars, like Laverne Cox, have so quickly ascended to Hollywood royalty. But the entertainment industry has not always been forward-thinking when it comes to trans rights, visibility, or representation.
10 comments:
Overall this article was a little disappointing. I was expecting to read something that was all about how to be more inclusive to the trans-community in casting but in fact, this article just talked about changing the gender of characters - something that has been going forever - instead of doing work written for trans-people and cast written trans-people. The line that stuck out to me was about how Hollywood wasn’t as progressive as it is now and I find this to be a misstatement as even to this day cis people are booking jobs to play trans characters. Yes, things are constantly improving but this article seems to paint a much prettier picture of Hollywood than really is there. One thing that stuck out to me about this article was the separation of trans-women and cis-women. By doing this, the article invalidates trans-women as real women and I find it interesting that an article about being inclusive to the trans community is in fact not being inclusive of the trans community.
Gender is a topic much discussed throughout many scenes, but particularly in the theatre and arts worlds. I like how this article discusses the serious lack of representation of diverse gender in the theatre community. I really like how the article mentions and explains two different ways of casting a production to have a more gender diverse and inclusive cast. In high school, we utilized both of these methods. The entire production of Pippin was rewritten and copyrighted with the leading player cast as a female or someone with a more soprano voice. I think the concept of regendering a show is more effective than cross-gendering a show. With cross-gendering, this can potentially lead to negative impacts on an actor who is non-binary or transgender when hearing incorrect pronouns can be a difficult time. This topic of pronoun usage was discussed heavily in CMU’s recent show Dance Floor… So while both of these have their positives and negatives, it is an important discussion to have.
This article is has a lot of points, but doesn't necessarily dive into the real meaning behind gender conscious casting: that it doesn't really exist. Of course connotations are clear and gender plays a big part in how we view society and plays, which are supposed to reflect, portray, and fictionalize society. In Shakespeare, having a female identifying person play roles like Hamlet and Macbeth does change the plot and it does change the semiotics of what the audience sees the show as. What this article lacks, is the attention to detail that is needed when trying to create casting opportunities for people that are trans and don't have that many opportunities to begin with. It is a highly political issue, and its hard to completely take a stance on it as a whole, but I do think that working towards creating a more inclusive industry, is to realize how much people are willing to change in terms of how they view the art as a whole, progressive or traditional.
This has always been a topic I have been interested in and wondered about when seeing plays, movies or TV shows. Recently, I saw the play “The Dance Floor, The Hospital Room, and The Kitchen Table”, at CMU, which is a play about three queer characters wanting to learn more about their identities. There was a character in the show who identified as non - binary, and the actor who played that character was a paid actor from outside of CMU, not a CMU student. While I thought the actor performed the role well, I was interested in why that occurred. I was told that it was s director's choice to cast actors who had the same gender and sexual identity as the character they were playing. However, there are examples on a much larger scale of actors playing characters in which they do not share the same gender and sexual identity. As we continue to progress into the future, I am curious to see how these trends continue regarding casting.
This article was not what I expected it to be, but I have yet to figure out whether that is a good thing, a bad thing, or a neutral thing. I thought this would be a queer artist's insight on casting for gender-nonconforming or non-cis characters, as the author does touch on the fact that many cis actors are still taking trans roles, but it ended up being more about how a director can interpret and alter the character's gender presentation, and the audience's interpretation of the character. There is no allusion to a more diverse casting procedure aside from what I think is a derivative of gender-blind casting (cross-gender casting; not casting as the character's gender, but blind casting from all other identities). Ultimately, the author's argument is a lot more superficial than getting to the root of the problem and actually addressing the lack of trans, nonbinary, and female artists.
I believe gender conscious casting is important, like racial conscious casting is, but I am not entirely convinced this article addresses this topic to the greatest extent or best. Like comments above said, this article talked a lot about switching gender roles to be more inclusive, which in my opinion, doesn’t really solve all the problems of mis gender casting, and exclusiveness to people who identify as gender non-bianary. The theatre world often prides itself on being very inclusive and progressive, yet I hesitate to completely agree with this opinion. There is always work to be done, and I dont think switching the gender of a cis-genered male character to a cis-gender female character/actor is exactly being completely inclusive and “breaking all gender barriers”. Not to say there are not efforts being made, but just that there is simply more work to be done and we are not finished.
I really have to agree with Alexander's main point. I am a bit disappointed that the solution this article seems to be coming to is that people should just change the gender identity of the characters rather than creating trans and nonbinary characters. I am especially surprised because the author of this article is a gender nonconforming artist, and I would think that of all people they would see that this is a solution, it doesn't even begin to hit the real problem. I do agree in thinking that gender-swapped casting can be an interesting way to bring more than just cis actors into leading roles, but I also think that normalizing the idea of trans and gender nonconforming characters is also important. It isn't the exact same thing, but I saw "Compensation" at CMU this week, which depicted a gay couple's life as they try to get a baby through a surrogate and the complications that come with that. It is a lot deeper than that, but what I want to emphasize here is that the show wasn't about them being gay; it was a story about three people and the circumstances of their lives, and two of them happened to be gay. Normalizing trans and nonbinary characters to me is allowing them to exist outside of their identity.
This article presents a pretty good primer on the things that must be considered in gender-diverse casting. One of the things it does not mention is that there is a paucity of good roles for women in the more traditional canon; embracing alternative casting options opens up more opportunities for people other than cis men. I do think there is a fair bit more to be considered on this particular topic, however. For example, there ought to be an acknowledgement of the personal challenges an actor might face in any of the described options. Although it might be strange and perhaps uncomfortable for a cis actor to play a part where they must use pronouns other than the ones they have always used, it can be actively painful for a trans or nonbinary actor to perform a character that uses the pronouns that they have moved away from. Any which way, it is a challenging issue that is only getting more complicated as the public conception of gender gets more complicated.
This article presents a pretty good primer on the things that must be considered in gender-diverse casting. One of the things it does not mention is that there is a paucity of good roles for women in the more traditional canon; embracing alternative casting options opens up more opportunities for people other than cis men. I do think there is a fair bit more to be considered on this particular topic, however. For example, there ought to be an acknowledgement of the personal challenges an actor might face in any of the described options. Although it might be strange and perhaps uncomfortable for a cis actor to play a part where they must use pronouns other than the ones they have always used, it can be actively painful for a trans or nonbinary actor to perform a character that uses the pronouns that they have moved away from. Any which way, it is a challenging issue that is only getting more complicated as the public conception of gender gets more complicated.
It was interesting to know how “gender-swap casting” and “cross-gender casting” can be helpful when considering gender-conscious casting. However, these techniques have been already used for years, in order to express new perspectives of the script. These casting strategies could get more queer and trans actors involved, but only as a part of the experiment. I believe the goal is to become “gender-nonconformity and fluidly, with more diverse ways of inhabiting the world” as the article suggests in the beginning. I do not think these strategies would help the industry to achieve these goals, since there is still a clear classification of gender in the context. On the other hand, I understand that it is really hard to become gender-nonconformity with a classic text, like the ones by Shakespeare, because gender is strongly infused in the context. In addition, I think it is also hard to do so when history is involved in the text, because the idea of diversity in gender is too recent.
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