LGBT+ roles in Hollywood
Should cishet people be cast in these roles?
Recently, there has been a lot of debate and outrage over this topic, with a lot of high profile movies casting straight or cisgendered people to play gay or trans people. To start off, I would like to answer this question. Should cishet people be cast in these roles? In short, no, cisgender heterosexual people should not be cast in LGBT+ roles. This is the short answer. The long answer is this blog.
One of the recent outrages was the casting of Jack Whitehall to play a gay character in a Disney live action film. Whilst it is a huge step for Disney to be creating a gay character for one of their films, it’s a step that just doesn’t go far enough. To cast a straight man for this role feels like a huge misstep. LGBT+ people are constantly discriminated against in Hollywood, finding it harder to get work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. To have a role of a gay man go to a straight person, when there are numerous struggling gay actors, just feels wrong. When the opportunity is as big as a lead role in a Disney film, it’s a huge shame it didn’t go to a gay man.
This leads to a feeling that Disney is pandering to an audience. Whilst they may be happy to have a gay character in their film, they seem to be unwilling to actually do anything to actively improve the lives of gay people. They could have hired an unknown gay actor and given them their huge break. Instead they took the easy route. This ‘route of least resistance’ idea has been discussed a lot recently in relation to Pride parades. Pride In London has become a very commercialised event and whilst it may be a somewhat necessary evil to keep Pride free, the companies present are questionable. It’s unacceptable to have a Tory group at a Pride rally, a political party that have been consistently, until recently, opposed to LGBT+ rights, and still retain a large number of homophobic MPs within its ranks. Many of these companies wave the rainbow flag during Pride season, but are quiet for the rest of the year and take no action to actually improve the lives of LGBT+ people. These topics were discussed in a Eurogamer article, which is a great read.
It ends up creating a feeling that it’s nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy. They wave the rainbow flag in order to appear as an accepting group to the LGBT+ community, thus making people more willing to buy their goods and services. When, in fact, their actual practices may not provide any support or, worse than that, actively cause harm to the LGBT+ community. This is how the gay character in this Disney film comes across, showing support to the LGBT+ community in order to attract them to watch their film.
Another issue is the role itself. The character has been described as ‘effete and camp’. It appears that the character that Disney is making does nothing to undermine the tropes surrounding gay characters in Hollywood. It’s disappointing that this stereotype is still being perpetuated. When I was growing up, this stereotype was all I ever saw of gay people within media. Gay people are into fashion, make up, shopping and dancing. This isn’t something I identified with and I used this to downplay my attraction to men. I discussed this in my previous blog. I should stress here that there is nothing wrong with being gay and feminine (I am the furthest thing from masculine myself) and/or liking any or all of the interests I mentioned previously. The issue is with stereotyping gay people in this way and showing only this image of gay men. It creates an image of gay people that they internalise. It leads to them thinking that if you’re gay you must have these interests, otherwise you’re “a bad gay”. It can create a feeling of isolation. The idea that you may not fit in with the community, because your interests lie elsewhere. Being feminine doesn’t make you gay and being gay doesn’t mean you have to be feminine. The LGBT+ community is a rich one, made up of all sorts of people which are rarely represented in mainstream media. Instead, all we get is the same 2D caricature peddled to us, the same old tired trope.
Now, many have argued that this is still a big deal. Having a gay character in a huge Disney film is a massive step, which of course it is. They argue that it’s very important, just like films before it such as “Love, Simon”. However, there is still room for criticism here for Disney not doing more. People have argued that “Love, Simon” didn’t get criticism, but I believe it should have done as well. Having gay characters within a film or even whole films centred around gay characters creates a huge opportunity to open a dialogue and create a platform to speak about the issues LGBT+ people face.
There are two examples I would like to draw attention to here. One is Adam in “Jane the Virgin”. It was revealed that Jane’s old boyfriend Adam, whom she had reunited with, was bisexual. They had a whole episode around bisexuality and answered all the questions people tend to ask about bisexuality in a very sensitive way. It was a fantastic episode that actually made me tear up a bit. However, the actor playing Adam (Tyler Posey) is not known to be bisexual. This meant that the conversation was kept to that episode and to that character and, now that that character has left the show, the representation within media has been lost.
The other example is Detective Rosa Diaz in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”. Here they revealed a well known character within the show is actually bisexual, not straight as everyone had previously assumed. They had an episode where Rosa came out to her parents and highlighted how hard it can be, especially for a female person of colour. The actress, Stephanie Beatriz, is actually bisexual herself. What this has managed to do, that Jane the Virgin did not, was create a dialogue outside the show itself. It has given Stephanie a platform to speak about her own personal issues in countless online articles, which I have linked here. It has also meant that she could feed her personal experiences into the show and help guide the direction for her character.
This is what we can achieve when we actually cast LGBT+ people into LGBT+ roles. It gives people an actual real-life role model to look up to. It gives them a person to relate to, to aspire to. It shows them that their sexuality will not hold them back. It’s all good and well to represent different sexualities within a film, but without the real life counterpart to go with it, it can feel a little hollow. Whilst films may show LGBT+ people succeeding and achieving, it feels empty if there is no LGBT+ people succeeding in the real world.
The other recent outrage was the casting of Scarlett Johansson to play Dante “Tex” Gill in an upcoming movie entitled Rub & Tug. Dante Gill was a transgender man and yet, for some reason, it was seen as appropriate to cast a cisgender woman for the role. This hits every single issue I have already outlined above. Whilst having trans people represented in media is great, trans people are constantly discriminated against in Hollywood and find it hard to be cast for any roles. Not casting a trans person for this role and helping these struggling actors is just not good enough. Especially when Ryan Murphy’s ‘Pose’, with it’s numerous trans-actors, has proven that there is a wealth of talent within the community just begging to be seen.
However, the issues with this casting choice go further than this. Choosing to cast a woman to play a trans man is nothing short of transphobic. It relays the message that regardless of how transgender people identify, they will always be seen as what they were assigned at birth. This message is extremely harmful and damaging, and it’s what leads to murder of trans people every day.
In response to the criticism, Scarlett’s initial response was pretty tasteless citing other actors who had successfully played trans people, such as Jared Leto playing Rayon in “Dallas Buyers Club”. Citing past instances doesn’t make the issue go away, if anything it exemplifies just how much of an issue this is within Hollywood. Scarlett’s role goes that one step further than the previous instances though, as it’s about a real life person. Whilst Dante may not be alive anymore, it’s grossly offensive to have him portrayed by a woman. The topic of casting cis people to play trans people was discussed here on Unapologetic:
During the backlash, I had similar conversations with people around this casting choice. Some believe it to be unfair to say that trans people can only play trans roles. I should stress here that this is not what is being said. Whilst I believe cishet people should not be allowed to play LGBT+ roles, it is important to open up cishet roles to LGBT+ people, as there are so few roles for LGBT+ people. By opening up these roles, you are giving minorities more opportunity for work within the industry.
A lot of people also believed, in both instances I have discussed, that they should cast the right person for the right role. It’s interesting that this conversation comes up because whilst people say this, it rarely seems to be accepted when the tables are reversed. There have been outrages over The Doctor being played by a woman, Hermione Granger being played by a black person and even the mere suggestion that a black person could play James Bond. It tends to feel like any upset to the norm is met with people crying out over the political correctness of it all.
The issue is, there are so few roles written for minorities. By taking what few roles there are available for them, ones that are specifically written for them, it makes it even harder for them to get work in the industry. As Jameela Jamil also says in her interview, it only degrades the performance. If we’re picking the right person for the right role, why does it make any sense to cast a cis person in a trans role instead of a trans person? A trans person who can draw from their own life experiences to add to the performance?
Further to this, it’s also clear that we need to create a shift in the roles that are available. Hollywood needs to do better. Instead of writing shows and films with an all white cast in mind, they need to think about having a diverse cast from conception. It only makes sense, if you’re making shows or films based in modern society. How can you have a show in any setting and have everyone be white, straight, cisgendered and/or male? It just doesn’t feel believable. Writers, producers, studios and networks need to make their content more reflective of a modern society. It’s time we had more diverse characters, played by the people they represent.
