Badmovies.org Forum

In recent news, the PC world has gone bananas again with Scarlett Johansson backing out of the role of a transgender man in an upcoming movie.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44829766 (https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44829766)

I'm all for minority groups getting representation in appropriate places.  But the sociopolitical climate in America and many other Western countries is such that public figures are pressured to fall in line with illogical minority viewpoints for fear of being lambasted for doing otherwise.

Actors play roles, and Hollywood is about making money.  If a high profile actor is cast in a movie, it's a huge draw for investors and producers because they will make money.  That's the bottom line for the business of cinema.

How many transgender actors are in Hollywood, exactly?  And of this number, how many have the kind of money-generating, ticket-selling, star impact of Scarlett Johansson?

The vocal proponents of the trans community would have you believe that a trans role should not go to a non-trans actor.  Let's extend that rationale further.  By that train of thought, movies about bank robbers should only be played by bank robbers, because to give the roles to law abiding citizens is 'erasure of a community'.  Anthony Hopkins is hugely well known for playing Hannibal Lecter.  Should this role have gone to a sociopathic cannibal, because, you know, minority represent?

When Memoirs of a Geisha was released with the very in vogue Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li playing the main characters, I was a bit perturbed because they gave Japanese roles to Chinese actors.  But at that time, I wasn't thinking of the economic realities of the business of cinema.  There were any number of excellent Japanese actors who could have played those roles, but hardly anyone outside of Japan would know them.  And that's going to get far less attention and viewership, far less return on investment, and no one would make money other than the cast and crew.

The movie in question will either never get made, or it will absolutely tank at the box office.  Why?  Because the producers will feel forced to hire a transgender actor to play the role originally given to Scarlett, and no one will have heard of them.  Or they won't get a lead actor at all because they won't be able to find one with sufficient draw power.  And then the trans community loses because a major movie could have been made with a high profile actor, but didn't because of their online shrieking.  Let's see where this movie goes.

I land either side of this depending on my mood.  On the one hand acting is inherently 'pretend' and as long as there are no major issues it shouldn't be a problem and on the other hand if you aren't at least somewhat delicate about the process you end up with John Wayne playing Genghis Khan...

I'm positive this has something to do with the backlash from Ghost in the Shell.


And given how much of a flop GITS was because of the many issues tangential to the 'whitewashing' one could argue that star impact alone only gets you so far; gotta make a good film first and foremost.

I will say that you will never get more minority actors in Hollywood if they aren't given the chance. Change can be tough but the doors have to open, whether they be good films, bad films, wildly successful or dismal failures. Think about how long it took for a female led super hero movie to break 1Billion at the box office: it wasn't exactly an easy journey and still is nowhere near the % it could be.

It would do the world a lot of good to have more adequate representation in these type of films that actually have a trans lead; if they can't even have the opportunity to star in that, how hard will it be to be cast in a mainstream film?