You Should Never Go 'Full Tranny'

Reviews are trickling out about Anything, a yet-to-be-released movie produced by Mark Ruffalo and costarring Matt Bomer -- a cisgender gay man -- as a transgender prostitute. When people asked why a transgender person wasn't cast, actress and trans activist Jen Richards revealed that Ruffalo didn't even consider anyone else for the role. Richards did audition for a small part in the movie but believes she wasn't considered for Bomer's part because she "doesn't look trans enough."

Ruffalo implied on Twitter that he was surprised by the angry response to Bomer's casting, stating: "To the Trans community. I hear you. It's wrenching to you see you in this pain. I am glad we are having this conversation. It's time."

No, we already had this conversation over two years ago with Jared Leto and Dallas Buyers Club. The problem is that Ruffalo wasn't listening then, and it's too late now, given that the movie is already in the can. They went ahead and made a movie about transgender people without actually having any cultural awareness of the history between the trans community and cinema.

There's so much wrong with this on so many levels. First, there's the idea that transgender women are just buff, good-looking dudes in women's clothes and bad makeup. This also implies that who we are is performative, rather than actual. It implies that transgender women are really men and should be treated as such. This leads to people disregarding the lived experiences of transgender people and feeds into the narrative of the right wing that being transgender is simply a "bad lifestyle choice."

This movie is also going to reinforce the narrative that transgender women are only sex workers or screwed-up human wreckage worthy of pity but never respect. In turn, transgender people are treated as sex objects, who also suffer from appalling levels of unemployment, poverty, and violence.

Speaking of poverty, there's a callous indifference on stark display here. The conversation goes something like this:

Producers/Directors: It's terrible how much poverty and discrimination there is against transgender people.
Transgender actress: Well, if you cast some transgender people in trans roles, that would help keep some of us employed and out of poverty.
Producers/Directors:Ha! You're funny. I like you. No.

Worst of all, this sort of casting and stereotyping is just plain lazy. It is giving audiences what they expect and what they want when it comes to transgender people. They expect us to look, and sound like linebackers in housedresses stumbling around in high heels. They expect characters who are incompetent at not just makeup but life in general. They want to watch portrayals of us as the flotsam and jetsam of society to feel better about themselves, the same way they watch Hoarders. The general public simply does not want the truth about transgender people, and when we fail to perform they get angry.

There are a few exceptions to how transgender characters and actors are treated, but they do demonstrate how successful such portrayals can be. Her Story, with Jen Richards, is amazing, and richly deserving of the Emmy it was nominated for based on how it handles real issues. Sense8 by the Wachowski sisters succeeds in creating a likable, competent transgender character for whom being transgender is just part of the backstory, not the whole story. Even Tangerine handled sex work in the transgender community well by making the characters fully developed and highlighting how this wasn't a choice: it was survival. (I also think the movie is Clerks for millennials, which is about as high praise as I can give).

I'm going to take a sidestep for a moment, though, to make a wider point. In 2008 the movie Tropic Thunder came out and satirized lots of Hollywood tropes, including bad and offensive casting choices. Tropic Thunder features Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, playing an African-American soldier in a movie about Vietnam. It also features Ben Stiller playing an actor whose career got way off track following a cringe-worthy performance as a mentally disabled man that attempted to pander to the Oscars. (Note: This was mocking Sean Penn's actual cringe-worthy Oscar pandering in I Am Sam.)

These two characters spawned some biting dialogue that is applicable to the situation today with Ruffalo and Bomer.

Kirk Lazarus (Downey): Everybody knows you never go full retard.
Tugg Speedman (Stiller): What do you mean?
Kirk Lazarus (Downey): Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man, look retarded, act retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump. Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, Being There. Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, I Am Sam. Remember? Went full retard, went home empty-handed...

Anything combines two of the worst of the excesses lampooned by Tropic Thunder. It includes the modern version of blackface (transface), and pandering for Oscars by playing "pathetic" characters from a particular class of people. Thus, I propose that a new term for what Anything is doing: Going full tranny.

And what do I mean by "full tranny"? (And yes, "tranny" is every bit as offensive as "retard"). Like the Bechdel Test, there are conditions:

1. Cisgender actor playing a transgender person
2. Character is a sex worker (or other work implied to be demeaning or degrading)
3. Character is worthy of pity but not respect
4. The character is not "passable" in their gender presentation

Given Bomer's physique, given the obvious Oscar pandering happening here, and given Ruffalo's appalling ignorance of the history between transgender people and how they are portrayed in movies, this movie will has Bomer going "full tranny."

In the end, I hope that people will look back at Anything the way they do I Am Sam, where the conventional wisdom of Hollywood exclaims, "Everybody knows you never go full tranny."

BRYNN TANNEHILL graduated from the Naval Academy in 1997 before serving as a campaign analyst while deployed overseas. She later worked as a senior defense research scientist in private industry; she left the drilling reserves and began transitioning in 2010. Since then, she has written for OutServe, The New Civil Rights Movement, Salon, Everyday Feminism, The Good Men Project, Bilerico, and The Huffington Post.