Misses, Doubt, Fire

Josie writes,

here is something I also disapprove of—Felicity Huffman playing a transgendered man in Transamerica. That's weak, people. There are plenty of transgendered actors to play that part.

Wikipedia—which may not be the go-to source on tranny cinema—lists 23 actors and actresses. That's very few. (But say there are actually 230. If half of those are any good, and if half that number actually fit the assignment (ba-dum), and assuming that some of those aren't available or interested, then you're still looking at a modest number for an audition.)

But a number there are, and the movie deserved a tranny lead. Here's one suggestion for the role: Alexis Arquette, who put in a respectable performance as Georgia in Last Exit to Brooklyn. The studio boasts that its film depicts important, progressive work—why not, you know, actually do that work? Kind of along the lines of Yglesias's complaint that Brokeback Mountaint showed aesthetic cowardice for its lack of hot man-on-man action. Only kind of along those lines, though, since Annie Proulx didn't set out to do work with her story, and Ang Lee captured what she did: a heartwrenching love story that just so happens, etc, etc. Transamerica, on the other hand—I mean, c'mon. "Transamerica." This is coy illusion—in a word, weak.

I think a lot of people mistakenly classify indie film as an aesthetic category—an umbrella brand to be trusted—rather than a production category or, better yet, distribution category.

Posted by Kriston at January 17, 2007 3:10 PM