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| Two suprises for Transparent |
They're two sides to this debate neither of which are wrong. One mindset defends the series noting that although the transgender character isn't trans the film has a lot of extras that are. As a kind of a exclamation point to that argument, the New York Times published asking
Can Jill Soloway Do Justice to the Trans Movement? That headline from the Times is so emblematic of the progress, we as a community have made.
This isn't the scuzzy Ticked off Tra##ies with Knives were talking about.
Conversely the other camp feels that without a transgender person playing the role of the transgender part, it is nothing less than tranface, a commercialization of transsexualism if you will. Given that historically trans people have been made the brunt of jokes or made out as comical RuPaul like female impersonators its no wonder the show sans a trans lead would be discredited out of hand.
Watching the plot just now I didn't see any reason to be upset, or really entertained, to be blunt. There was a lot of rapid fire upppyish upscale banter that I, and probably most other trans people have little connection with. I don't think the show is really aiming specifically for our demographic.
It ain't OITNB either.
However, from what I've seen so far Transparaent is being done with style and sensitivity. Its worth giving a fair chance to. You can make up your own mind by watching the pilot for free on
Amazon.
