Culture

“Hollywood Is So Fucked”: Trans Actors Slam Scarlett Johansson Over Her Latest Role

"So you can continue to play us but we can’t play y’all?"

by Tom Clift  5 July 2018
Johansson

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Trans actors Trace Lysette and Jamie Clayton have added their voices to the chorus criticising Scarlett Johansson, after it was announced that Johansson would be playing a transgender man in an upcoming film.

The Avengers star came under fire on Wednesday after it emerged that she would be re-teaming with Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders for a new film based on the life of Dante ‘Tex’ Gill, a trans-masculine figure in 1970s Pittsburgh whose massage parlour served as a front for sex work.

Johansson responded to the backlash by telling critics to approach “Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment”. Shockingly, that did not help the situation.

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Following the news of Johansson’s casting, Transparent star Trace Lysette took to social media to express her displeasure.

“Oh word?? So you can continue to play us but we can’t play y’all?” she wrote. “Hollywood is so fucked.”

“I wouldn’t be as upset if I was getting in the same rooms as Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett for cis roles, but we know that’s not the case. A mess.”

“Not only do you play us and steal our narrative and our opportunity but you pat yourselves on the back with trophies and accolades for mimicking what we have lived,” she added. “So twisted. I’m so done.”

Her feelings were echoed by Jamie Clayton, who is best known for her work on Sense8.

“Actors who are trans never even get to audition FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN ROLES OF TRANS CHARACTERS,” she tweeted. “THATS THE REAL ISSUE. WE CANT EVEN GET IN THE ROOM. Cast actors WHO ARE TRANS as NON TRANS CHARACTERS. I DARE YOU.”

“Exactly,” wrote Lysette, sharing Clayton’s tweet. “I dare them to let us in those rooms.”