Jared Leto and the Transgender Question

Well, i don't know if any of you have been living under a rock for the past few days, i assume if you are reading this blog you do at least have a limited interest in cinema, and of course internet access so i would hope that you now know that on sunday night, Jared Leto took home a much deserved Oscar for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. I'll review the ceremony later, but now i would like to talk about the prominence (or lack thereof) of transgender actors and characters in film and television. Leto's win generated a slight backlash from members of the LGBT and trans communities who felt that the role should have gone to a transgender actor.

Leto is a cisgender actor, who, in Dallas Buyers Club, plays Rayon, a pre-op transsexual struggling to fight AID's and import drugs, whilst being shunned by her family and community. Jared Leto's performance in this film is spectacular, it feels visceral and real, and we feel Rayon's pain just as much as she does. The reason Jared Leto deserves the Oscar is that when i watched this film, i couldn't help but root for Rayon, and after a certain point i stopped seeing Jared Leto, as he fell deeper and deeper into his character, getting lost under the layers of makeup and wigs. His performance is so powerful, that it would have been inconceivable to give anyone else the golden statuette.

I do however understand the arguments given by transgender activists, simply put, there are not enough transgender actors working in hollywood today, in fact there is really only one, Laverne Cox, who plays the sassy Sophia Burset, in Netflix's Orange Is The New Black, carries the weight of representing the entire trans community, which is unacceptable. A trans actor has never been nominated for either an Oscar or and Emmy, and this needs to be changed. The real problem is that it's not Leto's fault, and he shouldn't be condemned for his performance or rebuked for taking on this role, as he pulled it of with subtlety and dignity. Other films featuring cisgender actors playing transgender characters such as Transamerica featuring Felicity Huffman or Boys Don't Cry starring Hilary Swank also attempt to deal with this complex issue, and manage to pull it off successfully.

It is not Jared Leto's fault that there aren't enough trans actors working, but it is Hollywood's fault, minorities are very poorly represented by the academy, it is not just the trans community that is underrepresented, only around ten black actors have ever won Oscars for acting, and the academy is over eighty percent caucasian. If Jared Leto is shunned for playing a transsexual character, then Tom Hanks should be criticized for his role in Philadelphia, Sean Penn should never have played Harvey Milk, and Neil Patrick Harris would be criticized for playing a straight character on How I Met Your Mother. I don't really care about an actors back history, for instance i have no issue with Kevin McHale playing a disabled character on Glee, because i support art, and i support performance, and if actors were simply content to play themselves onscreen the film industry would be far less exciting.

The Academy loves transformation, and so do i, Leto's transformation into Rayon is astounding, as was Felicity Huffman's. I agree that something needs to be done about the prevalence of transgender actors, and this vital community needs to be given more opportunities within the film industry. However the issue of the transgender community being underrepresented is for the whole of Hollywood to bear, and not exclusively the responsibility of Jared Leto.