Just been seeing a ton of articles posted online complaining about Jared Leto winning an oscar for playing a transgender woman when there are loads of actual transgender actors who could have played the part…

Knowing a few transgender people I can see they have to put up with a lot of prejudice and just lack of understanding but this just seems like a stupid view point and makes the community seem very negative to me…

I haven’t seen astronauts complaining that Clooney and sandra bullock were cast instead of real astronauts or that they didn’t use people who have been real life slaves in 12 years a slave etc etc.

Just wondering if anyone else found this point as bemusing as I do…

Not seen the film myself so not able to comment on whether he deserved the oscar or not.

I saw him singing live in Bangor. Thirty Seconds to Mars are fantastic.

The same was said about the dwarves in the Hobbit, sometimes you want the actor with the skills to deliver the performance, it’s a very limited field looking for actors of a specific group which explains why every film with dwarves in it from the 80’s/90’s reminds me of time bandits.

I saw his band at a festival once, so I think all hatred coming his way on any subject is well deserved, and overdue

But yes, actors act, if you insisted every part was taken by a person who is an exact match for the role, they wouldn’t be acting. I read somewhere that Anthony Hopkins isn’t a real cannibal.

I saw them in cardiff when tickets were £5 and the venue was about 300 people. Said they were shit and would never get any bigger than that

😆 May have lost a few points on my good judgement score (thought tbf the sound equipment and acoustics of the place was terrible so I don’t think anyone would have sounded good in there)

He seemed an decent guy when I met him but that’s not really the point I am making…

Dallas Buyers Club is really good, and I think his (and MM’s) oscar is well deserved.

To Mike’s point – he delivered an oscar-winning performance, so the casting is completely justified. Should they have picked a worse actor just because they were in the appropriate demographic….. surely that is more discriminatory?

Also (and I’m probably not going to articulate this particularly clearly – apologies). The film does not define the characters exact status(pre, post, or peri op) and it’s not really relevant. For all the viewer knows, the JL character is just a “bloke-in-a-dress”, and so casting a bloke in a dress is perfectly appropriate.

On this side of the pond there has been far more uproar that people didn’t clap enough after that McConaughhey cock thanked ‘god’ in his acceptance speech.

It was indeed a very good film and as Batfink said all you really know about the character is that its a gay bloke who looks a bit femanine in a dress. Oh and McConehy ( or however its spelt) was excellent too and thanking god when associated with a film with that subject matter probably pissed off the right wing god botherers too!

Is he the only person on the planet to have won both an oscar and a kerrang award?

JCL- that sounds a bit depressing!

BBC – Member
Jared Leto is only the second person ever to win both a Kerrang award and an Oscar. The first was Trent Reznor, of Nine Inch Nails

Just been seeing a ton of articles posted online

Funny, this internet age innit.
Back in the day people disagreed with an Oscar award, they’d read it in the paper at breakfast, say to the wife “I don’t agree with that..” then forget about it and get on with their lives.
Now its: BLOG BLOG BLOG TWEET TWEET FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATE etc etc.

Can’t recall Hilary Swank getting the same sort of complains when she won an Oscar for Boys a Don’t Cry.

Probably what DezB said.

The Film is outstanding (could have won best film imo) and Jared is a very worthy winner, that’s the start and the end of it for me.

wiggles – Member

I saw them in cardiff when tickets were £5 and the venue was about 300 people. Said they were shit and would never get any bigger than that

I may have said the same after seeing Coldplay play to about 100 people in Edinburgh. But the coheadliners Terris are going to be massive! Any day now.

Are there many TG actors, then? Struggling to think of any offhand, only person in the industry who jumps to mind is Lana Wachowski.

Non-story is, er, non.

Whilst I’m completely in agreement with the non-issue thing, I’m not sure the astronaut analogy holds. In fact I can kind of see the angle they’re coming from – is this not more akin to white actors blacking up to play Othello, something that’s usually frowned upon in modern productions?

Standard STW Disclaimer: I’ve not seen the film but I’m sure I can conjure up an opinion anyway…

I too have heard a lot of negative feedback about the fct that the part was “unauthentic” and should have been played by a trans actor.

Damn the so-called trans-community can include a right old miserable bunch of things-I-would-get-banned-for-mentioning-here. There is absolutely no reason whatsover a non-trans actors cannot play trans roles, given that they are actors.

On the “unauthentic” point; who is to say what is an authentic portrayal of a trans character? Contrary to popular opinion, trans people are not all the same – some ARE more like the character I hear Jared played, some are not. Surprise surprise.

Unfortunately, there is a certain collection of so-called trans activists that feel the need to be apoplectic at anything that does not fit their very narrow view of the World. It’s really very sad. I wouldn’t mind but many of these people are, in reality, only miserable because instead of taking the plunge and actually getting on with dealing with their trans situation (i.e. actually living the role etc) they sit at home alone, hiding behind a veil of anonymity, monitoring the internet… 🙁

Rachel

they are actors.

Next thing you know they’ll be getting English actors to play Americans!! 😆

just so long as they try not to let Australian actors play Scots, eh??

ps – I notice he’s wearing a skirt…

I just thought of Kathy Burke’s reaction to the gay press objecting to the camp character played by her co-star James Farrell in “Gimme Gimme Gimme” –

“I heard the gay press didn’t like James acting a gay man in the programme. Well…. (insert Anglo Saxon word for sexual intercourse) **** ’em “.

Maybe he’s a Scotsman trapped in an Australian’s body.

allthegear – Member
Standard STW Disclaimer: I’ve not seen the film but I’m sure I can conjure up an opinion anyway…

Ha ha excellent.
I would very much recommend it, having seen 12 Years I thought that would sweep the Oscars, that was until I saw Dallas Buyers. This year I saw most of the nominated films, as an aside I would highly recommend Nebraska too.

Are there many TG actors, then? Struggling to think of any offhand, only person in the industry who jumps to mind is Lana Wachowski.

I can think of at least one Spanish example, Bibí Andersen, and another who is rumoured to be TG (although she’s always denied it), Antonia San Juan.

To be fair, it’s highly likely there are more out there than you are aware of. For many, that’s kinda the point…

Oh, sure.

It was just that from the OP, people are claiming “there are loads of actual transgender actors,” which for the claim to make sense must imply actors who aren’t keeping their TG-ness a secret. I can’t think of many – or indeed any – who are both TG and would carry the same “star quality” draw as Leto.

The whole point of an actor is to, well, act; they can and do play roles very different to themselves, all the time. Actors play Englishmen, fighter pilots, dwarfs, Klingons, surgeons, psychopaths, army Sergeants, amputees, hackers, dementia patients, without actually being any of these things because that’s their gorramn job. Are we suggesting we should’ve got an actual serial killer to play Dexter?

Let’s say for argument’s sake that there are loads of TG actors. So what? Are any of them the right actor for the role? This is basically arguing for positive discrimination; Casting could have the pick of the entire gamut of actors across the continents, why should they be forced to restrict their search to a minority subset?

I think I’m updating my previous stance from “non-story” to “whiny gobshites on the Internet.”

Are we suggesting we should’ve got an actual serial killer to play Dexter?

How do you know we didn’t?

By the same token, can TG actors and actresses only then play TG characters in future? Would seem to limit employment opportunities…. unless in true Hollywood style we’re about to get everyone making films about TG issues because it’s ‘fashionable’

I think I’m updating my previous stance from “non-story” to “whiny gobshites on the Internet.”

I already said that 😉