Halle Berry to play transman in new film, and outrages transpeople and their allies

Well Halle Berry seems to like having short hair. That makes her trans, by the standards of many TRAs doesn't it?

Anyway, of course she shuld not play a transman. Actors should only ever take roles that reflect who they actually are. Honestly..you would think that the whole point of acting was pretending to be someone you are not!

Can anyone remember if Felicity Huffman had a hard time when she played a trans woman in Transamerica? I don’t think she did, in fact I think she won an award for her performance.

Alisonjabub Because they both know and acknowledge the differences, but only when it suits them to do so.

If a transwoman is a real woman then why would they have a problem with a woman doing the acting. Surely if they are the women they claim then theres no difference???

"Women pretending to be men is offensive to men pretending to be women"

Perfect.

Meanwhile, all the yammer about the signatories to the Harper's letter is that nobody ever gets shut down, least of all the signatories apparently it's inconceivable they could be doing this for those with smaller megaphones), who should be shut down forever.

That last, of course, totally irony-free.

Just spotted this fantastic Twitter analysis of the Halle Berry criticism/apology debacle:

"Women pretending to be men is offensive to men pretending to be women"

Another example of the tenuous grip on reality of the TRAs.

She caved to the mob and now the movie will never get made. Same thing happened with ScarJo. That's two trans movies the trans community is responsible for cancelling.

"In wonder whether Hoffman transed himself for Tootsie?"
A role he couldn't play now.
To say nothing of Rain Man

In wonder whether Hoffman transed himself for Tootsie?

I bet he cross dressed in public, yes. Such is method acting/Stanislavski etc (which I studied at A level)

We've been here before where a famous actor pulled out of (iirc) a disabled lead.
The result was the money walked too.
I think the same thing will happen here.
Good luck attracting millions from investors for a movie with an unknown lead.

So unless you identify exactly as the precise character you’re playing, you shouldn’t accept the job?

It's called Method Acting.

In Scent of a Woman Al Pacino identified so closely with his blind character that he insisted on staying in character off set, to the extent that he remained 'blind' even off set. Apparently he tripped and injured an eye because he was being 'blind' so would not have seen the object that injured him and therefore did not shut his eyes or protect them.

I love Laurence Olivier's response to Dustin Hoffman (another Method Actor) when Hoffman ran onto the set in Marathon Man, having literally just run a marathon: "Dear boy, why don't you just try acting it?"

In wonder whether Hoffman transed himself for Tootsie?

It does seem odd that her agent and publicist were unaware of the response this would get, given that the exact same thing happened to Scarlett Johansson.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist I am suspicious of whoever set Halle Berry up for this. She gets so effing much grief for crap decisions writers directors and producers make that to me this smacks of intentional targeting. After what happened to ScarJo this just seems a cruel set up.

The Crying Game ....
fab film

and if actors are only allowed to play what they are
I can think of some high ranking Hollywood men who can never play a hetero role again
but have stayed in the closet till now

The idea of a film about the life of James Miranda Barry, a real 19th century person, has been around for years and years; Rachel Weisz and Glen Close ( who has played a woman living as a man in an excellent film called Albert Nobbs ) are two of the names suggested but the film has never been made...yet which is a huge pity as her story is amazing.
We can all guess how much shit would hit the fan if the trans lobby have their way and version of Barry’s life now, it would be the same for anyone playing the role as Berry is facing now.

I remember Chloe Sevigny playing a transwoman assassin in a tv series. I wonder did she get grief for that? Was about 8 years ago.

The Times comments section is great.

That's the one, thanks Delirium!

But if the story in the film takes place over the transformation then that definitely takes method acting to a while new level.

I saw a terrible film recently where a criminal/gangster was 'transed' against his will to a woman as a punishment - by Ripley from Alien

There is another film, can't remember the name, where a man is keeping a feminine, seductive young woman prisoner... the twist being that the young woman is a man who he's forcibly transed for having raped his daughter. There's no way the woman could have been played by a transwoman, and if she had been, it would have ruined the twist.

This latest development by trans people saying that trans people can only act as trans in films about them has me confused.
We are supposed to accept that trans women are women unless there is a film about a trans woman when suddenly only a trans woman can be a trans woman.
Talk about making the rules up as they go along.

Berry said on Instagram Live that she wanted to “experience that world, understand that world”, and was planning to make a “deep dive” into the research, including cutting off her own hair.

She’s always had short hair FFS! The whole gender bullshit thing is so wrapped up in hair and clothes.

So unless you identify exactly as the precise character you’re playing, you shouldn’t accept the job? Maybe this is the wokesters’ way of making sure the only thing we’re now allowed to watch is animé.