On TV, shows confronting transgender stereotypes

[Ecstatic]

(From the Boston Globe, Saturday, Oct 13)

By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | October 13, 2007

Carmelita is beautiful. There's really no denying it. She is sultry, with long blond hair and ample cleavage. She looks fairly majestic in a ball gown. That she used to be a man is an afterthought.

But the character - played by a transgender actress named Candis Cayne - brings more than just a layer of prurient intrigue to "Dirty Sexy Money," ABC's new series about a rich and miserable clan in New York. She adds surprising poignancy to a mostly satirical soap. And she brings something new to network television in general: a transsexual character who doesn't function entirely as an oddity. Yes, she's a punch line at times, especially at the start. But she's also the very believable, surprisingly likable mistress of a troubled man in love.

Even within the inhibited boundaries of mainstream culture, transgender characters have long drawn fascination. They've figured in guest turns on medical dramas and legal shows, or wound their way into network casts in ways that strained credulity: Alexis, the transsexual on ABC's "Ugly Betty," is played by Rebecca Romijn.

Now, in the wake of movies like 2005's "Transamerica" - whose transgender character was played by "Desperate Housewives" star Felicity Huffman - transgenders are becoming even more visible. But not so three-dimensional. "Big Shots," another new ABC series about a whiny klatsch of rich men, features a transgender prostitute named Dontrelle, who has sex with Dylan McDermott's unwitting CEO. And later this month, Fox Reality will air the controversial British series "There's Something About Miriam," which put out a casting call for the "sexual adventure of a lifetime," then let six contestants vie for a woman who turned out to be transsexual.

The "Miriam" contestants, hardly amused, filed a lawsuit trying to prevent the show from airing. And some transgender activists in the United States, abuzz over the prominence of new transgender characters, are similarly concerned about what they represent.

Like "Miriam," "Big Shots" plays into old stereotypes about transgender women trying to deceive innocent men, says Jillian T. Weiss, a law professor at Remap College and a consultant on transgender workplace issues. Even "Dirty Sexy Money," she says, largely limits Carmelita's influence to the bedroom. The age of a "transgender 'Will and Grace' " - where a character's gender status could be perfunctory - isn't yet within reach, she says.

"The fact that these two television shows are on indicates that we're coming into public consciousness," Weiss says, who is herself transgender. "It doesn't mean that we're mainstream."

It's hardly surprising that TV would be a place to work out public feelings on a topic that once seemed taboo. And some of today's most compelling television explores the nuances of gender. Last spring's FX drama "The Riches" has been hailed, in transgender circles, for its realism and wincingly self-referential setup: cross-dressing actor Eddie Izzard played a man, while his character's preteen son, Sam, dressed up in girls' clothes.

"There's Something About Miriam" is far less openhearted; the show is far more sneering. Before Miriam even arrives in the premiere, the male contestants gather for bonding at a picturesque house in Spain. A few hours and a few drinks later, they've decided to shed their clothes and sit talking in the nude. The producers keep editing for maximum suggestiveness: In a confessional interview, one man says he wouldn't want to date someone with an Adam's apple, while another says that making out with a flat-chested woman would "be like kissing a boy, wouldn't it?"

Amid the bawdiness, the soft-spoken Miriam barely figures as a character. She's more like the quintessential object, so naturally female-looking that it's hard to watch the show without staring at her nether regions. It's tempting to feel sorry for her - and a little chilling, given the history of violence against transgender people, when she says at one point that "I need someone to protect me." But it's also likely that she doesn't mind what the producers are doing; her chief ambition appears to be fame. After the series ran in England, she did a stint as a guest visitor on "Big Brother Australia."

Dontrelle, on "Big Shots," isn't quite the victim, either, though she hardly represents a breakthrough for transgender understanding. In the pilot, she reveals the truth about her genitals by using a urinal in a men's room. Still, she gets a small chance at redemption when she tries to make amends. And while McDermott's character worries that the tryst will be revealed in public, he doesn't seem angry at Dontrelle per se. Unlike the real men on "Miriam," he doesn't see the mix-up as a threat to his heterosexuality.

It's the same for Patrick Darling, Carmelita's love interest in "Dirty Sexy Money," played with sympathetic weakness by William Baldwin. He's a New York attorney general with a wife and kids, desperate to escape the sway of his powerful father. Dad wants him to run for a US Senate seat. Carmelita represents rebellion, it's clear. But she also represents understanding and support, and their relationship is reciprocal.

He defends her honor. She counsels him on future plans and encourages him to run for the Senate. Her rationale: Do what his father wants now, so that he can do what he wants in the future. What she means, precisely, is unclear. But it could be the chance to make a public sort of statement - engage in the sort of fantasy that TV can dabble in long before mainstream America catches up. That would be a television first, for sure: a politician and his transgender girlfriend, having a relationship, without any sign of shame.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Legend]

Great article,i'm glad it distinguishes the difference between shows like miriam's and shows that portray transsexuals in a postive matter.I think the era or portraying transgenders as being negative people is over.I don't feel sorry for miram one bit,she knew what the hell she was doing in the first place and after of her "sisters" have died and beaten up doing that kind of tricking method(tricking a guy and putting your life at risk shouldn't be use as something to define you as being a female in any kind of way)she still went through with it.People like miram that try to profit off negativety should always remember that karma is a bitch.