The Jared Leto Question

[fred41]

I haven't seen the movie yet...so I can't judge his acting. Normally I say let actors act.
My question would be."If you didn't know Jared Leto and never saw him out of character...would you know he wasn't a transsexual?"..and if so, how?

[Rabbiteyes]

its called acting

My guess is Buyers Club will be a short footnote in "the progression of the tranny" down the road.

And it will be the black face period...when cis straight men played trans women.

[runningdownthatdream]

Once again the usual idiotic non-sympathetic comments from the same members of the peanut gallery when a trans-woman comments on something not porn related. Instead of chiming in on the side of the misinformed general public how about you two asshats show some understanding and try to relate to what she's saying?

[lifeisfiction]

I wonder if a trans person had played the role, would they have gotten an academy award? We are jumping through too many hoops. Jared performance as actor was good, he conveyed emotion extremely well giving more than one dimension to his character. Actors by definition act to portray a different person. I don't how many people say the buyers club, but I thought Matt and him did an excellent job at portraying complex characters. I still thought in my opinion the Oscar should have gone to some other people, but Academy tends to never agree with my opinion.

[Stavros]

The Rayon character wasn't based on a real person...

The main character of the movie WAS based on a real person...and that person was bisexual (and no indications of him being bigoted). But the writers made him straight instead (since, well, straight guy saving gays seems like a better story, right?).

They still needed a gay character in the film then.

So they invented Rayon.... as a crossdresser.

Yup, the character was a crossdresser originally. Actually, they just swapped out the word "Crossdresser" for "tranny" at some point (but left the script as it was).

Anyhow, who was Rayon? The gay pity porn wet dream character of the directors.

Someone who audiences could really feel the deepest form of pity for...the very bottom of society.

Drug addict....aids infected....prostitute....who dies....AND is trans.

I mean really, does it get any more sad? I guess she could have been black?

I agree with a theme of your post, the ambiguity of a film where facts blur into fiction -yes, in real life Woodroof, according to his wife, was bi-sexual; also the Rayon character was derived from a mix of real transexuals in Dallas around at the time, rather than a specific individual, which does raise the question: how did the writer/director decide what a transexual looked like, acted like, thought like, and so on. In the post on the film I made in the What is the Last Movie You Watched? thread, I speculated on the possibility that Woodroof's 'bi-sexual' encounters were with transexuals, rather than men.

Films which are about historical subjects always manipulate the facts for the purposes of drama. In A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinneman, 1966) the screenplay succeeds in presenting Thomas More as a man of principle, indeed, an heroic character -in real history, he was a politically motivated religious bigot who sent hundreds of people to the gallows without losing a night's sleep.

On the other hand, how many engaging and intelligent films have there been about the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, or more pertinently about the complacency shown by too many young people towards HIV/AIDS today? Very few.

How many films do have a transexual character who, in spite of an assumed lifestyle never made explicit in the film, is a positive role model, and someone with moral purpose? This is not some freak cross-dresser who slashes women to ribbons (Brian de Palma, Dressed to Kill, 1980), or a transexual who shears off the soft, supple flesh of young women in a desperate attempt to re-create himself as a woman (Jonathan Demme, Silence of the Lambs, 1991). For all the weaknesses of historical fact versus dramatic intention, the film is a powerful and moving study. I don't know if a transgendered actor would have done as good a job as Jared Leto, but it is done. It is satisfactory.

[runningdownthatdream]

I don't think the issue is whether Jared Leto gave a good performance or not - the issue is whether an effort - at the very least - should have been made to find a trans actress. If the effort was made and unsuccessful then by all means choose DeNiro to play a 20-something trans-woman. But an extremely masculine looking person wasn't chosen, right? Instead a man that the director thinks has feminine qualities is chosen. So if he was going for the 'look' of the person then why not at least audition a trans actress? Or how about really going for the gold - as Danny Boyle did with Slumdog Millionaire - and picking a trans-woman who isn't an established actress?

[bluesoul]

And it will be the black face period...when cis straight men played trans women.

when white actors wore blackface, black people were not allowed to be actors. also, when white actors wore blackface, they did it to insult black people.

neither of these were the case in dallas buyers club

Danny Boyle did with Slumdog Millionaire - and picking a trans-woman who isn't an established actress?

the director for dallas buyers club is jean marc vallee so he has different intentions and makes different film choices (and casting) from danny boyle.

[Stavros]

I don't think the issue is whether Jared Leto gave a good performance or not - the issue is whether an effort - at the very least - should have been made to find a trans actress. If the effort was made and unsuccessful then by all means choose DeNiro to play a 20-something trans-woman. But an extremely masculine looking person wasn't chosen, right? Instead a man that the director thinks has feminine qualities is chosen. So if he was going for the 'look' of the person then why not at least audition a trans actress? Or how about really going for the gold - as Danny Boyle did with Slumdog Millionaire - and picking a trans-woman who isn't an established actress?

Harmony Santana would be an obvious choice, in the sense that she has already won much acclaim for her role in Gun Hill Road (Rashaad Green, 2011).But I guess the problem in Hollywood revolves around other things -as an actor is your agent well connected, how many people auditioned for the role? Sometimes even well known actors fall out with the director, producer and get replaced. Theoretically they might have offered it to a transgendered actor and then decided he or she wasn't what they wanted, or any other issues. Did the Producers and Director think of using a transgendered actor from the start? Hard to know.

[runningdownthatdream]

Harmony Santana would be an obvious choice, in the sense that she has already won much acclaim for her role in Gun Hill Road (Rashaad Green, 2011).But I guess the problem in Hollywood revolves around other things -as an actor is your agent well connected, how many people auditioned for the role? Sometimes even well known actors fall out with the director, producer and get replaced. Theoretically they might have offered it to a transgendered actor and then decided he or she wasn't what they wanted, or any other issues. Did the Producers and Director think of using a transgendered actor from the start? Hard to know.

Read post 15 by Rabbiteyes for the answer..........

[Stavros]

Read post 15 by Rabbiteyes for the answer..........

"I found my answer when I listened with jaw dropped to what director Jean-Marc Vallee had to say on CBC Radio about casting a trans person as the role of Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. “Never,” he said. “Is there any transgender actor? To my knowledge — I don’t know one. I didn’t even think about it”. When the interviewer interjected with, “Of course there are transgender actors,” Vallee answered with, “Which ones? There’s like five, or three, or what — two? I never thought of that. I never thought of hiring a real rodeo guy to play the rodeo Ron Woodruff. And just like in every film — we’re actors, we’re directors. I’m not aiming for the real thing. I’m aiming for an experienced actor who wants to portray the thing.”

Evasive at best, ignorant at worst. On the other hand, maybe there is the banal question: how does anyone get a part in a movie? Agents must play a role here.