It is, apparently, very difficult to put a good trans character in your TV show. Recent attempts at portraying trans men have tended to leave something to be desired. And last week on ‘Orphan Black,’ along came Tony.
It is, apparently, very difficult to put a good trans character in your TV show. Recent attempts at portraying trans men have tended to leave something to be desired. Max on The L Word perpetuated a number of troubling stereotypes about masculinity and trans men. Adam on Degrassi wound up being another in a long line of buried queers. I understand Cole on The Fosters is something of a bright spot in the trans televisual darkness, though I have not yet watched the show (I’ll report back once I have). And last week on Orphan Black, along came Tony.
Now my colleagues here at Bitch Flicks have written somegreatpieces on Orphan Black, drawing attention to some crucial feminist elements, from the expansive female character list to the commentary on reproductive rights. In season two, I have been particularly enjoying the camaraderie between the clones, the way that they google hangout together and claim each other as sisters.
And then Tony happened.
Oh honey, no.
Here are the things I like about Tony:
His existence. Metatextually, it’s awesome to have another trans guy on TV. Narratively, it’s really intriguing. Once you think about it, the fact that there is now a trans clone and a gay clone strikes an important blow against “born this way” reductionism.
The way the other characters treated him. They were all down with his pronouns, were mildly surprised at having a male clone but didn’t make a huge deal out of it, and gave a little exposition that might catch the less-clued-in viewers up to speed without sensationalizing transness.
Here are the things I dislike about Tony:
His facial hair. The Max Sweeney School of Facepubes is not an institution anyone ever should be attending. I guess I can forgive the awful head-hair, because I’m given to understand a short-haired wig was unworkable with Maslany’s real hair, which she needs for the other parts, but the facial hair? Nope nope nope.
Daniela Sea pubing it up as Max Sweeney on The L Word.
His characterization. Tatiana Maslany is a monumentally talented actress, playing multiple characters with nuance, and I really think this is her first misstep on the show. Her portrayal of Tony seemed undercooked compared to how thoroughly she inhabits the other clones. There was an air of trying too hard about Tony’s masculinity, something I would believe in the portrayal of a trans guy who was just coming out, but – in a guy who had begun transition as long ago as we were evidently meant to believe Tony did (contra The L Word, testosterone doesn’t make facepubes all grow in at once; I’m rising 16 months and can barely muster an outline of straggly pubescent scruff) – it rang false. Watching the other clones, I forget that I’m watching an actor act; with Tony, I was fully conscious of it the entire time.
This is unfortunate, because there’s already a terrible cultural misperception that trans people are faking it, acting, deceiving, putting it on. I don’t think this is helped by continuing to cast cis people of the wrong gender as trans characters (Daniela Sea on The L Word, Jordan Todosey on Degrassi, back to Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, and that’s not even getting into the much longer and more offensive list of men playing trans women… thank God for Tom Phelan, at least).
Tom Phelan as Cole on The Fosters.
A show about clones has pretty much the best possible justification for casting a cis woman as a trans man, but Maslany’s failure to really nail the character, as she does all the rest, kind of makes this portrayal seem like it belongs on that list.
Here is a thing I am still on the fence about:
The decision to show Tony injecting T. You could make an argument that it was a bit of gratuitous, othering exploitation; you could also make an argument that it was a normalizing teachable moment for your average non-trans-adjacent viewer. I haven’t decided yet which side I come down on.
In the end, I am glad Tony exists. He’s an important contributor to the still-tiny demographic of trans guys on TV, and the show didn’t get anything majorly wrong about transness (apart from the facepubes). Tony did not return in this week’s episode, but I hope he will be back on our screens in future, and I hope that next time around Tatiana Maslany will have nailed down the character and will play him more convincingly.
However, for some reason, the siren song of shock value makes writers unable to let sleeping dogs lie. Happiness (or let’s be real, any positivity) just isn’t authentic enough. Queer characters have a bull’s-eye on their backs because their suffering is interpreted as a commentary on the cruelty of the human condition, even if their death has nothing to do with their identity. It’s symbolic! The potential pathos payoff of a queer martyr is too tempting to worry about silly junk like the importance of representation or overcoming adversity. Queer kids, you can totally have a meaningful future, until your death is required for timely social commentary or for the sake of artistic profundity! But you still kind of sort of existed when it was relevant to other people, so isn’t that enough? Ah yes, you can always depend on that token queer waiting in the slaughterhouse when you’ve run out of ideas and/or creative integrity.
Skins and Degrassi are just two recent examples of this unfortunately common trope.
Queer representation has increased steadily over the past few years. Like all characters, some portrayals are better than others. It unfortunately seems to be an unspoken rule that writers have a lot more room with laziness or clichés when it comes to creating queer characters. The logic behind minority characters and particularly queer characters tends to follow the philosophy of “make ‘em as one dimensional as you want, you get a gold star for just admitting that they exist!” Thus anyone who isn’t a cis, straight, able-bodied white male has a lot of hurdles to climb. Many writers have recently expressed enthusiasm about LGBT community inclusion, which has been both a blessing and a curse. Really, how many unrequited crush storylines can you do? Often, “queer” becomes code for “resident narrative punching bag and straight romance prop.”
Naomi Campbell (top) and Adam Torres (bottom).
Nonetheless, sometimes writers strike gold. Two prime examples include Naomi Campbell (Skins) and Adam Torres (Degrassi), a lesbian and female to male (FTM) trans* guy respectively. Naomi (Lily Loveless) is everyone’s favorite snark knight with an interest in politics and a growing attraction to Emily (Kat Prescott). Naomi grapples with her sexuality, her fear of vulnerability, and fierce opposition from Emily’s twin sister Katie. After a river of tears and several passionate monologues, Naomi and Emily, aka Naomily, finally get their happy ending. They even survive a godawful love square. The queer community fell as deeply in love with Naomi and Emily as they did with each other and the couple was almost universally hailed as the most iconic queer coming-of-age story of our generation. Adam (Jordan Todosey) faces similar obstacles. Although he is confident in his identity, he faces constant opposition from his reluctant mother as well as bullying and harassment from his peers, which drives him to self-harm. He fights for everything from sports participation to bathroom rights. Adding insult to injury, he is rejected by a slew of girls because they can’t accept him as authentically male. In an ironic twist, he ultimately finds himself happy in love with an extremely conservative Christian girl, Becky (Sarah Fisher). Degrassi received tons of positive press for introducing TV’s first transgendered teen.
Of course, the characters and the execution of their representation weren’t without fault. Once you strip away all the jaded hipster dialogue and pretty outfits and tortured sexual tension, Naomily’s storyline is fairly formulaic – one person experiences perpetual gay panic while their dogged love interest gets dragged through the mud and back into the closet. Naomi’s involvement with politics only functioned as a premise for her to interact initially with Emily and then completely disappeared. Naomi and Emily’s sole purpose individually is to be hopelessly codependent on the other, so much so that most fans just refer to them by their portmanteau. They never existed outside of each other’s narratives and their relationship was the entirety of their character development. By the same token, I can’t name an Adam plot that didn’t relate directly or indirectly to him being transgendered. The fact that most of Adam’s love interests bypassed him to date his cisgendered brother Drew sends a painfully deliberate, albeit possibly unintentional, message to the audience. In spite of everything, the incredibly compelling performances of the actresses allowed these characters to transcend stereotypical stumbles and become sympathetic and relatable. Naomi and Adam were clear fan favorites.
Naomi and Emily (top) and Adam and Becky (bottom) being adorable.
However, for some reason, the siren song of shock value makes writers unable to let sleeping dogs lie. Happiness (or let’s be real, any positivity) just isn’t authentic enough. Queer characters have a bull’s-eye on their backs because their suffering is interpreted as a commentary on the cruelty of the human condition, even if their death has nothing to do with their identity. It’s symbolic! The potential pathos payoff of a queer martyr is too tempting to worry about silly junk like the importance of representation or overcoming adversity. Queer kids, you can totally have a meaningful future, until your death is required for timely social commentary or for the sake of artistic profundity! But you still kind of sort of existed when it was relevant to other people, so isn’t that enough? Ah yes, you can always depend on that token queer waiting in the slaughterhouse when you’ve run out of ideas and/or creative integrity.
Here’s where the shit hits the fan. As a longtime devotee of both Skins and Degrassi and someone who was deeply emotionally invested in both Adam and Naomi as individuals and their potential to attest to and bring about an evolving social landscape long overdue, I’m about to get unapologetically salty. Buckle up.
Naomi and Emily finished their original arc with an emotional reconciliation.
Everything had turned out well for Naomi and Emily. Skins changes casts every two years, so we hadn’t seen them since 2010. The show is notoriously scant with mentions of previous characters once they’ve moved on. Fan reaction was thus understandably elated when it was announced that the couple would return for the show’s final “celebratory” season this past July, which claimed to serve as an updated epilogue for a handful of popular characters. Though Naomi and Emily were somewhat nonsensically shoehorned into an episode with another character as the main focus, everyone was excited to see what new challenges they were facing. Optimism is an Achilles’ heel when it comes to the Skins franchise because the writers conflate maturity and character development with total disillusionment and misery. Showrunners and father/son co-creators Brian Elsley and Jamie Brittain passed the torch of Naomily to little sister Jess. Nepotism is always the surefire way to have a job well done! That’s like letting your younger sister play with your favorite Barbie dolls and giving her full permission to toss them down the garbage disposal. Still, Jamie himself stated that Naomi and Emily get married in the future. The outcome couldn’t be too catastrophic, right?
Naomi attempts to comfort Emily as they face the reality of her terminal diagnosis.
Think again! Naomi and Emily are reduced to window dressing as the primary character Effy enjoys a glamorous life in the London stock investment world. Effy and Naomi are roommates while Emily does a photography internship in New York (the first time Emily has been given an interest outside of Naomi). Proving her mediocrity as a writer, Jess saddles Naomi with cancer and makes her entire plot – a B-plot for crying out loud – about the impact her illness has on Effy. We have less than an hour to get reacquainted with a character that we haven’t seen in three years, you give her a terminal illness in the B-plot, and the fucking plot isn’t even technically about her. Naomi decides to keep Emily in the dark to protect her because that’s ~the noble thing to do, alluding to their fragile trust issues after mutual infidelity. I don’t even understand why Kat was in the credits when Emily has so little screen time. Emily visits Naomi once early on in blissful ignorance and they have sex while moaning pornographically as Effy tries to get it on with her love interest. Haha, the hilarity of gay sex. Naomi then deteriorates super graphically, vomiting in Effy’s lap and eventually being confined to a hospital bed. When it’s confirmed that the unnamed cancer is terminal, Effy caves and tells Emily. The last we see of Naomily is Emily curled up sobbing by Naomi’s side, with Naomi’s fate left ambiguous but pretty much sealed.
The backlash was intense and venomous. Naomily was one of the few queer couples with a solidly positive ending. Sure, plenty of people would argue that their cheating storyline was weak as hell (myself included), but that was redeemed for many when Naomi won Emily back for good. The ink was dry, their chapter was closed, etc. There was no reason to mess with a good thing, save for the obvious elephant in the room: ratings and easy exploitation. Naomily was the piece de resistance of the franchise and their reputation arguably preceded and eclipsed that of the show itself. The PR team knew that Naomily fans were a large demographic. However, the ratings ploy aspect of it isn’t even that logical, since it was already announced that the series was canceled before filming on the final season started. Accusations and mudslinging began to fly. The Brittains have had a remarkably antagonistic relationship to the Skins fan base. We are talking levels of contempt that would put Ryan Murphy and the Glee fandom to shame. As the seasons wore on and the gimmicks got cheaper, fans became increasingly vocal about their disappointment. Given the Brittain’s penchant for routine, pointless character death and the immense outcry that it always provoked, Naomi’s death was seen as a blatant middle finger. Heather Hogan, AfterEllen contributor and former staunch defendant of all previous Skins fuckery due to Naomily’s flawlessness, announced that she would not be reviewing the episode precisely because it needlessly extinguished a shining example for an entire community. When you’ve lost your most irrational stan, that’s when you know you’ve shit the bed. For their part, the Brittain siblings responded to the onslaught of genuine dismay with all the grace and poise of constipated five-year-olds denied their nap time. Jess deleted her Twitter multiple times and in response to Heather calling them out on their contribution to the alarming frequency of queer women character deaths, Jamie tweeted back “I couldn’t care less.”
The wound was so deep that people vowed to turn their backs on the beloved actresses, questioning whether they knew about the outcome of the script when they signed on for the project. On one hand, it’s important to remember that actors are just doing their job and everyone has to make a living. However, the sense of betrayal definitely resonates on some level. If Lily and Kat did know that Naomi would end up on her deathbed, it’s a little depressing to think that they would be willing to self-destruct characters that launched their careers for an easy paycheck, when they themselves have spoken of the overwhelmingly positive response to and significance of Naomily. Jess defended herself by stating that even if Naomi did die, it effectively didn’t matter because Naomi and Emily would always be gay. I tried to make a joke here, but I couldn’t because the argument is too nonsensical. The stupidity transcends my wit. I didn’t know that was possible.
Adam’s departure was equally shoddy. Following the launch of his epic romance, he quickly faded into the background. Rumors were swirling for months that Jordan Todosey wanted to leave Degrassi. There were also concerns about Jordan’s shelf life as Adam, given that several of Adam’s storylines revolved around his decision to begin testosterone treatments and Jordan isn’t trans*. This is one of those instances that underscores the importance of casting someone who actually matches the character’s circumstances in real life, although Jordan’s performance was consistently strong. Normally I loathe casting multiple actors to play the same character, but on this rare occasion, it would have worked, especially since Jordan wanted to leave anyway. They could have gotten a trans* guy to take over the role post-testosterone. I should have anticipated that Adam’s actual resolution would be much more asinine.
Adam has a chat with Imogen and showcases his, um, updated style.
Adam suddenly returns front and center for the early block of season 13 episodes, which should have been our first red flag. All of the previous meticulousness that had gone into making Adam look masculine has vanished and his style throughout his final return is basically just Jordan awkwardly shoved into frumpy layered flannel and baseball caps, making her look more like a lesbian suburban soccer mom than a 17-year-old boy. I know Jordan had been phoning it in with Adam and growing her hair out, but this was just embarrassing. I don’t mean to imply that trans* guys who don’t present as traditionally masculine are less legitimate, but letting Adam running around with a mullet and what appears to be unisex 80s clothing from the local Goodwill does a deep disservice to his character in that his central concern has always been passing as masculine and sometimes even cisgendered.
Don’t worry, this incredibly disturbing visual serves no purpose! He’ll be dead by the end of the commercial break.
Anyway, what better use of Adam’s last few episodes of screen time than a gratuitous and nonsensical love triangle! The writers answered the prayers of many a fangirl in the most unsavory way possible by putting him at the center of a girl-on-girl rivalry as soon as he was in a stable and loving relationship. Long story short, Adam and Becky have a fight, prompting Adam to make out with his friend Imogen. He feels so wracked with guilt that he immediately jumps in the car and texts Becky. The distraction causes him to crash into a tree. We have the lovely treat of seeing him bruised and bandaged in a coma for all of one episode before he quietly passes away. Vomit. Fans were obviously upset. Showrunner Stefan Brogren bailed himself out by advising fans via Twitter not to watch Degrassi if they don’t like it. He must have time traveled all the way back to sixth grade to come up with that zinger. Since Adam’s death, some half-assed attempts to turn him into a sacrificial lamb for texting and driving awareness have fallen flat because a) you could’ve given that plot to any other fucking character b) are you really doubling down on PSA duty with the trans* kid? and c) his original intent in terms of “audience lessons” (if you’re going to reduce him to that) was done with such care and empathy that it makes this plot seem like a bag of horse shit. Letting him by defined postmortem by texting and driving spits on his legacy. I have the urge to insert that middle finger gif every other sentence.
In abstract, the writers’ defenses of their chosen character deaths were lazy yet plausible. The Brittains pointed out that many young people have their lives tragically cut short by cancer and Brogren essentially made the same argument for texting and driving. Both statements are true. In those situations, death does not discriminate. But you can’t sit there and honestly tell me that those decisions were pure coincidence, even if only on the unconscious level. Really, you just happened to kill the LGBT character? That’s like robbing someone’s house and then claiming that they can’t prosecute you because some burglaries go unsolved, despite the fact that you’d been scoping out their house for months and knew they were vulnerable. As for why this explanation is fucking ridiculous on a show specific level, Naomi’s appearance was anticipated to be a 45 min. ratings victory lap about what she had been up to since going to university. You could have shown her cleaning pools, for fuck’s sake, as long as she had a few cute scenes with Emily. We hadn’t seen her in three years and we aren’t ever going to see her again, so why on earth would you choose to nuke the crown jewel of your family franchise with a cliché cancer tragedy fapfest? On a similar note, Degrassi has been known for writing off characters in as little as a single line of dialogue or simply by never mentioning them again. Past explanations for character departure include going to Kenya and moving to Paris to model. You’re telling me you couldn’t send Adam to Europe for a fancy testosterone trial or something?
Overall, the petulant indignation of these writers in response to sincere criticism of snuffing out crucial representation speaks volumes about just how much further the media has to go in terms of its handling of queer subjects. If even the most three-dimensional portrayals can be milked as award bait and then thrown under the bus for any totally non-sequitur issue of the week, it isn’t really all that progressive, is it? Groundbreaking would be showing that queer people have a new chapter worth living for, even if they have to fight for it. Groundbreaking would be showing queer characters happy in relationships without immediately punishing them with supposedly random acts of fate. Groundbreaking would be showing that queer people can and do go on to lead successful, fulfilling lives.
Writers, what you’re doing isn’t groundbreaking. It’s self-serving. You are jumping on a bandwagon and then cutting your own creations loose the second they become inconvenient. You can’t dust your hands off and tell me shit happens. Try again. Push harder. Instead of shocking me with publicity stunts, make me marvel at just how committed you are to actually telling a character’s story authentically . Lastly, don’t you dare fucking tell me to sit down and shut up. You made a big show of initially bringing our community’s “real” stories into the spotlight and now you have the gall to cherry pick our reaction and whine that we should have been grateful for the inevitable shit sandwich all along? We have precious few torchbearers of alternative identity. The capitalization on such fragile issues is sickening and myopically focused on garnering brownie points for the status quo. I can assure you that the impact of these characters transcends the incubator of your tragically narrow mind and maybe that makes you bitter. At the end of the day, in spite of the most idiotic departures you can think of, these characters symbolize an intense hope and tenacity for those who might not have any other allies in their corner.
For all these reasons and more, I will not allow you to quietly bury your queers.
When I saw the call for submissions for this month’s feature on abortion and reproductive rights, I knew right away that I had to write about Degrassi. I grew up in Canada (suburban Montreal to be precise) and Degrassi was the show everyone watched. Even if you didn’t catch the episodes in primetime on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (or the CBC), they were on after school every afternoon. When Spike got pregnant, I was in grade 5 and all the grade 6 girls came to school with their little “Eggberts.” While I was a little young for the show, I rushed home after school to watch them in the afternoon as I was beginning to see myself as “too old” for the cartoons my younger brother wanted to watch.
I realized very quickly however that there would be a number of challenges in writing about these episodes (Spike’s pregnancy in Degrassi Junior High, Erica’s abortion in Degrassi High, and Manny’s abortion in Degrassi: TNG): untangling my emotional connection to the show and dealing with the different history of abortion and reproductive rights in Canada. While a co-production with WGBH (the Boston PBS affiliate), this show was about as Canadian you could get in terms of its look and attitude toward all of the issues dealt with.
In 1989, when 16-year-old Erica was getting an abortion because of a fling at summer camp, Chantal Daigle was fighting for the right to terminate her pregnancy against the wishes of the father. Once again, this case originated in Quebec and made national headlines. The case was expedited all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, who ruleD in Daigle’s favor. Daigle had already obtained a late-term abortion in the United States when the ruling was handed down. It was seen as a victory for women’s reproductive rights in Canada. Although there were a number of attempts, there are currently no laws in Canada governing abortion.
I vaguely remember, as an 11 and 12 year old, the Chantal Daigle case, but I have absolutely no memory of the Morgentaler case. It’s notable that both these cases originated in Quebec, in particular the unwillingness of three Quebec juries to convict. After the tyranny of the Catholic Church ruling over the province for approximately 150 years, the 1950s, with the Quiet Revolution, and the 1960s, with everything that came along with that, saw the outright rejection of any and all Catholic religious influences. Including their disapproval of abortions. As a result, I grew up in an environment that while not embracing abortion, at the very least it was treated as being not a very big deal.
(It should also be noted that the period when Morgentaler was being brought before the courts in Quebec, the Separatist movement was gaining popularity, and thus there may have also been some residual resentment towards the federal government leading to the refusal to convict.)
Notably, it’s Erica’s twin sister Heather who is scarred by the ordeal, and she has nightmares about the protests. But it is also Heather who stands beside her sister, as well as stands up for her sister when Erica receives threats from a pro-life student at Degrassi. What’s interesting is that the storyline isn’t wrapped up at the end of the two-part premiere (the abortion was one of the main storylines for the premiere episodes of the “new” Degrassi High series); it continues on across the entire first-half of the season, in the same way Spike’s decision to keep baby Emma is dealt with throughout the show’s run. The arguments are nuanced and the kids are treated with respect. The pro-life side is seen as being the destructive force, bullying, scaring, and shaming, while Spike puts it best: “It’s great to have high ideals and stuff, but when you’re in that situation, right and wrong, they can get really complicated.”
Fast-forward to 2004. Degrassi: The Next Generation (or TNG) has been airing on CTV in Canada and The N (originally Nick Teen) in the United States for three and a half seasons. The new iteration of the show started with Spike’s daughter Emma starting junior high herself. Emma’s best friend Manny, midway through season 3, who is trying to change her image from good girl to party girl, gets pregnant. She, too, struggles with what to do, eventually opting to get an abortion. Emma, at first, doesn’t approve of the decision, being the child of young, single mother herself. Spike once again offers wise council, telling Manny to do what is best for her. This upsets not only Emma, but also Craig, the father. Ultimately, Manny (who is identified as Filipino) goes to her mother and is surprised to receive her support, even taking Manny to get the abortion.
This was another two-part episode and it initially didn’t air in the United States. 2004 was during the height of the so-called Culture War in the US, while Canada still maintained a more open and liberal position on abortions. The article linked just above points out that, unlike most shows about teens that were airing at the time, Degrassi: TNG had the courage to take abortion seriously and handle it realistically; neither Manny nor Erica conveniently lose the baby, thus avoiding the reality of having to get an abortion. In both cases, the rights of the mother are given priority; even the women around them who may disagree with their decision ultimately defend the right to choose. And, as pointed out by Sarah, a blogger at Feminists for Choice, each girl goes on to have rich and varied (if, at times, melodramatic) storylines; Manny eventually lives her dream of becoming an actress, while we see Erica briefly during Degrassi: TNG looking happy and fulfilled (and notably not at all in distress when holding someone else’s baby).
So what, then, can we learn from this particularly Canadian perspective on abortion? Certainly, the idea of a woman’s right to choose is forefront in each portrayal, but it doesn’t trivialize the decision, either. The characters are shown dealing with the aftermath of the abortions, but not in a sensational way, either. In fact, it is often those around them who have the most difficulty with a profoundly personal decision. The bullying and shaming methods often used by the pro-life movement are shown as being ultimately counter-productive, both in the late 1980s and in the mid-2000s. Abortion, however, is just one decision in the long and full lives of these young girls, who are shown to go on and have relatively happy and fulfilled lives.
For that, I am glad that Canada has the history it has in regards to abortion, so that we may have these complex and ultimately, to my mind, satisfying portrayals of women’s reproductive rights.
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Lee Skallerup Bessette has a PhD in Comparative Literature and currently teaches writing in Kentucky. She also blogs at College Ready Writing and the University of Venus. She has two kids, and TV and movies are just about the only thing she has time for outside of her work and family. She also contributed a piece for Mad Men Week at Bitch Flicks called, “Things They Haven’t Seen: Women and Class in Mad Men” and a review of Friday Night Lights for Emmy Week 2011.
