Identity – Bitch Flicks

From Racist Stereotype to Fully Whitewashed: Tiger Lily Since 1904

Whatever the other problems might be with this film (and they are many), my focus for this review is the character Tiger Lily, who was originally conceived as a racist stereotype by J.M. Barrie and who has had her Native identity completely erased in this latest iteration. Is this progress? I think not.

Written by Amanda Morris.

Pan has a 26 percent rating based on 152 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and having just come from a matinee viewing, I must say I agree with these critics. The Peter Pan narrative that we all know has been reconstructed as a sort of prequel, and not very imaginatively, while still retaining its racist roots. The Natives are called “natives” and “savages” multiple times and retain their feathers, facepaint, fringe, dancing, and primitive clothing to emulate a stereotypical idea of Native peoples, and even the map that Peter finds guides him to “Tribal Territory.” The actor playing Hook thinks he is Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western, the Neverbirds are just bigger, more threatening versions of Kevin in Up, and the main actors who appear throughout the entire film are all white.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1wRv8vTpxo”]

When J.M. Barrie’s original stage play, Peter Pan; Or, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, first appeared on the cultural scene, Miriam Skancke (stage name Nesbitt) played Tiger Lily. Never mind the problem of reducing an actual, living people to imaginary creatures in a fantasy land. According to Miram’s father’s birth record, she appears to have been of Norwegian heritage. Certainly not Native American. So the fantasy creature, the “indian princess,” Tiger Lily, started off in global imaginations as a beautiful white woman.

Miriam Nesbitt plays “Tiger Lily” in J.M. Barrie’s original stage play, Peter Pan, in 1904

In 1911, Barrie published the novel version, Peter Pan, and soon, more stage productions and the film industry came calling, clamoring for this children’s fantasy tale. From 1955-60, Broadway and the American TV industry brought the story to stage and TV with Sondra Lee playing Tiger Lily. Another white woman playing an offensive racist Native stereotype, with the music and dancing to match:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVPc4SuoJWE”]

The 1979 Broadway production featured an Argentine-American dancer and choreographer in the Tiger Lily role, and the 1990 version featured Holly Irwin in the role. The characterization on stage remained “Native American,” but still, the actors playing Tiger Lily were non-Native. No self-respecting Native woman actor would WANT to play a racist fantasy stereotype of her own culture, and that is where Pan’s studio, director, and writer made a costly miscalculation.

Here is where we need to be more critical of Warner Brothers, Director Joe Wright, writer Jason Fuchs, and the casting staff responsible for adamantly refusing to re-conceive this problematic character into something more culturally appropriate and honorable. They DID take the time, energy, and money to construct a new narrative that explains how Peter Pan came to be; they reconstructed this narrative in myriad ways so as to make it clearly different from Barrie’s original, except where it concerns the “Natives.” Instead, they took the cowardly way out and completely whitewashed the character (while still retaining feathers, costuming, and even an Aboriginal actor as Tiger Lily’s father).

Bottom line here, Hollywood is lazy and greedy. They saw an opportunity to re-envision this narrative from stem to stern, possibly giving us a truly creative and compelling new story, but instead of also eliminating the racist stereotypes from the original, they chose to whitewash because that is the easier choice. From their perspective, it would have been too hard to reconstruct this “indian princess” into a strong, brave, Native woman. Especially one who seems to be developing feelings for the future Captain Hook, who is white. Instead, they chose white actor Rooney Mara to portray a strong, brave, Native woman who wears beaded and feathered attire, long and dark braided hair, and colorful tribal makeup.

Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily in Pan

Who exactly do they think is fooled by this? Certainly none of us trying to encourage more respectful representations of indigenous peoples. Plenty of reviewers, including one on this site, has pointed out the immense problems with the company and crew’s voluntary blindness to their heinous choices. In fact, director Joe Wright defended his choice.

So, Joe, you understand our criticisms, but were unable to find a Native woman to play a “badass” Native woman character?

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Here are some of the amazing Native actors you should have considered casting: Devery Jacobs, Cara Gee, Tanaya Beatty, Jamie Loy, Amber Midthunder, Taysha Fuller, or Crystle Lightning. That list is by no means complete, but the reason none of these women were chosen is because they are not considered bankable money makers by the Hollywood machine.

Warner Brothers would rather hire a known white woman (as usual) and to completely whitewash the character than to spend a few minutes asking the writer to re-conceive this character to be more respectful of real, living, Native peoples, and then hiring a talented Native woman to play her. Because with all of the white racist fear out there in the viewing audience, they knew this whitewashed version of J.M. Barrie’s original would make them money. They know their audience.

Thankfully, at 26 percent approval rating, Pan will not be in theatres very long. I predict that Warner Brothers could have made a lot more money doing what I and others have suggested – re-writing Tiger Lily to be a more relevant and vibrant representation of a Native American woman with a family that doesn’t look like the ridiculous, primitive stereotypes of Barrie’s imagination, and then casting a terrific Native actor into that role. The amount of positive publicity and curiousity alone would have driven people to want to see this film. Critics and viewers would be introduced in a big way to a talented Native actor, and all of the negative (and well-deserved) criticism that dogs this film might have been reduced. Talk about a missed opportunity and a bad business decision.

Pan is just another in a long line of disappointing versions of this childhood tale. Barrie wrote in a time (1904) when the general populace had accepted the disappearance and death of Native peoples. Everything they read told them that these peoples no longer existed.

That we are still in that same headspace, imagining Native peoples as either racist stereotypes or as long-gone peoples of the past, is pathetic. Shame on you, #Warner Brothers, Joe Wright, Jason Fuchs, Rooney Mara, and all of us who accept Hollywood’s standard practice of erasing Native peoples, cultures, and identities.

Dr. Amanda Morris is an Associate Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

Family, Identity, and the Transgender Heroine in ‘Hit & Miss’

A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11 year-old son, Ryan.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11-year-old son, Ryan. When Mia’s ex-girlfriend and Ryan’s mother dies unexpectedly, Mia must balance the demands of her brutal, secretive work while trying to build a family with her son and his three other siblings of whom Mia is also now the guardian.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpJzeGdlC0U”]

My strongest critique of the series is that the producers did not choose an actual transgender woman to play the role of Mia. Sevigny is, no doubt, an ally and advocate for trans rights as is evinced by her involvement with Hit & Miss as well as Boys Don’t Cry, and while her rendering of Mia is nuanced, strong, and sensitive, it’s just not enough. On Homorazzi.com, Sevigny is quoted as saying, “I was worried people would be angry that they didn’t cast a real person who was transitioning, I asked why they didn’t, and the producers said they didn’t find the right person. It’s a big responsibility toward that community, and I wanted to do them right.”

All I have to say is: bullshit. Bullshit they couldn’t find a capable transgender actress to give authenticity to the character and agency to the transgender community. Look at how amazingly gifted Laverne Cox is as Sophia on the women’s prison series Orange is the New Black. Cox’s portrayal has been successful, breathing life, humanity, and humor into Sophia, proving that there are plenty of transgender actors who are not only talented, but who audiences will receive positively. It’s time to give another under-represented and marginalized group the freedom to represent themselves. Blackface is offensive and is generally accepted as grotesque and hateful. In 20 years, how will people view our insistence that no transgender actors are capable of representing their own lives, struggles, weaknesses, and triumphs?

mia-on-a-job — Chloë Savigny as Mia on a job.

My second major critique of the series is that the camera is obsessed with Mia’s body. Her penis is shown in every single episode. She is often nude or getting dressed, and the audience is encouraged to stare at her body. The camera is fascinated with the incongruity between the curves of Mia’s female form and her (prosthetic) penis. It feels gratuitous and exploitative, objectifying an already marginalized character. The camera’s obsession with Mia’s body tells us two things: 1) Mia is her body; her body is her most important and defining attribute, and 2) Mia is abnormal. The way the camera lingers on her breasts and penis echoes carnival freakshows that insist audience members pruriently gaze at the Other. This isn’t a humanizing, inclusive technique. The camera should not internalize the judgements that Mia and much of the world put on her body because we, the audience, are effectively the camera, it guides our gaze, which should be one of acceptance of the integrity and beauty of its heroine.

My third major critique is the show’s rendering of Mia’s sexuality. She identifies as a straight woman trapped in the biological body of a man. That would be fine, but she also insists to the kids that she loved Wendy, their mother, and that they were happy together, claiming, “We’d probably still be together if I weren’t a transsexual.” (The use of the word “transsexual” makes me cringe…maybe it’s a British thing?) The idea seems to be that Mia was a straight man, and now she is a straight woman. That decomplicates human sexuality, not to mention trans sexuality, in a disappointing way. Why can’t Mia’s sexuality be fluid? The underlying assumption seems to be that it would make her less of a woman to be attracted to both men and women. That is deeply problematic not only to queer sexuality, but to trans sexuality.

I appreciate that Hit & Miss, however, allows Mia to be more than a gender stereotype. Though she is a very feminine woman (wearing make-up, dresses, lingerie, and cute cowgirl boots), Mia is skilled in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. Some of the most touching sequences in the series are when Mia and her son, Ryan, work out together, bonding as she teaches him the discipline of fitness and boxing for self-defense.

Mia teaches her son, Ryan, to box. — Mia teaches her son, Ryan, to defend himself from bullies.

Not only that, but Mia is gratifyingly self-possessed when it comes to threats against her person. Watching her beat the ever-loving shit out of the waste-of-space, misogynistic, pedophile, rapist, dumb fuck landlord, John, as he threatens her and the kids is one of the most satisfying scenes of all time. He soooo had it coming.

mia-ass-kicking — Mia fucks John’s shit up. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Mia’s new lover, Ben, accuses her of still having “too much man left in” her because of her penchant for violence. She rightly tells him to fuck off. Her life is fraught with violence because of her profession and because of her dark, abusive upbringing on the carnival Fairgrounds. I also wonder if the show is saying that violence is inherent in transitioning. It is true that many transgender people face violence and the threat of violence as part of their daily lives. Being who they are is, for some reason, perceived as a threat to hegemony, and fear, aggression, and hate are all too common responses. Hit & Miss also, though, plays with the metaphor of rebirth, and the violent struggle that accompanies it. In a montage sequence, as the children don their sleeping bags (reminiscent of cocoons) to play their favorite game, a butterfly flits across Mia’s sniper rifle scope, causing her to miss her target, which changes her life forever. Mia is in the process of being reborn from a man to a woman, a loner to a family member, and a father to a mother.

Her new lover, Ben, struggles with his own sexuality and masculinity as they relate to Mia’s transition. To prove his straightness, masculinity, and capacity for intimacy, Ben cheats on Mia. He makes a point of performing oral sex on his fling; the significance of which is obvious, but it is also important because Mia isn’t comfortable with Ben touching her penis (understandably so because Mia doesn’t feel her penis is part of her identity). On the morning after the woman has left, Ben finds a handful of hair extensions in his bed. This moment was very compelling for me as a feminist because it is saying that to some degree femininity is a performance even for cis women. This posits the query, “What makes a real woman?” This scene questions the validity that any such creature exists. It subtly asserts that genitalia is as arbitrary as hair length for determining who is and who is not a woman.

mia-and-ben-hook-up — Mia and Ben have sex for the first time.

“Family’s got fuck all to do with blood.” – Mia

That is the best quote of the entire series, and it is one of the major themes of the show. If I had to pick one word to describe the series, it would be: bleak. Hit & Miss is full of violence, trauma, and despair. These are highly damaged people, but together they form a unique family and a new life. Mia pulls them together with her strength, her vulnerability, and her love. By the end of the series, Mia has drawn all the wounded characters together. She senses their need for love and safety, and she gives it freely, in spite of how many curses and slurs they hurl her way. In the depths of darkness, Mia’s indomitable spirit is a beacon, guiding all of them towards hope.

: Mia’s new family

This show has a lot going on; I even question whether or not it’s got too much going on. The primary characters have complex inner lives with myriad painful issues that stem from poverty, neglect, and abuse. A fledgling family getting to know and learning to love each other while navigating these landmine issues; a trans woman learning she has a son, owning her identity, finding romance and family in unexpected places; a hitwoman balancing her seedy career with a desire to give, belong, and build a wholesome life for her family…each of these could be its own storyline. Is it too much to make Mia a hitwoman? Is it purposely sensationalist in order to draw attention to the meat of its tale: family and identity? Is making Mia a hitwoman underscoring Chloë Sevigny’s sentiment that, “There’s a lot more going on with her than just her gender”? Or is an ambitious, often contentious, and always thought-provoking short series like Hit & Miss that’s packed with meaning, metaphor, and depth exactly what we need?

Margaret Cho: On Topping Trans* Queer Political Correctness

Let me begin by saying I’m queer-identified. I have trans* family, but it’s impossible for me to speak for trans* people of experience. I can share concepts, however. Too, my general line of thought in terms of sexuality, gender identity or personhood is that no matter how often your definition changes, you “are” what you tell me that you are.

“I refer to myself as gay, but I’m married to a man.”

– Margaret Cho

I’m the One That I Want: Can Queer and Trans* Folks Really Reclaim the Word “Tranny?”

Along with Stephen Fry, I feel that language and politically correct linguistic constructs can at times become as bullying, domineering and “victimizing” as those who claim to be victimized by language. What with people being as individualized and fluid as language is, sometimes experience does indeed trump the words we use to describe and protect it.

All Margaret Cho Everything

Margaret Cho (“Drop Dead Diva,” “I’m The One That I Want”) is as scrappy as she is electric.

She’s “scrappy” because she’s taken so much guff, sharing her multiple talents on and off-screen (she acts, sings, directs, writes, designs clothes, and is a walking-tattooed work of art and standout standup comic, for starters). Cho’s speech can transition from elegant purrs to lioness’ growls without hesitation. She’s electric because she sings the body electric: she’s sensual, naughty, flirtatious, often bawdy and ultimately playful.

If you’ve seen her comedy flick “I’m The One That I Want,” the efforting in her journey to long-term success is palpable. You get the sense she’s had to claw her way all the way up to the glass ceiling, brace herself with her back up, and kick the glass away with a pair of steel-toed Doc Martens just to disappear the whole damn thing. As she unfolds her own narrative in this cathartic and she-larious comedy film, we discover that now she’s not even in the friggin’ building. So, damn a glass ceiling anyhow.

Cho doesn’t “play the queer card” or the race card. Rather, she is always and forever queering play. She is queering entertainment. When cameras roll as you share minute details of your open relationship on morning chat shows, segue seamlessly into outing fellow celebs, put the world on notice that you will happily eff anything that moves as you like/when you like (just like men do), and always leave ‘em laughing…if anything, you could say Cho plays “the laugh card.”

Yes. We’re laughing. But to what end?

Well, they don’t call it “gender wars” just because.

Margaret Cho’s comedic M.O. doesn’t feel like a manipulation. Rather, it’s a weapon.

As she’s currently promoting her latest comedy project The MOTHER Tour, thoughts and themes come to mind about Margaret Cho’s presence in the world.

Yes, We Recruit: She’s All About Her Funny Business

Cho is forever quotable (damn skippy, and Bitch Flicks knows it) and impossible to ignore.

Case in point: In Conan O’ Brien’s documentary Conan O’ Brien Can’t Stop, the uber-successful talk show host and fellow comedian makes it a point both to “ignore” and dismiss Margaret Cho. On film.

An ever-irrepressible social sharer and networker, Cho was waiting to have a little comedic kiki with O’Brien as he slunked away, cheating to camera as he let us know he had to ditch her because he didn’t “want to get Cho’d.”

This sarcastic film bit could have been classified as gag reel material if O’Brien hadn’t spent the rest of the film kiki’ing it up with cameos by Jim Carrey, John Hamm and Jon Stewart, along with his cast and crew. (He preferred to be Carrey’d Hamm’ed and Stewarted.)

No doubt, comedy is a cutthroat business: Cho and O’Brien still work together and socialize, but O’Brien’s production choice and life decision in his own docu-pic is a telling one. So-called avoidance and disgust is attraction’s twin. C’mon Conan, fess up! Fully-embodied and empowered women carry with them a transformative energy that cannot be controlled. People can often find that to be at-once infuriating and hot.

There’s Some Tranny Chasers Up In Here

“ A few words about ‘trannychasing.’ I am not a trannychaser. Ok, actually I am a trannychaser. No I am not. I am a trannycatcher! Just kidding!”

– Margaret Cho

As a self-confessed “tranny chaser,” Margaret Cho’s taken a good amount of flak for expressing her trans* chasing feelings and affirmative desires without too much apology. It’s a tough concept to think about, as she’s done so much brilliant work and she’s really been out there on the road, touring with Ani DiFranco and Lilith Fair, indie all the way for decades on end, fearlessly advocating for trans* and queer rights, feminist and race equality, and respect of her own in the entertainment industry.

Making Visibility Sexy

Margaret Cho and Ian Harvie — Ian Harvie and Margaret Cho – Promotional Photo by Kevin Neales

There’s no doubt Cho is sex positive (she’s on the Good Vibrations board, and her activist and fund-raising work is notable).

She is queer-identified and trans* inclusive: she directed the highly acclaimed “Young James Dean” video by Girlyman, featuring trans* peers and allies covering lyrics about coming up in the world as genderqueer.

Her comedy routines, filmic work, creative projects and writing boast a high trans* visibility ratio, including her clearing the floor for trans* folks, often guys, to speak and co-create with her. These men need to be mainstreamed, as success for trans* persons of experience is exceptionally important and more common than we’re led to believe. Trans* folks face harrowing odds when attempting to begin any new business or creative venture, even if that enterprise was something they’d become successful at and mastered pre-transition.

Margaret Cho big-ups trans* men regularly, and we don’t see this enough elsewhere in the world in terms of proactive, high profile allies doing so. Cho supports fellow trans* comics and entrepreneurs and leverages her celebrity to help folks earn a steady income who might not do so otherwise, or as quickly. She will tweet, promote, and help to encourage business ventures for others—often tirelessly so. Her podcasts likely do much more for her regular indie artist guests than other shows whose DJ isn’t a comedy diva who reigns supreme.

Community leaders and others have voiced concern about Cho’s humor and “tranny chaser” (or catcher) jokes and statements. Cho has formally explained her views, stating these are just jokes based on reverence and respect, and that people are taking things out of context—too seriously.

Writer/filmmaker Tobi Hill-Meyer states Cho is objectifying trans* men like cis gender men often do with trans* women, fetishizing them and changing people into “things.”

“Trans IS a legitimate gender” is one trans* man’s defense against such an idea, posited by Cho’s comedic peer and BFF, Ian Harvie. Harvie wrote, “ If you believe Transgender IS a legitimate gender, how can you argue that it’s wrong to eroticize Trans people? If you do not see Trans as a legitimate gender, then what’s wrong with you?! I’m Trans, I’m Butch, and identify as a Trans man, regardless of my given biological sex. I absolutely believe it’s okay to be attracted to, exoticize, fetishsize, and eroticize any and all Trans people. After all, a fetish is something that we desire or that turns us on.”

Too, RuPaul penned the song “Tranny Chaser” as a declaration of sexuality, desirability, and a playful take on the concept. “Do you wanna be me?” That’s how the song’s bridge begins. Fully aware of the seduction in the words, RuPaul goes on, “That don’t make you gay. Or do you wanna [beep] me? That don’t make you gay….”

It’s hard to laser-focus down to one “right take” on topics like trans* and queer sexuality when so many folks in-community with so many different experiences feel empowered by erotic aspects of being queer or trans* as well as desired. Other bloggers and commenters have called Cho’s tranny chaser phraseology disgusting. Meanwhile, she is blowing heteronormative minds open simply by sharing these concepts, matter-of-factly and without shame. No one has accused RuPaul of anything similar.

Seemingly pointless rhetorical questions arise: is it better to be vilified or romanticized? Dehumanized, or eroticized? If we’re all “in on the desire,” is it wrong? Is there a happy medium that requires no context or linguistic boundaries and protections when you’re speaking to heterosexual or heteronormative folks?

Cho grew up in San Francisco, which could better explain matters somewhat. In the City (at least in most LGBT circles), you are what you say you are. Period. Middle America doesn’t quite resonate with such a mindset (yet?).

Issues of class and power can’t be ignored. Though they all had challenging beginnings in their careers, now relatively better-paid or well-paid performers Cho’s, Harvie’s and RuPaul’s experiences differ by definition from that of a queer or trans* man or woman who doesn’t have the same means or sense of empowerment to feel okay leading with sexuality or identity. Harassment is much more difficult, to say the least, when you don’t have financial or social resources to work your way out of it or away from it.

When these issues and conundrums arise, I consider them to be a gift: because they grant us the opportunity to be honest with ourselves about them, regardless of political correctness.

We have to name and claim the final word(s) about our experience. We have to find our own ways to survive and to thrive in the world.

“Bitch,” Please

In a previous Bitch Flicks Quote of the Day update, Margaret Cho waxes fantastic about the word “bitch.” Have a look: you don’t want to miss it.

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The first draft of this post appeared at Gay Agenda online.