Final Project

Until recently, the portrayal of transgender characters in the media has been rather negative. GLAAD has catalogued 102 episodes and non-recurring storylines of scripted television that contained transgender characters since 2002. They found that 54% of those were considered to contain negative representations, 35% contained problematic to good representations, and only 12% contained groundbreaking, fair, and accurate representations.  They also revealed that 40% of the time the transgender character was cast as the victim and that anti transgender slurs and language was present 61% of the time. Along with the negative portrayal, the actors that play trans characters are most of the time not transgender themselves. They are know as cisgender, which is a term used to describe an individual whose gender identity aligns with the one they were assigned at birth.  The problem with this is that it does not allow for the accurate portrayal of a trans character, because the actor themselves is not trans. In other words, a trans woman is a woman and a trans man is a man.  For example, Laverne Cox has been praised with offering the most accurate portrayal of a trans woman in the media, because Cox is a woman, not a man playing a woman.

Thus, for my final project, I would like to analyze the portrayal of transgender characters in film/TV.  The questions I would like to answer are how accurate the portrayal of trans characters are, how those representations are connected with society’s views on transgender individuals at the time of production of the film/TV show, and the impact such films/TV shows have on shaping society’s attitudes. To do this, I would look back at a few films and TV shows that have introduced a transgender character such as, Boys Don’t Cry, Orange is the New Black, and Transamerica and analyze the portrayal of the trans character. I would also like to find evidence of society’s awareness of transgender individuals and their attitudes, which might be a challenge, so that I can see how the films/TV shows played on society’s views or challenged those views.