Engaging with “Problematic Characters”

It’s almost Trans Day of Visibility, and I see a lot of something… cis men’s weirdness around trans people! (It’s not just cis men; cis women participate, too.) It happens in small ways and big ways, and after Sunday night’s White Lotus, I snapped.

As the world continues to be a lot, I look to art and media. And I’m getting weary, but people tell me that it’s OK for messy things to come up because the characters are messy. Sure. But who gets to be messy, about what, when, and when do we get a moment?

The Last Five Years revival is coming. This season of White Lotus is in full swing. And I’m being told left and right to stop kvetching about casual transphobia, slurs/epithets, misogyny, racism, yadda yadda- because NOT ALL CHARACTERS HAVE TO BE GOOD. Uno reverse: Freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom from my frustration! In fact, perhaps this grossness is meant to elicit an “ew.”

The weirdness around trans people this season of White Lotus, particularly the large presence of trans women in Thailand (there's also often an intersection of racism and misogyny to the transphobia out there), has reached a point where I had to say something about wanting queer art. And then people were like, MIKE WHITE IS BISEXUAL. Ok, your point? PEOPLE DO FETISHIZE TRANS PEOPLE. Uh-huh, I know. And? I’m so sick of the laziness and casual objectification without greater critique or commentary; it’s haphazard at best.

And they use the word ladyboy so much without actually letting trans people talk almost at all... I just want us to be humanized.

My iconic friend and former partner’s drag name is literally Ladyboy George. Some people reclaim the verbiage. I know. (Side note: Their name inspired me that should I ever try being a drag king. Tr*nny Burstein is on my list of names. Sorry, Danny, utmost respect. Also, if I wrote an L5Y about us, there would be some excellent costumes.)

But I’m getting off track about my point. Queer art with bad people is still queer, so fair enough. Mike White is bi, but that doesn’t mean that this season isn’t deeply uncomfortable as a queer trans person, especially in today’s climate. JRB is a legendary composer and pianist, and I’m allowed to feel weird when this lyric comes along.

“I’ve been wandering through the desert
I’ve been beaten, I’ve been hit
My people have suffered for thousands of years
And I don’t give a shit!

If you had a pierced tongue, that wouldn’t matter
If you once were in jail, or you once were a man
If your mother and your brother had relations with each other
And your father was connected to the Gotti clan

I’d say, “Well, nobody’s perfect”
It’s tragic but it’s true
I’d say, “Hey! Hey! Shiksa goddess!
I’ve been waiting for someone like you…”

• Shiksa Goddess, The Last Five Years.

EDIT: L5Y has removed this lyric, and I would like to thank Jason Robert Brown, et al, for that… it’s never too late to do better. Jamie’s still got his fair share of toxicity, but that’s the point and is being conveyed without catching trans people in the line of fire.

Many of my beloved friends and colleagues in the recent past (some as recent as this month) have engaged in micro and macro aggressions against trans people and will not see us as full people who can make art and live lives. I want that to change. I can love you and your art and be frustrated. I would love to see some more trans people involved in making new art going forward.

OH, and I’m allowed to want a break from the shitty complex men. Because they’re everywhere. I can defend your right to say and do your thing. But the airtime we give to trans people, versus gross off-hand comments and toxic masculinity, is so stark and isolating that yeah, it’s gonna bother me.

“Art should reflect real life.” It does. And we’re real, too. I pitched a story to a friend the other day, and we both realized that we don’t see a lot of stuff like that, and it’s because, frankly, our stories are not that common.

I’ve been auditioning again, and all I’ve thought I wanted was to play a cis man because they get to be complicated, full people. The trans stories are also rare (and often haphazardly written by cis people). All I’ve wanted is frankly to be a cis man because it feels like they get to be whatever the hell they want, and the rest of us have to accept that… (I know that’s not true; patriarchy hurts us all, and we all have struggles.)

If I ever get the opportunity to do Last Five Years somewhere (and why shouldn’t I, I can sing the shit out of it, and I’m Jewish and a man), I will have to wrestle with a lot, and that’s work worth doing.

We don’t get the luxury of being messy because we usually only get crumbs, and those crumbs better make us look excellent. I recently saw a certain trans celebrity talk about owning that she is “cringe,” and part of why I have historically had a chip on my shoulder about her is that I feel like we have to keep it together. I envy how unapologetic she is. Also, famously, in grad school, someone said that she is “a nice trans person,” and I said, “Yeah, and I’m one of the mean ones.”

I’m bitter that there is such a limited array of who and how we can be in order to be safe and that no matter what, I don’t really get a say. Being a man doesn’t have to mean being an insufferable schmuck. I’d love for people to have something new to say and to say it with us.

Regarding problematic characters, I’ll end with something that Audra McDonald recently posted on Instagram. The late great Zoe Caldwell told her that an actor’s job isn’t to make the character likable, it’s to make sure they are understood.

Well. I think that’s what I want ultimately for trans people. Understanding. Not just being looked at.