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Just found this (there's an article in Vogue BTW https://www.vogue.com/article/patti-harrison-together-togeth...). This movie is about a middle aged guy who is seeking to have a child by surrogate. The actress portraying the surrogate mom, Patti Harrison, is an American actress and comedian.
"Harrison's mother is Vietnamese and her father, from Detroit, was white. Her father was in the Army, and met her mother during the Vietnam War. She is the youngest of seven children and was raised in the rural conservative community of Orient, Ohio. Her father died from a heart attack when she was six.
She enjoyed Mad TV from childhood and admired the women comedians on the show, including Nicole Sullivan, Mo Collins, and Debra Wilson. Harrison first became involved in comedy during college after she joined the improv team at Ohio University.
She came out as trans at the end of college and moved home to her family, who she described as supportive of her transition."
By accounts I've read, she's the FIRST transgender actress to play a CIS pregnant woman.
You can find the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouq-Bjaiz3M
Comments
But is this really fair to pregnant women?
Over and over, I see pregnant women being portrayed in the media by non-pregnant actors. It's so hard for a pregnant woman to get a job in Hollywood, and when a television actor comes out as pregnant her character is often just written off the show and the actor herself is fired, or in those rare cases when a show's story arc is altered to accommodate the fact of her pregnancy she gets called "a fat cow" by Joss Whedon. In the real world, everywhere I go I see pregnant women. They are our bus drivers, our sous chefs, our nurses, our CEO's; yet considering the fact that every person on Earth had a pregnant woman for a mother they are grossly underrepresented as characters in films and TV. And when they are portrayed it's often as these comical, moody, ineffectual creatures, waddling around having strange cravings. Although I don't blame the non-pregnant actors themselves for this so much as the fact that pregnant characters are most often written by straight, cisgender non-pregnant males. And let's not forget the hidden victims of this casting discrimination... For every pregnant woman denied an acting job an unborn person is too! I mean when was the last time you saw a foetus with a SAG card?
But seriously, this looks like it might be a fun film. And the point of the above bit of parody is that since acting is the job of playing someone who is unlike yourself I agree IN THEORY that cis actors should be allowed to play trans characters, and anybody should be considered for any role they'd do a good job of playing. In reality though, with the way casting decisions are usually made, I would feel better about cis people playing trans, and straight playing gay, if known trans actors weren't almost always typecast as these novelty characters whose role is all about their transness rather than playing regular folks who just happen to be trans; and if formerly big stars didn't invariable find themselves relegated to only getting lesser more marginal roles when they come out as gay.
And way more than cis people playing trans what bothers me is the way transgender characters are so often WRITTEN by someone with a head so full of misconceptions and stereotypes about trans folk that you wonder if they've ever even met one...
Anyway it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0