Bad Representation or No Representation?

The double-bind of being trans in Hollywood.

It’s hard being a woman in Hollywood. Only 0.5 of the last 20 Marvel movies have been about someone of your gender, and even then, she was an afterthought to Paul Rudd, because apparently the cinematic universe really needed nail down representation for dudes who seem like an approachable and 40% fuckable social studies teacher before they gave any branding or merchandise to a girl.

If you’re a woman in Hollywood, you often have to choose between playing a sexist, uninteresting role and not working at all. If you want to change that, and get a film of your own produced, you have to withstand years of tense meetings with overbearing men, which could turn into assault at any moment. If, god forbid but statistics foretell, you do get assaulted, you’ll be pilloried for coming forward and your abuser will, at most, go to therapy and then come back, rejuvenated, to say some hand wringing shit about how it is to even talk to ladies in the post-#MeToo era.

For every inch forward there’s a mile lashed back. Even when you get an acclaimed, celebrated role in a film that sells well, it’s usually in a reboot of a men’s film, usually in a role that was originally a man’s.