Scarlett Johansson quits transgender role after LGBT backlash
US actress Scarlett Johansson has pulled out of a movie in which she was cast to play a transgender character following a backlash from some members of the LGBT community who believed the part should have gone to a transgender actor.
Johansson had agreed to take a role in Rub & Tug as Dante "Tex" Gill — a real-life American crime kingpin who used his massage parlour as a front for prostitution in the 1970s and 1980s.
Gill was born a woman but identified as a man. It was the second time Johansson, an American of European descent, found herself in the middle of a casting controversy after appearing in 2017 film Ghost in the Shell — in a role originally conceived as a Japanese character.
Johansson said she had decided to withdraw from Rub & Tug for ethical reasons.
"Our cultural understanding of transgender people continues to advance, and I've learned a lot from the community since making my first statement about my casting and realise it was insensitive," she said in a statement to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender magazine, Out.
"I understand why many feel he [Gill] should be portrayed by a transgender person, and I am thankful that this casting debate, albeit controversial, has sparked a larger conversation about diversity and representation in film."
On social media, newspaper editorials and videos, the transgender community had slammed her casting as highlighting the limited opportunities given to transgender actors.
But some said there was more to choosing the right actress than physical appearance.
In recent years, actor Eddie Redmayne played a transgender woman in The Danish Girl, Jared Leto won an Oscar for playing a trans woman in Dallas Buyers Club, and Jeffrey Tambor has won awards for playing a trans woman and parent who transitions later in life in the television series Transparent.
According to LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, none of the 109 movies released by Hollywood's seven biggest studios in 2017 included a transgender character.
GLAAD welcomed Johansson's decision saying on Twitter that "her announcement, together with the transgender voices who spoke out about this film, are game changers for the future of transgender images in Hollywood".
Filming has yet to begin on Rub & Tug and no replacement for Johansson was immediately announced.
Reuters