Following in the footsteps of Oscar nominee Felicity Huffman and Oscar winner Jared Leto, out gay actor Matt Bomer will star in a new film Anything, where he will play a transgender sex worker, Variety reports.
According to Variety's synopsis of the plot, the movie stars John Carroll Lynch (the kinda-maybe-killer from Zodiac), who moves to Los Angeles and begins a friendship with Bomer's character, who helps him bounce back after some suicidal thoughts.
A lot of parallels exist between this casting decision in this role and Jared Leto's casting as Rayon in the Dallas Buyers Club. Both roles are iterations of a very old stock character: the "hooker with the heart of gold." However, as such stock characters, they only exist to serve the emotional arc of the protagonist, a cisgender male. Like Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club, the character is portrayed by a cisgender actor.
Characters like these are huge awards bait — for example, see Leto's Oscar. But, once again, it's cisgender men who are more apt to get praise for playing transgender women than transgender women themselves.
Once news broke that Bomer had been cast instead of literally any transgender actress, Twitter users clapped back with a pretty basic idea that Hollywood still has not embraced: cast trans actors in trans roles.
trans actors for trans roles. if u cant cast them right, u dont deserve to be telling their stories or ur cistrash version of their stories.
if you're a cisgender actor please don't take trans roles. representation matters but trans characters should be played by trans actors.
trans roles should go to trans actors trans roles should go to trans actors trans roles should go to trans actors trans roles should go to t
it would be gr8 if they actually stopped using cis actors to play trans roles!!!
stop casting "pretty" white cis boys for roles that belong to trans women. it's not groundbreaking.https://twitter.com/vulture/status/770439715233402880 ...
Get trans actors to play trans roles!! Get trans writers and directors to create the story around trans people!! It's not that hard!!
This is outrageous. Let's start casting transgender characters WITH ACTUAL TRANSGENDER ACTORS/ACTRESSEShttps://twitter.com/vulture/status/770439715233402880 ...
y'all: TRANSGENDER ACTORS FOR TRANSGENDER ROLES also y'all: OMG DARREN CRI.SS AS HEDWIG
Lol Hollywood is literally casting actors who played male strippers as a transgender person before an actual transgender person
It irks me when studios decide to make a film with transgender characters but select cisgender actors to portray them.
After news broke about Bomer's casting, out transgender actress Jamie Clayton tweeted to Bomer and Michelle Rodriguez, whose transgender revenge film (Re) Assignment has earned the ire of the trans community.
Clayton wrote, "I really hope you both choose to do some actual good for the trans community one day."
I really hope you both choose to do some actual good for the trans community one day. @MRodOfficial @MattBomerhttps://twitter.com/transhollywood/status/770406657683709952 ...
After tweeting that, Clayton later shared with her followers that Bomer blocked her on Twitter.
It's sad that this happens instead of wanting to have a conversation about how to help. #transisbeautiful @MattBomerpic.twitter.com/k4Qpap5dLW
Bomer did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Mic.
August 30, 2016, 2:34 p.m. Eastern: This story has been updated.
