Laverne Cox was the wrong choice for this role?
With the brief glimpse we were given by FOX yesterday, (We're Getting Our First Video Tease Of FOX's 'Rocky Horror Picture Show') the claws were out. But to be honest, the claws have been out for quite some time.
When they redid the Wiz, I don't recall anyone saying that it couldn't be done since Michael Jackson wasn't alive. I don't remember people aligning the new cast's performances with the originals. Grease? Get me leather and some pink and a blonde and let's move forward. Peter Pan Live? Oh yeah, that happened but we knew it was going to be a little hairy. The Sound of Music? You can't say anything bad about Carrie Underwood, but then again, it was unfair to compare her to the amazing Julie Andrews.
It seems that FOX's Rocky Horror Picture Show is under the microscope big time, much more so than any of the remakes that have been done of recent. And all of that focus seems to be on the shoulders of Laverne. What may be fueling this argument is that the fire never went out on RHPS.
In his original review, Roger Ebert called it “a horror-rock-transvestite-camp-omnisexual-musical parody.” Those midnight screenings that have kept it alive for more than forty years are treated more like charged costume parties than trips to the movies, and they’ve long been popular in various “fringe” groups, those not accepted by the mainstream. As the Atlantic wrote about the “campy beacon of sexuality and self-acceptance”:
Young people who felt disconnected from society could identify with the film’s literal aliens, and for those from more strait-laced backgrounds, the initially conservative Brad and Janet’s presence gave them a way into a fantasy world outside their immediate experience.
“I think it has a large appeal because … people are accepted as they are: fabulous, regardless of gender or sexuality or race or body type,” Sarah de Ugarte, who portrays many of the characters in official productions in New York, told The Atlantic. “I love ‘Rocky’ because it lets me and everyone around me be uninhibited and fly our freak flag and not be ashamed to be ridiculous. – washingtonpost.com
Sounds like a pretty open group of fans as well as performers. The fluidity of sexuality, gender, race, and body type as well as self-acceptance seem to be some of the amazing qualities of the movie. So why are people freaking out about ANYONE performing as Dr Frank-N-Furter? Out of all the leads in the remakes so far, this role is the most open. There shouldn't be typecasting for any of the characters in RHPS, well except for gold speedo clad Rocky.
If you have ever been to a showing of RHPS with audience participation, you'd see that there is every flavor of every character in the audience. The costumes are outrageous, ambiguous, and inspiring.
For many in the LGBT community, part of the film’s appeal is the way it bends sexual and gender politics into nearly unrecognizable forms, at least by traditional, binary standards. That’s another way of saying it was one of the first films to truly support and display the notion of being “genderqueer.” As Judy Berman wrote of her experience with the film in FlavorWire:
This isn’t a movie where characters discover they’re gay and come out to their families; it’s a movie that … reveals how slippery the boundaries of what we call “identity” are, how confusing and situational and prone to the irrational whims of pleasure. Frank-N-Furter’s gender is so mutable and non-binary that his sexual encounters with Brad and Janet both have their queer elements.
In fact, some argue the movie helped America see those who were once considered to be on the fringe of society. Wrote Jean Kim in AlterNet:
Decades later, we have come to view the prophecies of “Rocky Horror” with the maturity of greater mainstream acceptance for transgendered and LGBT lifestyles, for racial minorities, atheists and other souls who have all lived and loved in our midst as the secret “aliens”—the offbeat folks who don’t fit in and conform to blandly perfect middle America.
Given that, the casting of Cox — a transgender woman best known for her role as the transgender prisoner Sophia Bursett in “Orange is the New Black” and an LGBT activist — as Dr. Frank-N-Furter might seem to many to be in keeping with the film’s traditions. But not everyone is pleased with it. – washingtonpost.com
Mari Brighe, a trans woman, writes in FlavorWire that the casting “feels more like a disaster waiting to happen,” expressing “serious concerns about how this could affect the views of trans identities in mainstream.” In particular, Brighe worried that Cox in the role of the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter could exacerbate the “subtle but potentially very damaging conflation of crossdressers with trans women.” She wrote:
In an era where trans people (and trans women in particular) are still consistently struggling to shed the social view that we are little more than men in dresses, the once sexually subversive “Rocky Horror Picture Show” becomes simply a tool for the re-entrenchment of oppressive and harmful tropes about transgender people.
Rebbecca Jura, also a transgender woman, agreed. The film long mattered deeply to her — “It was one of the first times in my life when a film spoke at least a little to who I really was, rather than the masculine role I presented to the world,” she wrote in Advocate. But she also worried about how, outside of the LGBT community, the film will be received.
I shudder to consider what some right-wing groups and politicians might do with video clips of a spectacularly staged production of a fully transitioned celebrity trans woman singing “I’m just a sweet transvestite.”
For people that desire less labels, we are quick to point out when people do not fit into our rainbow box the way we want them to. Did people revolt when Neil Patrick Harris played Barney on "How I Met Your Mother," one of the worst womanizing heterosexual characters on television ever? How dare they have a gay man play that role? But I guess I shouldn't judge others too harsh. I still get confused when men with breast implants perform in drag competitions.
GOOD magazine wrote that “Cox continues to rewrite the representation rulebook in Hollywood” with this role. Cox herself told Entertainment Weekly that the experience was “magical,” and it allowed her to be herself by using her “chest voice.”
“As a trans woman with a low voice, I had been so afraid of those low tones,” she said. “This is a character where it’s absolutely appropriate that I sing in the base baritone register that I have.”
FOX didn’t announce a specific date for the reboot but promised that America will be doing the time warp again sometime around Halloween 2016. – washingtonpost.com
"…rewrite the representation rulebook…" Well, Laverne, rewrite the rulebook of RHPS, too. You're not in Grease, Peter Pan, Sound of Music, The Wiz. You're in the RHPS dammit. And it is actually rewriting or just expanding on what the movie actually stands for and represents? And if there's been more than one version of the Time Warp dance (London Stage & Movie), there can be more than one successful portrayal of Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Was there one Hedwig? Could a woman, cis this, trans that, boy this, girl that have portrayed that angry inch? A loud YES! And the same goes for Frank-N-Furter. Lighten up people. Give Laverne a chance to grow and maybe you'll grow along the way, too. There will never be another performance like Tim Curry's and I hope that no one ever tries to. Make it your own and make it great!
What are your thoughts?
h/t : washingtonpost.com
It’s just acting… How about
It's just acting… How about GlennClose portraing the part of a transgender man in the film of Albert Nobbs? Or Gay guys acting the parts of straight men.. Here she's going to give us her acting skills nothing else, we are reading too much between the lines, that we are removing the fun off of things used to be diversion, now they are political statements…
I find it funny that a trans
I find it funny that a trans woman is playing a gay man's role when there was such an uproar about the Danish Girl where a straight guy played a trans woman. It doesn't seem like some trans people respect gay men at all. It is really unfortunate we haven't moved far enough that we could realize that even a trans person can do 'gayface.' Truly sad.
Frank N Furter was never a
Frank N Furter was never a gay man in the original. Frank N Furter was fluid in both gender and sexuality. Sleeping with both men and women. Also ALIEN.
I really wish people would
I really wish people would just stop. These "activists: are actually complaining about her playing a role because they think audiences are too stupid to tell a character from a person. Give me a break.