Trans Media Arts — Trans people in entertainment
Welcome to Trans Media Arts, everyone. I will be your host on this excursion, where we delve into the goings-on of transgender people everywhere in the entertainment biz. Please sit back, keep your tray-tables in the upright and locked position and fasten your seatbelt as we embark on our journey.
FtM body builder in competition.
There is a groundbreaking new documentary about trans men bodybuilders. Man Made follows a group of transgender men as they get ready to compete at Atlanta’s TransFitCon, the world’s first trans bodybuilding competition. The movie, which will receive its world premiere at the Atlanta Film Festival on April 22, is directed by novelist T Cooper and executive-produced by actress Téa Leoni from Madam Secretary. When Leoni saw a first rough cut of the movie, she thought, “I was sort of awestruck. I was taken with the whole metaphoric theme of making your body and creating your image to be how you see yourself and I was so taken with these individuals. For me, personally, by the end of it, I was outraged by how far behind we are in the most basic human decent progression. There is resistance to people who are simply just trying to exist in the world, to coexist.”
Tell me about it Téa, right?! Man Made will receive its world premiere at the Atlanta Film Festival, April 22.
Bomer as Freda.
Well, it’s official, the date of release for Anything, the ultra-controversial movie that stars Matt Bomer, a cis dude, playing a, you guessed it, trans prostitute who falls in love with a Southern insurance salesman is May 11th. There has been vicious backlash in the trans community toward the movie for not only featuring yet another cis man playing a trans role, but that the role is predictably a prostitute, a trope that the community has railed against for years. While the filmmaker’s hearts, seemingly, are in the right place, Hollywood has to stop perpetuating the notion that all trans people are sex workers or in some way sexual predators. We will see how the movie does. I suspect it will get buried in all of the Avengers, and May tentpole movie hype. NEXT!
Huge news in books, Sarah McBride’s new autobiography Tomorrow Will Be Different, hit the bookshelves recently. Sarah has worked with the Obama Administration and even spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. The forward is written by Former VP Joe Biden. Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care to gender in America, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds. Congrats to Sarah!
Strike the Pose
Set in the colorful and shoulder-padded 1980s, Pose will give television something it hasn’t had yet — a dance musical about the juxtaposition of several segments of society in New York, including the rise of the Trump era, the downtown social and literary scene and house ball culture.
Set to premiere June 3, 2018, on FX, the series is already making history, as it will feature the most transgender series regular actors on an American show as 50 plus LGBTQ characters show off their moves. With eight episodes in the first season, there are many stories to explore since it takes place in New York City around the time of the AIDS crisis and the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
The new TLC docu-series Lost in Transition follows four married couples in which the husband has recently revealed to his wife that he has grappled with his gender identity for years. Other couples profiled deal with depression and acceptance from their communities. Amazingly, in one case, a child is transitioning at the same time as a parent. One couple decides to divorce, which comes with its own issues, and others are still trying to figure out what their relationship will be like in the future. Lost in Transition premieres Sunday, May 20, at 10 p.m. on TLC.
And finally, a new documentary explores the lives of Tongan trans folks, called leitis. which translates as “like a lady.” Leitis often identify as women or men who dress and behave in a feminine way, but mainly don’t identify as either men or women.
That’s All Folks!
Category: Media, Transgender Community News, Transgender Fun & Entertainment
About the Author (Author Profile)
I am a transwoman originally from Pittsburgh, PA. I have been living full time for 5 years. I work in retail but am an artist/Graphic Designer and aspiring writer. I tend to address the controversial in my writing. I would love to change the world one article at a time. I moved to The San Francisco Bay Area to start over, again. But recently moved back to the East Coast. The adventure continues...Subscribe
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