Are there no white transsexuals? Are they not men or women on completing their transition?
Are all white people the same? Are all men?
I agree with a lot of things you say in a lot of posts, but sometimes, understandably, certain posts seem to come more from a place heavier in reaction than in discussion.
Nyotarules seems in their post to simply be pointing out that truly open thinking means some of these things don’t apply, that straightjacketing certain roles and fencing them off as ‘should only be allowed for’ is not something that necessarily works in art. We have seen a woman play Bob Dylan in recent years. We have seen a furore around Zoe Saldana playing Nina Simone in recent years. Real people, played by actors. We have seen the (IMO) badly informed furore around Scarlett Johanssen playing an established fictional character just this past year, with almost nothing taking the art of the film or its predecessors into consideration.
Your argument about men, and white men, won’t always work..firstly because white and men covers a ton of the planet, all of whom have very different experiences (and a bunch of countries disagree on what constitutes white and black anyway...America seems to issues some kind of paint guide like battleships at birth, so far as we can tell from outside, where Spain and Portugal are both mostly white, but in America you seem to have the various South Americans in some whole other category.) so what we are really talking about here is Hollywood, not even all of the U.S. and also because of the paradox in saying ‘you can’t do something because of identifier x’ being seen as an O.K thing.
I am, for example, behind the idea that a new adaptation of James Bond could be a Black Actor (where I differ is I think it should be Adrian Lester not Idris Elba.) which under the ‘x must be played by x and never y’ thinking simply wouldn’t be allowed.
Men have played women since the dawn of time, Women have also played men off an again, for a long time. Sometimes that’s because of various things like availability, sometimes it’s about the best person for the job (I doubt anyone was annoyed that Philadelphia starred Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas, because it sure as hell wouldn’t have won Oscars without them, and that’s a whole different kind of visibility...neither of those actors are gay.)
What this is really about is ‘mainstream’ media, and what that means is the U.S and Hollywood, from western perspectives. Which means you are dealing with that culture.
The good news is, Hollywood seems to be embracing precisely what you want, the bad news is it always takes time, and it takes really talented people to break through. More so if there are cultural or religious barriers. One of the most popular and talented actors in Hollywood is Denzel Washington, and he didn’t get there because of the colour of his skin or taking ‘Black only’ roles. He got there by being a damn good actor, regardless of whatever little box some people like to pit people in (I think he’s awesome in Much Ado About Nothing, and his brother in that is played by Keanu Reeves, and he marries a white girl, somewhere in Italy, surrounded by English people and a few Americans, in a story by a very dead English dude. But hey, Shakespeare has always been good for ignoring boxes in its casting. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are from Yorkshire, Shatner is Canadian, and yet they are all RSC Players of some flavour.)
The answer is not more boxes. The answer is more actors, and yes, more opportunities and open-minded people. It may mean working on stage work, it may mean independent films, and the making the jump to mainstream...because that’s basically how every other ‘group’ in acting ever did it, even in Hollywood, perhaps especially in Hollywood. It’s just been so long that people forget that. Hollywood was built on poor immigrants, and people working their way up, and the weird power that comes from rich people wanting new toys and business. Look at United Artists and it’s origins.
The struggle is a real thing, but fortunately there’s a template in place. Everything else just takes time and work.
Edit: just to clarify, Denzel Washington marrying a white fiel should have had bit about how some people would get their knickers in a twist over that, idiots, but then my thought process whirred on a bit as I typed.
