This week, we're exploring the kinds of LGBTQ+ narratives we long to see on the big screen. As Hollywood prepares for another normative night at the Oscars, our Seen On Screen series imagines the kinds of stories that break boundaries and reflect the true spirit of being queer. Check out the rest of the series here.
If one thing is clear from the current state of transgender representation in Hollywood, it’s that
trans people should be taking the lead in telling our own stories. From Scarlett Johansson’s short-lived attempt to play historical trans figure Dante Gill to Matt Bomer’s cringey performance as a swishy trans woman in Anything, stories that are trans in name only but really center cis characters (and cater to cis audiences) are firmly behind the times; authentic narratives crafted and directed by trans people are the wave of the future.
Hollywood has known as much at least since 2015, when a modest little film shot on iPhones called Tangerine managed to gross nearly a million dollars and wow festival crowds on a $100,000 budget. Tangerine hits plenty of tragic notes in its plot, but it’s never voyeuristic or rubbernecking. Instead, it transports the viewer directly into the one-day-at-a-time realities of black and Afro-Latinx trans sex workers in cities like Los Angeles. Frankly, you need to watch every sun-soaked, grimy minute to really understand why Tangerine is — in my estimation — the current high-water mark for trans cinema. In both its vérité storytelling and the collaborative process behind it, Tangerine serves as touchstone for how Hollywood can better approach telling real, honest trans stories.
Tangerine follows Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) on a hunt for her cheating boyfriend/pimp Chester (James Ransone), taking viewers on an honest tour of desperation and betrayal. The film shows its characters at their most intimate: Sin-Dee’s explosive, erratic rage at being tossed aside by Chester; her best friend Alexandra’s (Mya Taylor) desperate (and potentially hopeless) attempts to become a singer instead of continuing to do sex work; the ways in which the girls have each others’ backs on the street, and the ways they surely do not. Rarely have I felt as tense during a film as I did while watching Rodriguez and Mickey O’Hagen (playing fellow sex worker Dinah) smoke crystal meth in a bathroom, with Sin-Dee’s contempt for Dinah slowly melting into a sort of big-sister affection.
The plot of the film would be remarkable on its own, but Tangerine also outpaced industry standards and expectations despite its low-to-no-budget by drawing intel and inspiration directly from its subjects. To craft a story about a world with which they had little experience, director Sean Baker and his writing partner Chris Bergoch knew when to ask for help: right away. “We literally went to Donut Time...and we just started walking around that area and introducing ourselves,” Baker told Interview in 2015, referring to the now-closed LA doughnut shop that served as a major location in the film and a real-life gathering point for sex workers. “Eventually we went over to the LGBTQ center on McCadden,” where the duo met Taylor. Taylor, in turn, introduced them to Rodriguez, and their stories and unique chemistry formed the core of Tangerine’s ideation. “I was like, ‘This is an on-screen duo,’” gushed Baker. “I saw it right in front of me, at the local Jack-in-the-Box.”
The humility demonstrated by Baker and Bergoch in copping to a lack of knowledge about their intended subject upfront is essential for any cis filmmaker who wants to incorprate trans themes or characters into their work. No amount of reading can truly immerse you in a trans person’s lived experience, but hearing stories directly from the source can offer insight you might never have imagined. Both Tangerine’s central conflict and its gutting denouement, in which Sin-Dee is assaulted with a cup of urine while trying to pick up customers, come from personal stories Rodriguez shared with Baker and Bergoch. Without such a direct connection between the filmmakers and their subjects, these characters’ stories could have easily resulted in the kind of tragedy porn trans people have come to expect from Hollywood — films like The Danish Girl, which profess to be “based on real events” but have no emotional or material connection to the truth.
Baker’s decision to cast Taylor and Rodriguez themselves also marks Tangerine as a hopeful milestone in queer cinema. Too often, the excuse for casting cis actors in trans roles is that no trans people with sufficient acting training were available to play the role (see Lukas Dhont’s Girl). But being a trained actor doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good one, or the right one for the role. And as it turns out, people who have done sex work (not to mention who may need to code switch in their daily lives) are pretty good at acting. Taylor and Rodriguez’s performances, which garnered the film two of its four Independent Spirit Award nominations, prove not only that untrained actors can rise to the occasion when given the opportunity to do so, but that the entire gatekeeping framework through which trans people are denied roles is inherently flawed.
A more recent independent film about sex workers has embraced a similar ethos. Though Zola doesn’t explicitly feature trans characters, it stands as a tide-turning example of valuing authenticity over audience expectations or normative storytelling. Screened for the first time at Sundance in January, Zola is based on a viral Twitter thread written by a stripper named A’Ziah King about a wild journey to Florida and its unexpected ramifications. Director and co-writer Janicza Bravo brought in Slave Play creator Jeremy O. Harris to collaborate on the script, and maintained a close working relationship with King to ensure the film stayed true to her voice. “Women of color particularly experience this — when you submit your truth, the validity of the thing you’re talking about comes into question,” Bravo told the audience after Zola’s Sundance screening.
When it comes to translating the stories of marginalized people to the screen, our voices and lived experiences should be considered any creative team’s most valuable asset. We still desperately need trans directors, writers, and filmmakers of all kinds to take the lead on making trans-centric films. Laverne Cox’s forthcoming documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen looks more than promising, and Janet Mock is making history with her multimillion-dollar deal at Netflix. The industry needs to continue this momentum of elevating and supporting trans artists.
To create a trans narrative with any degree of reality, tact, and depth — for trans and cis artists alike — requires planning ahead, dedication to one’s subject over ego, and a willingness to be wrong and learn from it. Recalling Baker’s first attempt at a written treatment for Tangerine, Taylor laughingly told Interview, “It was all proper and sweet and everything, just like him.” She and Rodriguez needed to roughen up the script to sound more like the real girls from the block they are. As Tangerine proves, this kind of resolve doesn’t have to be costly — but it does require compassion, self-reflection, and creative respect. There are few remaining excuses for filmmakers not to approach a project this way. Hollywood needs to recognize the most valuable voices in the room, and listen to them when they tell the truth.
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