Why Cis Actors Can And Should Play Trans Parts

Here is a fascinating finding which should inform – not that it will of course – our understanding of the cis- and trans- thing in acting. The usual current claim from the snowflakes being that only trans people should be paying trans parts. And heteros should not be playing gay or queer parts either. Because, d’ye see, such a part is to be reserved for those with those characteristics.

This does all rather miss the point of acting itself, which is to pay dress up. To pretend to be what one is not in order to tell a story. We’d think those insisting that only people called Al can play characters called Al were in need of something between a good lie down and serious mental treatment. The idea that only a trans person called whatever can play a trans person called Al is of the similar silliness.

However, we do have this new finding. Which rather neatly solves the whole problem for us. Good actors may play whoever they like:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Now, researchers have said thespians show different patterns of brain activity depending on whether they are in character or not. Dr Steven Brown, the first author of the research from McMaster University in Canada, said: “It looks like when you are acting, you are suppressing yourself; almost like the character is possessing you.” [/perfectpullquote] [perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Brown and colleagues report how 15 method actors, mainly theatre students, were trained to take on a Shakespeare role – either Romeo or Juliet – in a theatre workshop, and were asked various questions, to which they responded in character. They were then invited into the laboratory, where their brains were scanned in a series of experiments. Once inside the MRI scanner, the actors were asked to think about their response to a number of fresh conundrums that flashed up on screen, and which might well have occurred to the star-crossed lovers, such as: would they gatecrash a party? And would they tell their parents that they had fallen in love? [/perfectpullquote]

So, what we’re being told is that the actors’ minds actually change as they play a part. And what is it that we’re told about trans people? That their minds are indeed different, they’ve female minds trapped in male plumbing and vice versa which are then liberated by surgery. So, actors’ minds change when they act, we’re done, aren’t we? They become trans by the simple expedient of playing a trans character.

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Good, glad we’ve got that sorted then.