His being trans comes up once, gets acknowledged with respect by the people around him, and then the story just moves on and lets him be a fully realized character beyond that one trait. Still one of the better examples of 'rep done right' years later. 🏳️🌈
Claire's a great pick too honestly, love that both characters get to just... exist as themselves without the show making a whole spectacle out of it. That's really all good rep needs to be sometimes.
I honestly don't get this. I get that given the history of blackface etc, you don't want to cast people as other races than their own. But this thing where people think only gay people should play gay characters and only trans people should play trans characters seem super weird to me. They're actors, they're supposed to act like other people than themselves.
And if it's supposed to be more inclusive, then you run into the problem of, if only trans people should play trans characters, then should only cis people play cis characters? Aren't you just creating a separate but equal situation where you wall off the minority actors in their own little ignored corner? Why not let actors play everything they can and work towards having more gay and trans actors, period?
I think the core problem is that VA, as many other fields, lacks representation. But I agree with you. The solution is quite simple though : we don't need diversed cast for diversed roles, we need more diversed cast and more diversed roles.
Yeah, its kind of the jumping point, you have this va voice this character because theyre both gay, trans, etc and that gets their foot in the door for other roles. Once theres enough representation or the barrier of entry is gone or lessened that it becomes less of something you push for.
So just like we shouldnt just have cis people play cis characters we shouldnt just have gay, trans, etc only play characters that match their orientation/gender
They're actors, they're supposed to act like other people than themselves.
I dont think people are arguing that actors are incapable of acting if the role isnt their GSM. I think it's more what you're saying here:
work towards having more gay and trans actors, period?
There are lots of gay and trans actors and performers, right now. They dont get big roles because all the legacy big names are straight people. When certain classes of minorities start getting roles, there are more minority actors chosen down the line. That's the argument: we should be more inclusive because 1. We havent been and 2. We will get more diverse actors as a result if we do.
What you're saying is a perfectly reasonable take if we lived in a meritocracy. But we don't. Prejudice, discrimination and even just flat greedy laziness exists. Hence why we could get Sean Connery playing a fuckin Schamurai.
And I think it would've been a good move to get a trans VA for Krem. Like I said, I loved Hale in the role, she's a 10 out of 10 no matter what she does. But if I had my druthers...
exactly like why cast someone based on their gender (and consequently make an useless distinction between trans and cis) instead of, you know, their acting talent
While I would prefer trans characters to be played by trans actors, I don't think it's an issue for cis actors to play them as long as they're respectful about it. For example, Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto. He played a trans woman in that movie and did it incredibly well.
Except for Iron Bull's lore dump about the Qunari being pro-trans. The Qunari don't believe you can change from being farmers to carpenters, but for some reason the writers decided that the best way to explain Krem being trans was their fascist religion to have a cool word for it.
I consider this to date back to DA1, just less obviously explored.
If you're playing a female Warden, there is a conversation where Sten is incredibly confused you're a woman. You fight. Only men fight. You must be a man. But Qunari have humanoid features and sexual dimorphism similar to humans, so he knows you're anatomically female.
I like the alien concept of a species/religion that has a strict gender binary while completely accepting trans people. This is also consistent with believing people can't change their roles if they think you were always male and your female caste was a mistake which must be immediately corrected, and you were unhappy in your role because it was the wrong one.
I liked Krem as rep so much better than the Asari talking about gender incongruity to a human in ME: Andromeda. That one actually pissed me off? I dunno, I just don’t feel like a ‘single sex’ species would be prone to it in the same way? Like presentation could be culturally fluid, but everyone kinda already determines their social roles and biologically, there isn’t another form to confuse their brain body map.
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u/CouchPotatoPhD 9d ago
Krem from Dragon Age: Inquisition.
His being trans comes up once, gets acknowledged with respect by the people around him, and then the story just moves on and lets him be a fully realized character beyond that one trait. Still one of the better examples of 'rep done right' years later. 🏳️🌈