Celebrating International Transgender Day of Remembrance (With a List)
Wednesday, November 20, 2013 at 10:59PM Today marks the annual commemoration event honoring those who've been killed in anti-trans crimes. You can find a list of events taking place from now through the weekend here if you're so inclined. Not all of the events are today some waiting for the weekend for better attendance numbers. Here in NYC the march starts in the Bronx and walks down to Harlem.
Since this is The Film Experience, and since identity politics are always shifting/evolving and since hate crimes don't care about the particulars of self-identification we thought we'd commemorate the day with a broad cloth. And with a list in chronological order..
27 Oscar and/or Globe Nominated Trans (or Cross Dressing*) Characters
*we realize these are different things
How many have you seen? Which are your favorite?
Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1932)
Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot (1959)
Chris Sarandon in Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria (1982) - GLOBE WINNER (also oscar nom)
Robert Preston in Victor/Victoria (1982)
John Lithgow in The World According to Garp (1982)
Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie (1982) - GLOBE WINNER (also Oscar nom)
Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) - OSCAR WINNER
(this is an unusual case... it's merely the case of a female actor playing a male character)
Barbra Streisand in Yentl (1983) -GLOBE NOM ONLY
William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) - OSCAR WINNER
Ellen Barkin in Switch (1991) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game (1992)
Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire (1993) -GLOBE WINNER (No Oscar Nom)
Terence Stamp in Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
That Oscar snub still stings. He's so great as Bernadette... "F*** ABBA".
Johnny Depp in Ed Wood (1994) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
Patrick Swayze in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar (1995) -GLOBE NOM ONLY
John Leguizamo in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar (1995) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
Nathan Lane in The Birdcage (1996) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love (1998) - OSCAR & GLOBE WINNER
Hilary Swank in Boy's Don't Cry (1999) - OSCAR & GLOBE WINNER
John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
Felicity Huffman in Transamerica (2005) - GLOBE WINNER (also Oscar nom)
Cillian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto (2005) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There (2007) - GLOBE WINNER (also Oscar nom)
(as with Linda Hunt a female playing a male character)
John Travolta in Hairspray (2007) - GLOBE NOM ONLY
(and the reverse - a man playing a woman's role)
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs (2011)
Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs (2011)
and soon... maybe...
Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
I am shedding water-proof mascara tears that I can't include Anthony Perkins (Psycho) or Tilda Swinton (Orlando) on this list.
Reader Comments (24)
Jack Lemmon is my favorite from a field full of winners.
Easier to pick the ones I didn't like. (John Hurt and Nathan Lane--never bought either one in their roles.)
Whatever the category may be, if I'm able to pick Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, then that is my favourite in that category.
I feel like I need to mention Philip Seymour Hoffman in Flawless. He didn't get a Golden Globe or an Oscar nomination, but he did get a SAG nod.
henry - john hurt?
Major omission on the list: John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig (Globe nominee).
Reuben -- how could i forget that one. TERRIBLE OF ME. APOLOGIES TO THE WHOLE UNIVERSE
(I thought this was going to be Posterized. I miss Posterized. I liked Posterized.) I've seen 15 of them. Missing Hedwig, Albert Nobbs, I'm Not There, Living Dangerously, and (sadly) Morocco. Much as I loved The Benning in "American Beauty", Hilary deserved that Oscar for that performance. I don't think you're supposed to believe Nathan Lane is a woman, since everything is over the top in that film.
And Patrick Swayze was as beautiful as a woman as he was a man.
Not nominated, but I love The Lady Chablis playing herself in Midnight in the garden od good and evil. So good.
Sorry, William Hurt. Hated him in Kiss....Spiderwoman.
But John Hurt did play Quentin Crisp...... (Bafta tv award)...which is sort of drag......
Jeff Bridges--I think he had a drag scene in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. (oscar nom)
But the absolute best was BDWong on stage in M Butterfly. (Tony)
You also forgot John Travolta (globe nom--Hairspray) and Ellen Barkin--(globe nom--Switch)
Antonia San Juan-Agrado in All About My Mother. No big awards or noms here, but one of the best perfs in the film.
One more---Paltrow was supposed to be a man playing a woman in Shakespeare in Love. At least the "play" scenes
And two important films with drag, cross dressing, trans themes:
Farewell my Concubine (oscar nom, globe win) and Ma Vie en Rose (globe win)
GAEL GARCIA BERNAL / BAD EDUCATION
MINA ORPHANAU / STRELLA
I know she got no nominations, but excellence can't be ignored: Carmen Maura in Law of Desire
Henry - great additions. thanks!
Like with Hunt/Blanchett, Travolta is simply a male playing a female character...
I'll say two more things:
-Robert Preston was robbed with a capital R.
-Hilary's win is a happy memory (at least for me). Even today it seems an audacity. Were they under the influence of the whole new millennium madness?
I've seen all but 8 (Dallas Buyer's Club is included in the 8).
Morocco....sigh. How I love you.
i haven't seen the movie, but i quite enjoy the Cillian Murphy's characterisation on "Breakfast in Pluto". So pretty.
"Priscilla" was my favorite movie growing up! Terence Stamp is fantastic in it, but Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving do an amazing job as well.
Peggy Sue -- UGH.dont even get me started on all the travesties of 1982! ;) just about the only thing i'm okay with is Meryl winning best actress. (i love Jessica Lange in Tootsie as well but it's a lead role or at least on the line. Terri Garr had a right to be miffed... which she was back when people didn't automatically expect category fraud.
Clara -- all three are so fierce in Priscilla -- remember when Australian comedies were so popular in the early 90s?. but i wasn't into Breakfast at Pluto.
Terrence Stamp just owns in that role. Amazing understanding of the character while American films made afterward with the same subject matter made similar trans characters feel almost too on the fringes. People will immediately point to Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs or Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill (I'll give DePalma credit for noting that this seemed like one particular case, highlighting trans representation by using footage from a Donaghue episode) but there was something a little uncomfortable to me still about Boy Don't Cry. The movie more than the performance.
Also, I've said this before, but holy crap was Dog Day Afternoon ahead of the curb in representation in that film. The true story is a little sad but kind of beautiful that Sonny used the movie rights to pay for his girlfriend's surgery.
Melvil Poupand in Laurence Anyways was great although in terms of awards recognition, that's overstating things since LA really should've gotten more awards attention than it did, honored Suzanne Clement but he is really, really great in it. It just so happen he was in the same film of an actress who had one of the best acting turns in the last 5-10 years.
Special shout-out to EVERYONE in Paris is Burning though Venus Xtravaganza's moments on screen are so painful to watch in repeated viewings after you find out what happened to her.
Nathaniel, Peggy Sue- I looked up the 1982 Oscars on Wikipedia. YIKES!!!!! Preston's category was so weak too. This is where the comedy-phobia rears its ugly head. Yes, Lange won but her part was pretty comedy-free and when she was in a comic situation it was somebody like Hoffman/Coleman/Gaynes at the center.
@calroth, MOST definitely! She brought life to one the very few Eastwood helmed pictures I like.
@Nathaniel R, some other great additions, since someone mentioned our saint Almodovar, Antonia San Juan as Agrado who had THE best lines in "All About My Mother" and a young Georges Du Fresne as Ludo in 1997's "Ma Vie En Rose".
I keep thinking of these:
Lynn Collins in Merchant of Venice. Beautiful film.
Henry: I do really enjoy William Hurt (Children of a Lesser God (I didn't get The Piano when I first saw it (it's not Man of Steel or W.R. Mysteries of the Organism or anything, but PLEASE don't pretend it's Citizen Kane level genius), almost entirely because I saw it as a transition from one loveless passionless relationship to another getting passed off, visually, as a swooningly romantic series of events, an impression not helped by Holly Hunter's character's mute status was taken as an excuse to write off any reasonable development of genuine romantic chemistry between the two characters, especially since Children of a Lesser God did a "normal person, speech impaired person romance" FAR better nearly a decade earlier) and A History of Violence in particular), but William Hurt is, roughly, analogous to Donald Sutherland in terms of his persona and he doesn't try to deviate from the development of his persona in Kiss of the Spider-Woman, even though THAT'S NOT WHAT THE CHARACTER IS WRITTEN AS.
volvagia - punctuation is your friend. that paragraph is entirely one sentence and makes no sense!