Claire Lehmann: evaluation

Transcript context

…There’s a recent example: Scarlett Johansson was slated to play a transgender character in a movie. She is not herself transgender. Many people complained. Now, she has declined the role. What’s your take on that episode? Should the complaints have come? Should she have stepped out of the role? That’s a particularly ridiculous episode. I would say that’s a good example of political correctness. You’ve got a tiny, tiny minority population that is transgender individuals. Among transgender individuals, only a small percentage of those are activist. So it’s the tiniest minority you can think of, but they have all of this political power because they’re very noisy. The idea that an actress cannot play someone who she isn’t is ludicrous on its face. That’s the job of an actor, to play someone that they are not. Scarlett Johansson will be playing some kind of Russian spy in her next film. Can she not play a Russian spy because she’s not Russian? [laughs] The example of her being pressured to step out of that role is a good example of how political correctness has metastasized into seeking offense where offense should probably not be taken, inflating perceived slights, overexaggerating the potential harm that might be caused. I think there’s a lot of that going on in that particular instance. In the past, as you know, there’s a long history of white actors playing black characters and putting on something like blackface. We just don’t do that anymore. It doesn’t seem many people are wishing for that to come back. In the history of transgender characters in movies, they’re usually not played by transgender individuals. It’s not that Scarlett Johansson is coming after a string of 20 transgender actors/actresses who played transgender characters. Is it not like white actors putting on blackface to play blacks, and we ought to do much less of it, or maybe none of it? What’s the difference between those cases?…

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