Johansson defends transgender role
Avengers actress facing backlash — again — in casting controversy
Scarlett Johansson is defending her decision to play a transgender man in the new film Rub & Tug, currently in pre-production.
Earlier this week, Deadline reported that Johansson would be reteaming with her Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders for a movie about Jean Marie Gill, also known as Dante (Tex) Gill, a Pittsburgh crime kingpin and massage parlour owner who presented herself as a man.
Casting Johansson in the role received instant backlash from a number of social media users, but in a statement issued via her representative to Bustle on Wednesday, she dismissed all the criticism.
“Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Le to and Felicity Huffman’ s reps for comment,” she reportedly told the outlet.
Her response refers to cisgender actors who have taken on transgender roles, with Tambor playing a transgender woman in TV show Transparent, Huffman portraying a transgender woman in 2005 film TransAmerica and Oscar-winner Leto taking on the part of Rayon in 2013’s Dallas Buyers Club.
Among the comments on Twit-- ter, many users noted they would like to have seen a transgender person in the role.
“Literally the LEAST you could do when making a movie about trans people is to cast a trans person in the role that was written for them,” one user wrote on Twitter.
Another added: “No offence to Scarlett Johansson but there are many beautiful trans women in the world, and I MEAN MANY ... so ask Hollywood to keep looking!”
One of the people to criticize casting Johansson in Rub & Tug was April Reign, the activist behind the #OscarsSoWhite campaignin2015.
She said Johansson, 33, was also accused of whitewashing her character in Ghost in the Shell, based on a Japanese man ga figure.
“Scarlett Johansson received considerable backlash for Ghost in the Shell, when she played a whitewashed Asian character.
“The movie tanked. Undeterred, she has teamed up WITH THE SAME DIRECTOR to play a trans male character in Rub & Tug,” Reign wrote.
Johansson is currently filming Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit and is also attached to star as Marvel character Black Widow in a standalone movie.