Tell ABC today: Programming should not mock transgender people!

[Shana A]

Tell ABC today: Programming should not mock transgender people!

https://secure3.convio.net/hrc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1303&autologin=true&utm_source=Convio&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Act-link-1&utm_campaign=HRCnews-December-2011

ABC has announced that in January they will premiere a new comedy show "Work It," featuring two men who dress as women to secure employment.

According to ABC, the show centers on two unemployed men who have "learned the hard way that the current recession is more of a 'man-cession' and their skills aren't in high demand." One finds out that a pharmaceuticals company is hiring sales reps, but only female sales reps. He goes to the interview dressed in heels, a skirt, and make-up and gets hired as a woman.

The premise of "Work It" reinforces false and damaging stereotypes about transgender people.

Send a message to ABC today. Let them know we can't support programming that belittles and mocks those who do not adhere to society's gender norms.

[Lyric]

I did it. I'll also participate in a campaign to boycott and protest to the program's sponsors, as soon as that gets off the ground. Transgendered people have made huge strides in society since Tom Hanks lampooned us 30 years ago. We're more organized now. It's time for Hollywood to grow up-- at least a little. This type of program not only slaps TGs, but women as a whole. I just stopped watching ABC programs until they end this thing.

[eshaver]

I filled in the usual required YA- Ya , and then , I'm requested to send a donation . Uh , I'm not interested in donating what few dollars i have to support my family at this time . I'll also not be watching the Anybody But Clinton Network too.......... ellen

[tekla]

I take it that you're also sending hate mail to the AFI for ranking Some Like It Hot as the number one comedy of all time, with Tootsie (pretty much exactly the same situation as the ABC, doing it for a job) in the second position.

[Lyric]

We can still appreciate James Cagney in whiteface and even D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (which glorified the KKK). Still those films contributed to the culture that oppressed an important ethnic component of our society. Community attitudes have a way of trickling down and manifesting in the worst. In the early 20th century innocent black people were tortured to death on a fairly regular basis by southern good ole boys who never saw the inside of a jail cell. Today a transgendered person is brutalized or murdered at a rate of about one a week in the U.S. alone.

Just as the media sells cars and toothpaste effectively it also sells intolerance and-- unmeaning I'm sure-- hate. I enjoy a joke as much as anyone, but just remember that every joke against a minority group has a price.

Lyric ~

[Annah]

I filled in the usual required YA- Ya , and then , I'm requested to send a donation . Uh , I'm not interested in donating what few dollars i have to support my family at this time . I'll also not be watching the Anybody But Clinton Network too.......... ellen

you can send the petition without the donation

[Devlyn]

The only language they speak is dollars. You have to stop watching their product to get their attention. They have a big garbage can for letters, petitions, and polls. Hugs, Devlyn

[Joelene9]

  You'll have people watch this tripe and leave it to what it is.  Another silly sitcom with nothing of real substance. 
  Joelene.

[tekla]

Another silly sitcom with nothing of real substance.

Opposed to all of those bold, cutting-edge sitcoms that defy tradition and venture into new and exciting territory?  What's that, two, maybe three at the most?  Yeah, all that substance, sitcoms are drowning in it.

[GinaDouglas]

The previews make me cringe.  But that doesn't justify a pre-action.  We don't know what the story-arc will be.  If the show is bad, it will die a quick death.

[Mahsa Tezani]

The previews make me cringe.  But that doesn't justify a pre-action.  We don't know what the story-arc will be.

Cuz it hits a little close to home?

[Mahsa Tezani]

I take it that you're also sending hate mail to the AFI for ranking Some Like It Hot as the number one comedy of all time, with Tootsie (pretty much exactly the same situation as the ABC, doing it for a job) in the second position.

Don't forget RuPaul's Drag Race. How dare those gay men look better than transsexual women. LOL.

[GinaDouglas]

Tootsie was a different era.  It was a movie about feminism.  The movie used a man impersonating a woman as a device for the man to learn about feminism, and thus enlighten the audience.  The movie was not about men impersonating women.  So any comparison between that movie and this show is inapt.

The previews make me cringe for a couple of reasons.  They imply that it's relatively easy for a natal male to get a woman's job.  It's demeaning to women in general and it picks the scab of the worst problem that transgender people face, employment discrimination.  It makes me cringe, because the next time I have a job interview with somebody who checked my employment background and knows I used to be a man, that interviewer is going to anticipating something like what they had seen on TV.  And the entire premise of the show seems imbecilic, if they are spending more on wardrobe than they are earning.