Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Wednesday, Jul 11, 2012 04:00 PM EDT
"Hit and Miss": Like the prosthetic penis isn't enough?
Chloe Sevigny isn't just transgendered in her new series. She's an assassin, and a new parent. But somehow it works
By Willa Paskin

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/11/hit_and_miss_like_the_prosthetic_penis_isnt_enough/ (http://www.salon.com/2012/07/11/hit_and_miss_like_the_prosthetic_penis_isnt_enough/)

"Hit and Miss," the new British import from the creator of "Shameless" and "State of Play" that starts tonight on DirecTV, stars Chloë Sevigny as a pre-operative transgendered woman who is also an assassin, which is enough plot for at least two TV shows. Despite the gilded-lily nature of its setup — What, a show about a woman who used to be a man discovering she has a young son and moving in to help raise him and his three siblings needed more? —  "Hit and Miss" is a quiet, grounded show. It treats the salacious aspects of its plot — Sevigny's prosthetic penis and her high-powered rifles —with a thoughtful realism. But then again, the charge that comes off the screen two minutes into the first episode when Sevigny is shown in a full body shot getting into the shower, all her parts exposed, is such that it can sustain the sort of laconic storytelling that follows, and maybe even necessitates it lest things get too campy.

Sevigny stars as Mia, whom we see murder someone, step into the shower in the altogether, and find out she has a son in the series' first five minutes. When Mia goes out to see her child for the first time, she discovers his mother has died, leaving Mia with guardianship of her four children, ranging in ages from about 5 to 17 and in attitudes from welcoming to horrible. Despite the various racy elements of its plot, "Hit and Miss" is set in the English countryside, the poor English countryside (Sevigny rocks an unembarrassing Irish accent). The family raises pigs and chickens and lives in a stone, big-roomed house that looks like it is probably always cold. The setting seems like the poorer version of something out of "Cold Comfort Farm" or "I Capture the Castle," and this too tamps the story down, keeping it tangible.

--------


The Hit Man Who Becomes a Hit Woman
Chloë Sevigny is terrific as a transsexual assassin in the uneven Hit & Miss.

By Troy Patterson|Posted Wednesday, July 11, 2012, at 4:46 PM ET

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2012/07/hit_miss_chloe_sevigny_is_terrific_as_a_transsexual_assassin_.html (http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2012/07/hit_miss_chloe_sevigny_is_terrific_as_a_transsexual_assassin_.html)

The British series Hit & Miss (DirecTV, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET) opens with a view to a kill. A hooded figure wields a gun with a very long sound suppressor, a verbose silencer, and shoots his prey on the roof of a parking garage. The shooter strides back to his car and pulls the hood from his head to unveil a rare femme fatale: The terrific Chloë Sevigny is playing a contract killer named Mia, and in the rearview mirror she puts a tube of lipstick to her mouth with ritualistic precision. She drives off to continue the striptease at her apartment—one of those vast bare lofts so often inhabited by hired killers of a melancholy bent. Preparing to shower, she strips to show her waist, her breasts, her rear—and who is this little fellow dangling from a fringe of pubic floss? Mia is a pre-operative male-to-female transsexual, and Sevigny wears a prosthesis in a casual way, part of a low-key performance that's as naturalistic as can be, given the local climate of sentimental pulp.

---------

'Hit & Miss's Tender Approach to Transgender Characters

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jul 11, 2012 at 11:38 am

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/07/11/514229/hit-misss-tender-approach-to-transgender-characters/?mobile=nc (http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/07/11/514229/hit-misss-tender-approach-to-transgender-characters/?mobile=nc)

The premise of Hit & Miss, which begins airing on DirecTV tonight, is that Chloe Sevigny is playing an assassin, and not just a assassin, but a transgender assassin, and not just a transgender assassin but one who's suddenly inherited her ex-girlfriend's children, including the son she was never told she fathered. It's too bad that the show has the assassination plot. As Mia, Sevigny makes the kills look dandy, and she's shot well. But it's an emotional distraction from the show's exceptionally fine depiction of a woman learning how to be a parent in fraught circumstances, and to be a woman after having had the privilege and freedom from sexual violence afforded to a man.

One of the most refreshing things about Hit & Miss is how it presents Mia's body—she's begun, but not completed her transition—in a matter-of-fact light. Within the first five minutes of the premiere, we see her undressing for a shower after an assignment. That she has both breasts and a penis is information for what follows, but not shot as if it's shocking or freakish. After that shower we see Mia working out in the largely empty mansion where she spends time in between missions, perfecting her body because it's the tool of her trade, not because she feels alienation from or hatred for it. The show regularly presents Mia as if she's attractive and stylish: she wears terrific, seventies-inflected outfits in wonderful colors, beautiful makeup, and regularly receives complements both from men who are interested in her and the children she comes to take care of.

I'm glad I never watch any movie or show that involves a trans character anymore, I can only imagine nothing but disappointment if I did.