I am a huge film nerd and Jared Leto tonight won best supporting actor at the Golden Globes for playing a transgender woman in the film, Dallas Buyers Club. Obviously, there has been a lot of backlash about a cisgender person taking a trans role, but I never resented him for it. His performance was really good, it seems like he did all the appropriate thing before the role to prepare, and ultimately it is not his decision who to cast. But tonight, when he accepted the award, the only mention of transpeople he made was at the very end, "to all the Rayons (the name of his character) of the world out there, thank you for the inspiration." Did not even mention the word trans. Backstage in the pressroom, the only mention he gave was that a transgender fan he met while on tour with his band was the inspiration for his character. Super disappointing :( Anyone else see the movie?
I don't believe you don't need to be trans* to play a transgender character, just like you don't need to be straight to play a straight character (i.e. Neil Patrik Harris in his role on How I met your Mother). I saw the movie and I did feel that Jared did a passable job in it. I would have accepted him playing the role of a woman that is transgender if he was a little more sensitive to the very group that he represented during his acceptance speech on the golden globes. Instead he seemed so far removed from understanding, bordering on insult, that it turned me right off.