#there'd be some battles ofc bc i love doing those

[ghoulangerlee]

There are a LOT of logistic things I'd have to figure out but if I were to somehow spin the Ghost universe into a Dungeons and Dragons game would anyone be interested in that lmao

[sevenofninehouseofmusiker]

Let me preface this with the fact that I am a gay cis person who does not claim to understand not being cis. I know I don't get it. But I do have a theory on this bc I've been thinking about it.

And yeah, at this point I'll take whatever rep I can get. If you're good at pretending to be gay I have no complaints just give me the gayness. I'm not picky. (Ofc I'd love more gay actors in gay roles but I'm choosing my battles. I'd rather be past "b*ry your gays" than have gays played by gays that still get killed for being gay. They'd probably die quicker if they were played by gays, anyway.) I care more about whether the actor cares about the story and the audience than I do about their orientation.

But I agree that straight playing gay is differnet than cis playing trans.

Okay so:

Straight actors (making the assumption that they don't fall anywhere on the ace/aro spectrum) generally have been in relationships, been in love, been attracted to someone, etc.

Assuming that's the case, they've got something to draw on when playing a gay character.

In a perfect world, a love story would be just that, and there'd be no need to qualify it with "gay" or "straight." Despite the unique stressors on gay relationships in a heteronormative and often homophobic environment (assuming the story is even set in this world), I believe a love story is still, at its core, a love story. And, by extension, I believe that (if the actor is an ally and cares about the story they're telling) asking an actor to pretend to be in love or experience attraction isn't often too much of a stretch, because the baseline is similar:

here's a person. you love this person.

I seriously doubt any actor plays someone who is them, or plays a relationship they've experienced exactly, because each person and relationship is different, and even two people in the same relationship can have vastly different experiences. However, most, if not all, actors play characters and stories that they can relate to on some level. (of course network and writers and such are factors, but let's pretend it's just down to the actors for the sake of time)

They're able to play something authentically by drawing on a time they felt similarly.

And I think that's the catch with a cis actor playing a trans character:

To my knowledge, no experience compares to being trans. There's no baseline, no experience that creates a feeling similar to dysphoria.

As a gay person, It's plausible for me to pretend I'm straight - I've done it for most of my life. So I can see how a straight person could play a gay character.

But I, as a cis individual, have no fucking clue how someone would go about even pretending to be trans. To understand how that feels. There are some experiences in life that are incomparable.

So yeah. I could be way off here, but those are my unsolicited thoughts.

Help in a debate

While I know that Scarlett Johansson’s new role as a trans is very wrong, I had a debate about with someone and got stuck with an answer:

The other guy said it’s just as when you cast a straight actor to play gay. Let’s be happy that there’s a rep because it’s not like we care about all the straight actors in the ships we admire.

I tried to answer but couldn’t really put the words on how it’s not the same (especially when English is not my first language)

I said that it’s not the same. I said that casting a cis for a trans role is the same as casting a white as black or a white as asian, and casting a straight as gay seems the same when they cast non soldiers to play soldiers (for some reason. we should really demand more lgbtq actors for lgbtq roles)

It turned bad pretty quickly when each side accused the other of offending the lgbtq community

Anyway - I wanna hear your opinions on who’s side is right.

Thank you