While no show is perfect, and Transparent certainly has its fair share of detractors, the show is also doing some wonderful things right. Like, for example, the fact that the episodes of Season 2 have majority-female directors!
Transparent proves that it is indeed possible to find talented female directors to work on your project. What’s more, it’s possible to find so many that they make up a majority of your directing team! The 10 episodes of Transparent‘s Season 2 only have one cis male director in Jim Frohna, and one trans male director in Silas Howard. The rest of the epsodes will be helmed by series creator Jill Soloway, Andrea Arnold (she’s doing two episodes), indie filmmakers Marielle Heller and Stacie Passon. That’s pretty amazing, considering that most shows have a token female director, or two.
The next step, of course? More trans directors and writers. Hell, genderqueer and agender participants would be great, too. Right now, the writing room has one trans woman in Our Lady J, though four others were groomed by Soloway in a workshop that allowed them to create a spec pilot with which to pursue careers in television if they choose, and there are now four trans female writers whom Soloway would happily recommend to other producers. Perhaps any of those women might return for Season 3! There is one trans director this season, and we hope that the search continues for other talented trans directors.
As reported by Women and Hollywood, Jill Soloway, has spoken about what women should be doing to have more power in Hollywood:
That white cis male gaze is like a lifeguard chair, it’s a watchtower — I’m way up here naming things. And they are NOT GIVING UP THOSE LOOKOUT SPOTS EASILY.
In fact, they won’t even cop to the fact that they have that privilege. Instead of waiting for these guys to change, STORM the gates, grab hands with each other, RUN like red rovers at the lifeguard chairs, snarl at the bases like wild, starving beast dogs, boost each other up those watchtowers and pull those motherfuckers down.
In other words, don’t wait for chances to be given. Take them. I like that.
Living in L.A. and seeing all the jobs created for trans cast and crew, as well as cis women, through this show, it’s hard not to be optimistic about Transparent being an ever-evolving source of support and love for the trans community, for cis women, and for anyone who feels othered because of their gender.
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