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Sometimes the grass is greener (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.world

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[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 18 points 7 months ago

Is using an old picture of Elliot Page

and referencing women

considererd poor form? Honest question, I really don't know the etiquette.

[-] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 59 points 7 months ago

The meme isn't really referencing the actor, but rather the character. Eliot might not be a woman, but the character is. When cis guys play female characters, we still refer to the character as female. I don't see why it should be any different when a trans guy plays a female character.

[-] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Actually the character is canonically a trans man named Victor.... This is from Umbrella Academy but before the character came out. You are correct in general respects just this example particularly is both of two men both canonically and non canonically so its actually kind of not super cool to use this particular image for this gag but largely forgivable if someone honestly was completely unaware of that context when making this meme which if you peaced out before the next season would be a very understandable mistake.

[-] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago

Oh, I didn't even realize it was from umbrella academy, or that that show had any trans characters. Yeah, that context definitely changes things.

[-] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It was actually super cool, when Elliot came out he went to the showrunners to let them know they had nothing to fear, he wouldn't change his appearance or anything because he was signed on for the show length.

And the show runners in an industry first established a new gold standard by telling him "Nah, how about we just make Vanya into Victor and make it canonical." So they worked with Page giving him a lot of creative control over the character's personal journey and showed probably the best depiction of early transition on tv.

[-] sznowicki@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago

It’s a meme from a movie. Should they ban this movie now and destroy all copies?

[-] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 16 points 7 months ago

TV show, not movie, but no, definitely not saying we should ban anything.

Given that the series handled his transition fairly head on, pretty sure no one wants to destroy the older seasons.

My only question was that this meme is directly referring to the top character as a woman. Most times I see this meme it doesn't have any references to gender ("morning shift going to work at 6am / night shift coming home at 6am," or something like that).

[-] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

So general flow chart here starts with context. When an actor plays a character that character's gender is considered before the actor.

In this case this picture is from Umbrella Academy but before the character comes out as a trans man. The role was specifically altered for Page by the show runners to make the role more comfortable for the actor (he offered to delay transition goals for the production but the production being incredibly awesome decided that this was something they could flex) so this meme is referencing one of the most recognizable trans actors in the world in a part where the character's coming out was basically happening during Page's transition.

Since the character is trans but this pic is before the transition it follows real world etiquette where pre transition photos should use current preferences of identity.

So the answer is from the trans community standpoint is that unless you jumped out of the series before that reveal and were fully unaware then yeah, making this meme with this pic with this specific context is pretty gauche but an easy mistake.