When news broke last summer that Scarlett Johansson was set to play Dante “Tex” Gill, a real-life transmaculine sex worker and massage parlor owner, in the upcoming biopic Rub & Tug, public outrage immediately followed. Members of the trans community condemned the decision to cast a cisgender actress in the role; after first doubling down on her participation in the film, Johansson would later drop out of the project. Now, the actor has acknowledged that she mishandled the backlash to her original casting.
“In hindsight, I mishandled that situation. I was not sensitive, my initial reaction to it,” the 35-year-old actor told Vanity Fair in a recent interview. “I was uneducated. So I learned a lot through that process.”
Johansson inspired a small storm of criticism last July when she defended her right to the play a trans man, telling painter David Salle that “as an actor” she “should be allowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal” in a July interview for As If magazine. Johansson’s comment spurred condemnation for disregarding the marginalization of trans creatives in the film industry. “To cast a cisgender actor in a trans part,” wrote them. contributing editor Meredith Talusan at the time, “thus amounts to closing off the industry even further to a set of people who already have multiple and systemic disadvantages when it comes to achieving success in the film industry.”
By the time Johansson’s comments were first reported, the actor had already been condemned for simply taking the role. Fanning the flames further, however, was Johansson’s initial response to those criticizing her signing on to play the part: “Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment,” she said, referencing other actors who had played trans characters.
The irony of Johansson’s tone-deaf defense is that those actors had also faced criticism for taking roles away from trans performers. “Using Hollywood’s ills to defend those same ills is no justification at all; you wouldn’t point to the industry’s racism, misogyny, or pattern of covering up sexual abuse to excuse such behavior, and you can’t point at prior casting trends to justify continued exploitation,” Talusan wrote.
