Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Non-trans actors are now apologising for having acted in transgender roles. But isn’t the point of acting to act? I once played the role of a shepherd in a nativity play, but I’m not a shepherd. Should I apologise to shepherds?

Actor Eddie Redmayne has become the latest Hollywood star to apologise for playing a transgender character.

Redmayne said it was a “mistake” to have played the part of a trans person in the critically acclaimed 2015 film The Danish Girl.

He vowed never again to take a transgender role, insisting such parts should be left to authentically transgender actors.

In other words, film roles depicting biological men who want to be women must be given to biological men who really do want to be women.

Redmayne follows in the footsteps of Hilary Swank, who said she should not have played a trans role in 1999; Scarlet Johansson, who pulled out of a trans role in 2018; and Halle Berry, who apologised for even considering a trans role in 2020!

How Far Does This “Logic” Extend?

Closer to home, Australian actor Hugh Sheridan was last year dropped from a Sydney stage show in which he was to have played a man who has a botched sex change. Sheridan lost the part because he had never had a sex change, botched or otherwise.

Redmayne said of his role depicting Lile Elbe, one of the first people in the world to undergo gender realignment surgery: “I wouldn’t take it on now. I made that film with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake.”

We presume the British actor will also apologise for his role as a French revolutionary in Les Miserables since, not being French, he was merely acting.

And, of course, we expect he will likely hand back the best actor Oscar he won for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

Redmayne does not actually have Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. It turns out he was acting in that movie too.

Someone who has the neurodegenerative disease should have been cast as Hawking in his place.

Virtue Signalling on Steroids

Of course, none of this makes any sense. Acting is about making people believe you are someone you are not. The alternative is a documentary.

Redmayne’s apology is A-grade virtue signalling to the alphabet people, and everybody knows it.

If this nonsense is allowed to continue, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to shoot any more Lord of the Rings movies until they find a real Hobbit.

And don’t get me started on Planet of the Apes!

If Redmayne wants to apologise for something, he should say sorry for whatever the heck Jupiter Ascending was supposed to be!

My Apology to the Shepherd Community

Interestingly, the prohibition on non-transgender people playing transgender characters does not apply in reverse. So-called “straight” people score so highly on the oppressor matrix that they need to apologise for their biologically coincidental privileges. Trans people do not.

In the meantime, I would like to apologise for my role as a shepherd in the nativity play back in 1975. I was not actually a shepherd and had no lived experience herding animals.

I commit myself to doing better in the future and to learn from this mistake. I promise to do the hard work of listening and educating myself so that I can become an ally.

You can order James Macpherson’s new book Notes from Woketopia (Laying Bare the Luncy of Woke Culture) at jamesmacpherson.com.au.

Image by Jacob Owens at Unsplash.