Ask many transgender advocates and allies and they'll tell you that ABC's new sitcom Work It just doesn't work. Next month, ABC plans to premiere the show, which features two men who dress as women in order to gain employment. And while the characters in the show are not presented as transgender but rather as "unrepentant guy's guys" in dresses who very much identify as men, audiences will nevertheless connect them with transgender women.
The so-called "comedy" of Work It is based on the premise that people who were born male but encounter challenges in presenting themselves as women is inherently funny. The problem is that some transgender women may find themselves in this situation, at least temporarily, during the early stages of their transition, due to the prohibitively high costs of transition-related medical care and widespread insurance inequities. Transgender Americans -- who can be legally fired in 34 states today just for being who they are -- face an inordinate amount of workplace discrimination that images like those on Work It perpetuate.
The premise of this show is repulsive, and ABC -- a network that routinely scores highly in GLAAD's annual TV reports and whose parent company, Disney, receives a perfect 100-percent score from HRC's Corporate Equality Index -- should know better than to air it. ABC is a network that has brought us groundbreaking shows featuring LGBT personalities, like Modern Family and Brothers & Sisters, and it is the network that most recently featured Chaz Bono on Dancing with the Stars. LGBT community members and youth have often looked to ABC's programming for positive images that build acceptance, not images that make jokes of our lives and the challenges that many in the community face. ABC's own "Stand Together" project, featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, aims to put an end to bullying nationwide. But all the goodwill in the world doesn't justify putting images like Work It in the living rooms of millions.
By encouraging the audience to laugh at the characters' attempts at womanhood, the show condones similar treatment of transgender women. Unfortunately, such behavior needs no encouragement: 97 percent of self-identified transgender people reported being mistreated at work, and 26 percent -- that's one in four -- reported losing their jobs because they are transgender.
Though characters who challenge traditional gender norms have the potential to expand how an audience thinks about itself, the clumsy, offensive portrayals and marketing of this series are clearly not accomplishing this. By trying to create humorous scenes of these characters putting on makeup and feminine clothing, for example, Work It makes similar implications about transgender women's identities and their ways of expressing them, while also reinforcing the erroneous notion that transgender women are not "real" women.
It's not just the LGBT community that will be insulted by the show, either. Besides spreading the dangerous misconception that it's easier for a woman to get a job, the show resorts to some of the most outdated and sexist stereotypes about women you're likely to find on television. Work It isn't above racism, either, as demonstrated when the main character's best friend Angel remarks, "I'm Puerto Rican. I would be great at selling drugs!"
ABC should not air this show -- plain and simple. At the very least, Work It is offensive and insulting. At worst, the show is downright dangerous and sends a message that transgender people are to be laughed at, or are somehow less-than. This show would be a setback for transgender Americans, and for everyone who believes that all people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
GLAAD and HRC today placed an ad in Variety to educate the media industry and general public about the discrimination faced by transgender Americans today. To learn more, visit glaad.org/workit.
Follow Joe Solmonese on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HRC
HRC recently sent an email urging its supporters to insist ABC ax "Work It" immediately. (An outraged letter was helpfully attached.) Never mind that nobody being asked to demand the show’s cancellation had actually seen it. HRC could vouch for the harm even one airing would do. I can’t imagine any creative person whose blood wouldn’t run cold at the thought of a world where your critics don’t merely invite people to agree with their disdain for your work, but urge them to campaign for its swift annihilation, sight unseen.
The issue isn’t one show’s merits or lack thereof, but a climate where organizations with laudable goals ape the worst tactics of their opponents, and the cure for programming deemed offensive isn’t dialogue or constructive suggestions but shrill calls for suppression.
The writers contend that the show’s “repulsive” because it will condone or encourage the mockery transsexuals encounter in the workplace. No one disputes that transsexuals face bigotry daily — but are the jerk who mock them especially brutal the morning after they’ve caught “Some Like It Hot” on TCM? And, if so, should we ban that as well?
As for perpetuating negative stereotypes, this editorial adroitly furthers the image of LGBT people as humorless scolds whose frail psyches can’t withstand even the lamest joke we perceive to be at our expense.
2) I would bet $2 that this show will not last a full season because that's how network TV is these days.
3) I would bet $3 that the perceived outrage over a show that hasn't even aired yet will be forgotten by the time it does roll out.
C'mon guys, where you this outraged when White Chicks came out?
I'm not sure the 'message' of this show is really bad. In principle, it doesn't offend me at all, and if it's well written, I think it would be rather positive in shining a satirical light on gender. But even if the 'message' is offensive, it should not be suppressed. Now if it is a badly written show (likely), that should be grounds to kicking it off the air.
Whining like this only gives the Right mor ammunition on actual important issues. Please stop crying "Wolf"!
On a related front... everyone had nothing but positive comments when Candis Cayne was cast in Dirty Sexy Money despite the fact she was portraying a stereotype (more or less a sex worker/mistress). So if you're going to be angry about Work It, at least show some balance and be angry about Candis playing a stereotype. Oh, and nobody remembers that in the first episode of Dirty Sexy Money that they wanted Candis to lower her voice to sound male in the scene she first appeared. She refused, but that didn't stop them from changing her voice in post-production. And yet we didn't here anyone crying foul over that.
Come on people, we need to pick our battles and Work It isn't worth it.