Hollywood has once again failed to represent the transgender community on the big screen, with a total absence of transgender or non-binary characters in any major studio movie for the fourth year in a row, according to GLAAD’s ninth annual Studio Responsibility Index.
“This remains one of the more glaring ways mainstream studios continue to lag behind other forms of entertainment media,” the report said.
GLAAD’s study, which was released Thursday, found overall LGBTQ representation in Hollywood movies actually rose on a percentage basis, with 22.7 percent of the 44 films distributed by major studios featuring LGBTQ characters. That represents a jump from 18.6 percent in 2019, though GLAAD noted the coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on movie distribution.
The report studied movies released by eight major Hollywood studios — Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, United Artists, and STX. Of the 44 films released from these studios in 2020, ten featured LGBTQ characters, with a total of 20 LGBTQ characters.
Transgender characters were totally missing from the big screen, as they were in the prior three years. GLAAD said the last transgender character it counted was an “offensive caricature” in the 2016 movie Zoolander 2 — a genderless model named All, played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
GLAAD said it hopes “to see more films which explicitly tell the stories of transgender characters, representation that is crucial to understanding discrimination and liberating trans people.”
The results come as the TV industry continues to embrace the transgender community. This week, Pose star Mj Rodriguez became the first transgender person nominated in a lead actress category.
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