‘Rub And Tug’ Casting Causes Controversy; Scarlett Johansson Issues A Tepid Response
After news broke thatScarlett Johanssonwould be re-teaming with herGhost in the ShelldirectorRupert Sandersfor the biopicRub & Tug, controversy immediately descended on the duo — again.
TheRub and Tug castingcontroversy is centered on Johansson playing a transmasculine man who became a notorious Pittsburgh crime boss. In response to the backlash, Johansson has released a statement on the controversy — her second in two years following the allegations of “whitewashing” inGhost in the Shell.
The controversy boils down to the casting of Johansson, a cisgender woman, as a transmasculine man — which would theoretically take away another potential role for transgender actors. Anger against the castingimmediately spread online, which prompted a response from Johansson’s representative, who toldBustle:
“Tell them that they can be directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto, and Felicity Huffman’s reps for comment.”
Tambor, Leto, and Huffman have all won or been nominated for awards for playing transgender characters in movies or television. It’s a pretty disparaging remark from Johansson, if not just a flimsy defence. The remark points out Hollywood’s spotty track record of casting cisgender actors in trans roles as a defence for Johansson’s casting. But it also suggests that she’s aware that the character she’s playing is transgender and that she doesn’t care — or at least, that she only cares about gaining an award for it. Johansson is not just the victim of miscasting in this case either: the actress also producesRub & Tugthrough her These Pictures banner.
Johansson earned ire before with another Sanders-helmed project. Last year, she starred inGhost in the Shellas a character who was originally Japanese in the manga and anime titles, which she downplayed in interviewssurrounding the film. The film ended up abox office failure.
Early this weekreportsonRub & Tugincorrectly labelled the subject of the biopic, Dante “Tex” Gill, as a “cross-dressing woman” who rose through a male-dominated society to become a powerful Pittsburgh crime boss during the 1970s and ’80s by running a string of massage parlors that doubled as prostitution hubs. But further digging fromScreenCrushrevealed that this real-life figure actually identified as a transgender man.
Though not many historical records exist of Gill (born Jean Gill), he was describedin his 2003 obituaryin the PittsburghPost-Gazetteas “insisting that she was a man and telling everyone she wanted to be known as ‘Mr. Gill.’ Gill dressed as a man and reportedly also used male pronouns when describing himself. There was also speculation that Gill “may even have undergone the initial stages of a sex change that made her appear masculine.”
