Amazon’s Transparent is a Game Changer

Amazon Studios launches its latest better-than-TV series, the highly anticipated comedy-drama Transparent, on Friday. Transparent is about the Pfefferman family and at the heart of the family is Mort (Jeffrey Tambor), a retiring college professor, who at the age of 70 decides to stop “dressing like a man” and live as he’s always felt he should, as a woman. Now, as Maura, she faces the difficult task of revealing her transition to her children.

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Jeffrey Tambor as Maura Pfefferman

Star Jeffrey Tambor says, “This show is a game changer,” and I couldn’t agree more. Transparent is much more heartfelt, provocative and cinematic than anything I’ve seen on TV in years. I’ve watched four of the season’s 10 episodes and am absolutely affected by Transparent. I can’t wait for Friday so I can greedily consume the rest of the story. The show is raw and utterly unflinching, but what strikes me most is a sense of nostalgic sadness that comes when children realize that their parents don’t exist solely for them and have their own lives and dreams. It’s beautiful and melancholy and heartbreaking at the same time and I haven’t felt that from TV before.

Tambor admits he isn’t the obvious choice to play a transitioning transgendered person. “I expect there to be some push back. I would be very wary if I heard, ‘Jeffrey Tambor from Arrested Development and The Hangover is playing transgender,’” he admits. But he also welcomes any controversy his role may bring, saying, “The conversation needs to be had and light, and love, and clarity needs to be thrown on this subject.” But to series creator and writer Jill Soloway, Tambor wasn’t just the obvious choice, he was the only choice. She confesses, “When I wrote it, I was thinking about Jeffrey. It just was Jeffrey from the beginning. There’s something so gentle and emotional and feminine about Jeffrey’s persona and his way of being in the world.”

This is the role that Tambor was born to play.

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Jill Soloway (r) directs stars Amy Landecker and Jeffrey Tambor

Transparent came to Soloway when her own parent came out as transgender. “This show came from a place in me which was really trying to make the world a safer place so that when my parent walked out of their apartment building, they were walking into a world where they felt safer,” she explains. And unlike many shows on network TV where creative decisions are made by committees of executives focused on selling soap, Soloway found, with Amazon Studios, an environment that allowed her to focus on making the show she wanted. “I think it permeates the creative environment on this set and everybody can feel like they’re part of something larger,” she says. “And I think the hopeful inertia — this feeling is almost spiritual — is trying to make the world a better place instead of trying to turn a profit.”

The set that Soloway has created focuses on inclusion and employs transgender people in nearly every department, including “16 of the most throw-down talented brilliant transgender actors,” says Tambor. Soloway also sought guidance from Jennifer Finney Boylan, whose book, She’s Not There, explored her life as a later transitioning trans-woman. Her presence in the writers’ room was invaluable says Soloway. “She really, poured her heart and soul into Maura so that the writers could put flesh and blood on the bones of this character.”

The show also relies on transgender artists Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker as day-to-day trans consultants who offer insight on “ways to not make the portrayal feel jokey or objectifying,” says Soloway. “[They’re] helping us make sure we didn’t fall into the usual tropes of the kind of prurient interests and the details — the shoes and the boobs and the things that people will want to go to. We had to really remind ourselves that they had nothing to do with our story.”

At the age of 70, Tambor relishes the role of Maura, calling her “a gift.” And this gift isn’t without its challenges. “Was it easy to play?” he asks. “No. But it was fun to play, and that’s why we went into this game. I didn’t go into acting because it was easy; I went into acting because I loved it.”

The role of Maura is one Tambor understood from the get-go. Says the actor, “there’s a half a dozen times in your career you go, ‘Oh, I know who this is; I know who this is.’ My delightful problem was for me to come to her, but she had to come to me too. She had to come to my arthritic knee. She had to come to my being a little hard of hearing in my left ear. She had to come to my reading glasses, but we got along just fine.”

The rest of the cast got along fine, too. Gaby Hoffman plays aimless daughter Ali; Amy Landecker is not-so-perfect mom Sarah; Judith light as Mort’s perfectly Yenta-y ex-wife; and Jay Duplass is professional-success-but-relationship-f@#$-up, Josh. When Soloway met Duplass, he wasn’t even an actor — he is the director of films, including Jeff, Who Lives at Home, and Cyrus. Soloway shared a funny story about Duplass. “I met him at a party and I went up to him and I asked, “You don’t act by any chance, don’t you?” and he was like, “No, I’m a director.” I asked if he thought he wanted to act, and he was like “No!!” And then 15 minutes later, I convinced him to come in and audition the next day.”

So much of this show is kismet and the cast of Transparent is absolutely perfect. Soloway revealed that she only envisioned one actor for each role, and I couldn’t imagine anybody different in any role, especially Hoffman, who is absolutely spellbinding.

Each of Transparent’s characters is at a turning point in his or her life and the revelation of Mort’s evolution to Maura complicates the family dynamic. Tambor’s character used to be the stoic and long-suffering center of the family while the others orbited around him, using him as the gravity in their lives. “I think the eternal question that tugs at every family is, ‘If I change, will you still be there? Will you still love me?’” ponders Tambor. “We all have the ability to be very selfish, and blind to people’s changes. It scares us; it throws us.”

Now that Maura has gained an orbit of her own, one wonders, what will keep this family grounded? According to Soloway, “their ground is going to be their beautiful family. I think the show asks the question, ‘Would you still love me if…’ Would you still love me if I’m transitioning? Would you still love me if I’m not the perfect mother? Would you still love me if I can’t make a living? Is the conditional love of this family actually conditional — or am I safe here?’ That’s a question that I think everybody relates to, and it’s a question that the Pfefferman family, once you’re done with the season, you feel like, ‘Yes, you will be loved unconditionally.’ Because that’s what family’s about. Family is the ground. The feeling of family is the ground.”

Alexandra Billings, a transgender actress who plays Maura’s best friend and mentor (and who Tambor describes as “phenomenal”) delivers Maura’s new reality: “Five years from now, you’re gonna look up and not one of your family members is still gonna be there. Not one.” I asked Tambor, when faced with a truth as devastating and bleak as this, how can Maura still look towards the future with optimism and joy? He said that Maura’s hope comes from, “knowing the fact that you can replace loneliness with real affinity, and friendship, and support; and the truth of being your authentic self. Maura finds new friends, Maura finds a new community, and I think that’s amazing. I love that about her.”

He continues, “Yes, there will be losses, yes there will be pains, yes there will be people who don’t understand, but there will be people who do understand. And there will be people who get you anew. And people who do appreciate the revolution. And this is nothing less than a civil rights movement. This show tells it in lovingly, authentic and sometimes — often — humorous tomes. This is the real deal. This is a game changer and I’m very proud to be associated with it.”

I’m proud to have experienced this show too. This weekend, I took my 7-year-old to a store and we met a woman who was transgender. Later, he asked me about her. We had an honest conversation about how some people present themselves based on how they feel on the inside as opposed to how they look on the outside. It was a moment that I never expected to have with my son, but I think had I not watched Transparent a few days beforehand and had insightful and poignant conversations with Jeffrey Tambor and Jill Soloway, the world wouldn’t have gained another citizen who understands tolerance, and the right of people to live as they feel most comfortable.

Transparent will be available for download from Amazon on Friday, Sept. 26.

images © Amazon Studios/ Beth Dubber

1 Comment

  1. Just another piece of crap show pushing the immoral, unnatural and disgusting agenda of degenerate creeps.

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