Transamerica. So Offensive!

Desperate? I don't think so.

So offensive! No, not the movie. The movie was really good and Felicity Huffman was amazing (and robbed of the Oscar, if you ask me). Don't get me wrong, the film wasn't Shakespeare, but it was a really solid road trip comedy with a touching theme, great acting and just a unique enough idea to keep it interesting.

What is offensive is the DVD box cover. Look at it. Does it piss anyone else off, but me? Felicity Huffman deserves to be on the cover (she IS the movie), but shouldn't she be in character? In the movie, she's plays a shy transexual man who is about to complete gender reassignment surgery to become a dowdy masculine looking woman with mousy brown hair. From looking at the cover of the DVD, you'd think you were going to be seeing a flick about a beautiful and glamorous Hollywood movie star who's car breaks down in the country on the way to a film shoot and she ends up winning the mean rural folks over and turning the town into a bunch of worldly open minded fashionistas.

Really, as a gay man, this disgusts me. Every DVD cover and movie poster that has ever been produced has the character on the cover in their movie costume if the character is the focus of the movie. Why is this one different? Could it be because the Weinstein Brothers decided that the transexual element of the film would turn off too many people and they will make more money if they fool buyers with pretty pictures of the beautiful blond superstar before they realize what they are watching. The movie didn't play down to anybody and neither should the advertising. This sucks and is soooo misguided. When the movie is released on May 23rd, I for one will never rent, buy or even recommend this film to anyone as long as this cover remains. It is offensive to me in every way.

If you are thinking I am overreacting, think of it this way. If the movie was all about a black family and they put a minor white character as the only person on the box cover, would you still feel that way? Or, if the movie was about a group of poor and severely mentally handicapped people and they put the actors playing them in tuxedos and ball gowns looking like normal citizens at a high class ball, would you be offended? I would be.