Transparent - Jill Solloway television series on Amazon

We're 6 episodes into s2 and this is some pretty brilliant/brutal stuff.

The scene that got to me the most was where Josh is showing Colton around the high school and trying to be all cool about it, even with the guy registering him for classes. Ughhhhhh. Then the proposal scene, although I had a faint twinge of sympathy for how bad he bungled that somehow, because it seemed so much out of a wounded sense of himself.

I mean that's p much narcissism though, getting angry when anyone punctures your little bubble.

Somehow e4 and e5 really warmed me to this show. The characters actually are developing/progressing. Josh actually matures a little bit as he deals with Rita and with Colton's parents, and as he seems to face that he's soon going to be a dad in a much more *real* way than with Colton.

so I watched the first sode of season 2 and im not sure I can continue with this show. what an obnoxious half hour of tv that was.

otoh this was my reaction to watching the first couple episodes of season 1 but I ended up getting into it.

Keep going — push through the pain.

yeah i think i'm getting off the bus after about 4 episodes of the new season

I still haven't seen this series, but I thought this Jos Truitt essay on broader problems of representation was useful: http://feministing.com/2015/12/21/on-jill-soloway-caitlyn-jenner-and-the-trans-representation-the-media-wants/

It feels unfair that Alexandra Billings who I think is giving a great performance & probably one of maybe three genuinely likeable characters on the show is being ignored by these critiqueshttp://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/oct/10/-sp-alexandra-billings-transgender-actor-transparent

this show is so great. season 2 was so great. most of these characters are horrid but i end up feeling for most of them, except the son, who sucks. i like that the rabbi was shown to be fallible too, in that she clearly did *not want colton in her life, and would not be the spine the son so clearly lacked but needed to save colton from his fundie foster parents.

bring on season 3.

When can we talk spoilers in this series? Because there's one plot element I want to bring up that would be super spoilery for people who haven't seen this yet.

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/zillow-uncovers-the-backstory-to/

season 2 did nothing to change my mind that it is primarily a show about Jews, rather than gender identity. really, really liked it.

would not be the spine the son so clearly lacked but needed to save colton from his fundie foster parents

Eh, I didn't exactly see it that way. Taking Colton in didn't necessarily strike me as the right thing to do, and I don't know that he needed "saving" given that he was nearly ready to leave home anyway.

I'm not sure the show is "more" about Jews than gender identity, and it's also about families, and it's also about narcissism, and also about Los Angeles affluent liberal culture. But it definitely is a lot about Jews.

i know, i know. Jewishness feels like the common thread, but then it's the most obvious point of connection for me (being Jewish).

it's as much about jews as it is about privilege as it is about gender identity imo

there is, as jordan points out, a lot of "only my real jews are gonna get this" jokes

Like when Josh told the fundie dad "Colton *is* Jewish" and then sort of muttered "according to the reform movement anyway"

I just came here and I was going to be all I REALLY NEED TO TALK ABOUT SEASON 2 but now I see you've been doing that for a while so I will catch up and brb.

especially in the episode with the forest gathering. that was just amazing.

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, December 16, 2015 11:26 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YES THIS WAS VERY GOOD

Like when Josh told the fundie dad "Colton *is* Jewish" and then sort of muttered "according to the reform movement anyway"

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, December 30, 2015 12:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why cause normally you're considered Jewish if the mother is Jewish?

Everyone is horrible except for Sid and Colton and the rabbi but I even didn't like her very much at points. I think that I hate Gabby Hoffman the most but that could be because I just with my parents bankrolled me until I was 33 so that I could have been a perpetual student who got high all the time. But yeah they're all horrible and yet I still feel for them and want them to be ok and get through all their bullshit. Maybe I like it because they feel relatably fucked up.

They're very cuddly for siblings though. Maybe that's not a big thing and it just seems weird to me because I'm an only child but do most adults get naked and cuddle with their sibs as much as these three seem to?

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It seemed heavily implied to me that the fundie family, in their "not even the USPS can be trusted, we have to do this in person" paranoia, were anti-vaxxers who killed the rabbi's baby by hugging a bunch of measles onto her. She broke out in pox right after they left. Was there anything explicit said to support this? Am I just pulling it out of thin air? Was it so obvious that they didn't have to say anything about it?

woah

stop blowing my mind crump

i don't think it was obvious at all but now that you say it . . .

i didn't think about it, but maybe? it seems like if it was supposed to be something to be noticed that they'd make it more obvious. maybe it'll come up next season?

did not make that connection!

it didn't even occur to me but now it DOES seem kind of obvious or at least a little coincidental

Like when Josh told the fundie dad "Colton *is* Jewish" and then sort of muttered "according to the reform movement anyway"

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Wednesday, December 30, 2015 12:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why cause normally you're considered Jewish if the mother is Jewish?

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Wednesday, 30 December 2015 19:03 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Yes, and also because the whole question of what *really* makes a person Jewish is an intense source of anxiety and debate among Jews.

The closeness of the disasters, one after another, seemed to be a line that indicated causality to me -- the separation from Colton via the Hug 'n Judge Bunch, the "whoa you've got stuff all over your back," the silence of the ultrasound. I dunno. I figured Josh would infect half of L.A. when he went to that music biz party later that night, but that didn't happen.

guess i'm displaying my wild ignorance here (first time on ILX!!), but:

- if you're antivax does that mean you can carry measles without being infected yourself?
- can measles cause miscarriages?

And I mean, you know, because while he's the biological son of a Jewish guy he's spend only a tiny and recent percentage of his life with his Jewish dad, so it also says something about the character's self-involvement and slightly shallow understanding of what it means to be a dad. Layers. I'm sure I've overexplained it by now. xp

x-post Yes to the second point for sure and I am not 100% positive about the first but I do think someone who was recently infected and not yet showing signs can pass it on so one of the fundies could have been infected but not know yet.

x-post - That makes sense i just thought the reform comment was because he was Jewish but (presumably) Rita isn't etc.

God Josh is the worst.

yeah that's why he made the comment, I just mean there were some cultural nuances to why it was funny

i just figured that the stress of the Colton thing and generally being around Josh and his family contributed to the miscarriage (and her decision to leave).

hmmm, according to the guardian recap of ep 6:

Back at home, Josh notices a rash on Raquel’s back. The pair are worried it could be measles – potentially devastating in pregnancy – and see a doctor, who tells them it isn’t, but that Raquel has miscarried.

so i dunno. it's an interesting idea though!

Pastor and Missus Gump rob Josh of both of his children with one blow... the Christian hug that's just a cover for destruction... makes u think, etc

Off Topic, but You Can Count On Me is on TV right now, and I forgot that Gabby Hoffman played Ruffalo's girlfriend in it.

Gabby Hoffman's hair in this is like a whole character by itself. A deeply annoying character.

Josh in episode 6 going to that industry douchefest and getting drunk after what had happened that day. smh. I hate you Josh!

and yeah, i would also certainly welcome a non-cis perspective narrative series made for television; maybe the success of transparent will lead that direction in the next few years

― the plight of y0landa (forksclovetofu), Sunday, February 1, 2015 3:45 PM

This thread seems as good place as any to mention the new web series Her Story. It isn't perfect (some of the dialogue can be too on-the-nose, and some of the character arcs are too compressed due to time and resource constraints), but it's promising in terms of representation insofar as it's written and directed by trans women, and generally avoids pandering or condescension:

http://herstoryshow.com

I will check it out, thanks!

Okay, I just powered through this and it was worth watching!

The good: storylines I've not seen anywhere before (a kept trans woman in an abusive relationship, a woman's justifiable trepidation on self-outing to a possible boyfriend who is too perfect), your note about lack of "pandering or condescension" is generally accurate as it pertains to the creators' belief that the audience is willingness to engage without prejudice, both of the lead trans actors (Jen Richards, Angelica Ross) are very good and watching them work certainly supports the argument that a trans woman playing a trans woman is going to bring a different level of gravitas and believability to the role than a cis man in drag would

The bad: yes the necessary compression of the spec storyline is partially to blame but the biggest issues are occasionally bad acting... Laura Zak, the woman playing Allie in particular, though she's apparently also the co-writer? I'd be curious to see who was responsible for what, as it also suffers from inconsistent script-writing and occasionally surprisingly clumsy direction. The characters are all spectacularly unrealistically gorgeous (there's some of the same DNA as s1 of 'Looking' at play here) which is soap opera gloss I don't need or want. The B-stories feel barely sketched out (Bad Penny in particular is a bad misstep). Eve Ensler is a producer, which makes me nervous.

The ugly: flawed or not (and warts and all it's certainly no worse than a dozen recent television pilots I've seen), given the current political and television climate, this should be getting more mainstream attention! i am a massive media nerd living in a major city, i should have already heard about this!

oh and just to clarify a point in terms of representation: of the three women responsible for writing and direction, only one of the writers appears to be trans if i'm reading the support materials correctly, yes?

Sorry, forks/ulysses, I should have specified more exactly: the series was co-written by Jen Richards and Laura Zak (who is cis), and I'd like to know more about the division of writing labor myself. I agree with most of yr reservations (especially about the unnecessary gloss, though my biggest issue was that the abuse storyline resolved itself too quickly to be fully convincing), but I do really hope Richards and her collaborators find a way to keep developing the series. I think that a lot of the most innovative and nuanced trans art these days takes place in writing (especially fiction and poetry on small presses like Topside and Biyuti, but also on blogs, in zines, in the performance art of people like Juliana Huxtable, and in the recent flowering of Twine games) because it requires less extensive access to capital than is the case with television or film (though obviously class inequalities still massively affect literary production and reception). Still, I do find this series (and Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel's Happy Birthday, Marsha!, once it's through with post-production) to at least be encouraging.

(I also found Red Durkin's comments on the series and the danger of "the after-school effect" here to be useful.)