K7 Media

K7 Media

TRANSGENDER ISSUES SHAKE UP REALITY

Transgender issues seem to be everywhere at the moment, and with good reason.

Socially speaking it feels like an issue whose time has come, but in TV terms it supplies everything that audiences currently crave. Reality TV viewers have become cynical of formats that feel manipulated or staged, and are in search of the most unfiltered and authentic voices and experiences.

The result is a flood of shows, all promising to satisfy this curiosity. “Transgender is the new redneck,” quipped TLC’s Howard Lee of the number of reality format pitches he was seeing at the Realscreen Summit in January 2015.

Reality TV viewers have become cynical of formats that feel manipulated or staged, and are in search of the most unfiltered and authentic voices and experiences.

The most prominent example is, of course, Caitlyn Jenner, whose story is told in I Am Cait on E! If viewer interest were solely focused on this one story, with its celebrity sheen, then we could perhaps assume it was a fleeting novelty. However, the prominence –and popularity – of other shows and episodes tackling the subject suggest otherwise.

Discovery’s New Girls On The Block, ABC Family’s Becoming Us and TLC’s I Am Jazz all offer similar yet distinctive tales from this formerly sidelined and misunderstood community. All3Media’s Secret Lives of Americans made headlines with an episode about a transgendered woman coming out to her co-workers.

There is also, of course, Amazon’s award-winning dramedy Transparent, starring Jeffrey Tambor as a man transitioning to a woman, much to the surprise of his children. Where once the subject of transgender was treated as a sniggering punchline, if covered at all, it is now being taken seriously and viewers have responded in kind.

The lesson for producers and commissioners is that keeping one eye on shifts in social and cultural norms can help put you one step ahead of the zeitgeist.

There’s an element of symbiosis here, as public interest drives programme makers, whose shows in turn help to solidify and validate the subject as a mainstream concern rather than a taboo niche. The lesson for producers and commissioners is that keeping one eye on shifts in social and cultural norms can help put you one step ahead of the zeitgeist.