On Dallas Buyers Club and Rayon's Transgender Portrayal
Dr. Eve Saks: "To wildflowers"
Ron Woodroof: "And bone-in ribeyes" °'
I first saw Dallas Buyers Club the year that it came out. And I thought it was an excellent movie. I watched it again maybe a year later when I chose to do a final exam on Jean Mark Valle movies. My opinion remained unchanged.
Both times I fell in love with its characters, both times I fell in love with Raymond. But then I decided to write this paper, focused among other things on Raymond and this transgender representation. And this is where things got a little bit tricky.
Before watching the movie one more time I decided to read some articles about this, and most of them were pretty negative towards the fact that Raymond was portrayed by a guy- Jared Leto- and towards the character itself. I got the points people were making, and I felt unentitled to an opinion due to the fact that I don’t belong to the transgender community nor I have any transgender acquaintance. But then I read one article°'' with another point of view, with which I agreed.
After this I watched the movie one more time and then it was time to write.
Dallas Buyers Club Is based on a true story, about Ron Woodroof s life. And when I say based on I mean it. This is not a documentary and there are some facts that are wrong and different from the real story, both in the big picture and in Woodroofs life. And this isn’t necessary a bad thing, because even if it’s not one hundred percent historically accurate as an uninformed reader it’s a good movie to help understand what happened and it’s also relatable to some of nowadays problems, like how big companies work most of the time(taking care of their own interests-money). Furthermore as most of Valle’s movies Dallas Buyers Club is about the characters and relationships.
Ron is our main character portrayed at the beginning as a homophobic straight guy, a cowboy and through the movie and his journey, he changes. Rayon (our transgender “sidekick”) starts as his business partner, almost out of need but the relationship grows strong.
Rayon is a junkie that is closer to the pathetic transgender representation that Serrano talks about. You can see from the beginning that she “is a man” hipper feminized and there are some jokes about wanting a sex change.
As a character Rayon is nothing like Naomi Marks, one of the main characters in the TV show sense 8 (made by the Wachowski sisters, both of them transgender). We could talk about them as complete opposites. While Naomi is seen as a woman, without being a deceiver because we all know almost from the start she is a transgender, breaking with the ways this group has been portrayed in most movies and shows; Rayon falls into the stereotypes and this is why this character has been vastly criticized. Another difference is that while one is played by a real transgender the other is played by a cis man pretending to be a transgender.
But this character has a reason, it fits in the story in a good way, and is not seen as negative. There were people that died from aids, drug addicts and transgender people. Why should we left them out just because they are not the good person that is unfairly suffering?
The way this story works, Ron and Rayon’s relationship is the most important one. Even when Dr. Eve seems to be Ron’s love interest, this bond is not as developed as the other one. They also have Rayon as a common friend, putting her at least as a bridge for Ron to himself and to Eve.
In the beginning we see them insult each other and joining with a business purpose. Opposites getting together for a goal and against a common enemy. But as the story unfolds we see them become closer, even when Ron insults Rayon it begins to be more like a friendly mock.
One of the first scenes that left me wondering about something that Lowder says in the article I mentioned before, is the one when they both enter the gay club. Lowder talks about Dallas buyers’ club as a queer movie and when I saw this scene I found something. The way they smile to each other, how they start to become accomplices.
After this one came many more in which we see Ron change, defend things he used to “hate”. One scene in particular in which I see love and affection, even if it’s not in a romantic way, is when Ron sticks the needle with the vitamins to Rayon because she can’t. An interaction just between the two of them, honest and intimate.
It’s strange because this imperfect and supporting character doesn’t appear until half an hour after the movie starts and dies before it ends but I remember it as the one which so many things revolve around.
It seems as If Raymond humanizes Ron. When she dies Ron is willing to sell his car, an object with emotional value, to give some free passes to his club (to help people) while he wouldn’t do it before, when he seemed more worried about the money.
One thing that bugs me is that Rayon is talked about as a He the whole movie. I’m not sure is this is because he just cross-dresses and didn’t have the operation or something about the context of the movie, its time, but it left me wondering.
All this said, I think Rayon is a wild flower. She is presented as a stereotype of a group that doesn’t have much representation in the media, yes. But Rayon is caring, she is smart and sure of herself. She speaks her mind and does sacrifices. She is wild and free spirited.
All in all I believe Dallas Buyers Club is a great movie. It presents beautiful complex characters and a good story. On Rayon and the transgender portrayal of the character It’s no secret that I liked it but I do get that at least some questions need to be asked, maybe not just because of the movie itself but the context in which the movie as a piece places itself, where there are not enough transgender roles to represent a whole group and representations tend to focus in specific ideas of how a transgender is.
Is it wrong that a cisgender person plays a transgender role? Is it right to restrict this roles just to transgender actors/actresses? These questions need to be asked but it’s hard to get to conclusions when there’s still almost no representation for this group.
