Every Friday I cover all things culture on my new MSNBC series, So POPular! The weekly show is my attempt at using art and movies, books and celebrities, as a lens to discuss where we are politically and culturally. So POPular! challenges our ideas on what’s considered political and worthy of analysis.
I end every show with an editorial on one pressing and personal cultural topic. This week’s editorial centers on Olympian and reality star Bruce Jenner who was featured on a heavily-retouched cover of In Touch Weekly. Watch the segment and read the transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT
At Sunday’s Golden Globes, the Amazon series “Transparent” won big – walking away with two trophies – for best comedy series and best comedic actor for Jeffrey Tambor. While accepting his Golden Globe for playing Maura Pfefferman – a 70 year old transgender woman – Tambor said, “This is much bigger than me.” The actor then dedicated his award to “the transgender community. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your courage. Thank you for your inspiration. Thank you for your patience. And thank you for letting us be part of the change.”
The groundbreaking series is the first show with a trans main character to win a Golden Globe, widening visibility and acceptance for the transgender community. This cultural victory was met this week with a shockingly insensitive, sensational and inaccurate In Touch Weekly magazine cover featuring a heavily photoshopped Bruce Jenner who is illustrated to look as if he’s wearing makeup. Jenner’s head is even digitally placed on a woman’s body, specifically Dynasty star Stephanie Beacham’s body.
The headline reads: “Bruce’s Story: My Life As a Woman.” Let’s be clear: This is not Jenner’s story. Jenner has not stepped forward as a woman or uttered a word about being transgender.
What is true is that the story is pure speculation, the kind of tabloid gossip I’m guilty of laughing at while getting a pedicure. This cover is the latest in a long line of public speculation regarding the Olympian’s gender identity, which has been under the media’s glare since 2009 when The Family Guy made Jenner’s gender and genitals a punchline:
Stewie: Ugh! Look there’s Brody Jenner. God what a douchebag! I can’t believe that came out of Bruce Jenner’s Vagina.
Brian the dog: Bruce Jenner is a man.
Stewie: No, Brian. That’s what the press would have you believe but he’s not. Bruce Jenner is a woman, an elegant, beautiful Dutch woman.
Oh Stewie! The Jenner gender speculation is a modern-day freak show. It spreads the misconception that being trans is laughable. By publishing this cover, In Touch Weekly tells its 400,000 readers that it is acceptable to assume someone’s gender, scrutinize their body, and publicly shame them in the process.
It’s this destructive thinking that pushes trans people deeper into isolation, it’s this thinking that leads many to justify the disproportionate violence trans women of color face, it’s this thinking that convinces a 17 year-old girl that her only option for peace is to jump in front of a truck.
Wearing pink nail polish and getting a blow out does not make someone trans. Retouching a photograph will not make someone a woman. And nothing is wrong – absolutely nothing is wrong or laughable — about being trans. What’s wrong is a magazine aiming to humiliate someone by labeling them a transgender woman as if being trans and being a woman is an insult.
Here’s a headline: “Bruce Jenner Is Whoever Bruce Jenner Says He Is.”
—
Watch all clips, conversations and interviews from “So POPular!” anytime at MSNBC.com/sopopular. New episodes every Friday at 11am ET!
I agree with you , it is pure speculation on Bruce and as you said on real time tumblr has over 100 different gender specific qualities so till we hear what Bruce has to say lets just cill.
Till you were on Real time didn’t know anything about you but you were so awesome and I will checkout you on msnbc.
I am disgusted with all of the hype about Bruce Jenner.
I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care if he is in the process of gender reassignment. If he is, that is his business and no one elses.
Shame on you people that buy those disgusting tabloids, you all need your heads examined.
I’m a transgender woman 60 years of age and I found myself laughing along with a male friend at the In Touch cover of Bruce Jenner. I immediately had the shocking revelation that even a trans woman like myself can laugh at what has been made into the spectacle that is bruce jenner! I have internalized what our society has been telling me all my life; that trans folk are a joke to be laughed at! I admonished my friend for laughing, but I also copped to my own “transgression” and from now on I will look deeper at my own internalized conditioning!!! It was a teaching moment for myself – and quite disturbing as well to realize even I fell victim to this conditioning.
I think we are nearly all grown up enough to not give a rats ass either way.
Transgender people are awesome people too, so this shouldn’t need to be offensive to Bruce. If he were transgender people have decided to either like him or not regardless.
Whoever wrote the article ”In Touch” may need to reassess their own insecurities about sexuality and grow up!
I completely agree with the statement.. “By publishing this cover, In Touch Weekly tells its 400,000 readers that it is acceptable to assume someone’s gender, scrutinize their body, and publicly shame them in the process.”
I personally do not think In Touch should be allowed to continue their business.
It is sickening to see this done to Bruce Jenner in the media. Nothing more be said because…..you nailed it! Thank you.
What so many people do not know is that the labels of Man or Woman are not sex identifiers. They are infact identifiers for Gender Expression. What Gender Identity that Bruce Jenner wants to use is up to Bruce not you are or me.
If the majority of people “do not know” that a word means what you say it means, well, then your wrong.
janet mock i love you
Thank you for speaking up about this Janet. I don’t read these magazines, but a lot of people do and we trans women in particular, and as you point out trans women of color in particular, are constantly policed and disparaged. And this sort of article just reinforces the stereotypes people hold subconsciously that create their fears of us and justify the discrimination they practice. Thank goodness there are more and more people seeing through this nonsense because of the hard work we trans people are doing to counter it..