Could a trans actress play Eli?

[CyberGhostface]

I’ll preface this by saying I’m cisgender so I don’t know if I’m crossing any lines by suggesting this... but could Eli be played by a trans actress (she’d probably be older)?

I realize that in the book Eli is not trans so again not I’m trying to cause offense to trans people.

[JToede]

Yes

[dongregg]

Actors portray roles without regard to their own gender or sex. And Eli is always 12, frozen in pre-pubescence. I'm still sticking with now 14 (?) year old Dafne Keene (in Logan) who loves to play roles that allow her to run around like a wild animal.

[sauvin]

Bearing in mind that when I was growing up, boys were boys and girls were girls and that's all there was to it (so I was taught to believe), and further bearing in mind that I've always been naturally "straight", I hope you'll pardon an old geezer for commenting on things about which he really knows nothing:

I had written a long rant about the futility of worrying about gender, but trashed it. People are what they are, and the labels we apply to describe or categorise them don't matter because people just won't categorise easily.

So, guess what? I grew up loving Elton John's music, and Barry Manilow's, and have even been known to be jealous of Liberace's facility with a piano. They're not the only people whose music I loved or how they performed it, but these three stand out because they didn't turn out to be what I expected. By the time I found out about them, it was too late. All these years, their music has stayed with me.

In the time since, if you'll google around for "famous gay actors", you may in your own turn be surprised a time or three. I know I was. Truth is, with so many names popping up, seems like it'd be absurd to have "men's" and "women's" rooms and a lot more appropriate to have little signs indicating "occupied", "not occupied" or "no vacancy".

Rock Hudson was a fine actor, and so are/were Victor Garber, Neil Patrick Harris, and Ian McKellan. Their performances helped me get lost in the stories in which their characters appeared. This is what an actor or actress does, if it's being done properly: help me get lost in a story.

So, assuming it's possible for a person to start worrying about becoming a "transgender" (I assume that's what "trans" means in this context) at a young enough age to successfully convey the same state of liminality Eli brought (and Abby to a somewhat lesser extent), my counter-question is this: who cares? It's even conceivable that a "trans" person could convey fundamental internal conflict better than Eli's presentation if the actor/actress is already dealing with it.

[CyberGhostface]

My concern was whether or not trans people would be offended by the association given Eli’s backstory and characterization in the book. I personally would be fine with it, I wasn’t trying to suggest it would be a problem.

[sauvin]

My concern was whether or not trans people would be offended by the association given Eli’s backstory and characterization in the book. I personally would be fine with it, I wasn’t trying to suggest it would be a problem.

Given that Eli is the victim of a horrific crime that has multiple facets, I'd certainly hope that the young actor or actress who would bring us another interpretation of her would be able to focus on bringing her plight and her character to the fore and be less concerned with accidental "association".

[CyberGhostface]

I’m not sure what the issue is with what I said.
Many of the tropes associated with Eli when related to trans characters in the past have been deemed offensive.

[dongregg]

At least two of us--Trige and I--don't see Eli as trans or any kind of cis-something. He was born male and was emasculated by a sadistic vampire lord. In the film, he is mistaken for a girl but doesn't think about until he wonders at the candy kiosk if Oskar only likes him because he thinks he's a girl.

[CyberGhostface]

Fwiw one of the reasons why I did the topic was because I’ve been watching Euphoria on HBO and there’s a trans actress (Hunter Schafer) who I thought could do a good Eli for either something like the play or if they had an older cast just as a what if. Then I wondered how such a thing would go down in terms of reaction. Anyways sorry if I caused any problems.

[dongregg]

Well, this didn't start a bunch of argy-bargy as it did a few years ago. Just a chance for a few of us to weigh in. Thank you for starting the topic.