Differing Opinions Over “Orca Shrugged” Episode of FX TV Show Sons of Anarchy (NSFW)
©2012 by Dallas Denny
Source: Dallas Denny. (2012, 12 October). Differing opinions over “Orca Shrugged” episodes of FX TV Show Sons of Anarchy. TG Forum.
Some folks have attacked the Orca Shrugged episode of Kurt Sutter’s FX television show Sons of Anarchy.
Aired on 9 October, 2012, the episode features actor Walter Goggins stuntcast as trans dominatrix Venus van Damme. Goggins, best-known for his roles as I-love-to-blow-shit-up Boyd Crowder in Justified and detective Shane Vendrell in The Shield (both also FX shows). Goggins is the last actor I would have considered for the part, but I thought he did a great job as over-the-top sex worker van Damme.
“Have you ever had your d*ck sucked by a Southern girl with a huge c*ck?”
Now in its fifth season, Sons of Anarchy is the story of a franchised outlaw motorcycle club named Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original (SAMCRO); the charter chapter is based in the fictional town of Charming in California’s Central Valley. Using an auto and motorcycle repair shop as a front, SAMCRO engages in a variety of illegal activities, including gun-running, drug-smuggling, and prostitution.
The show is violent, exceedingly so as SAMCRO struggles for position and dominance against other biker clubs, the IRA, and Mexican cartels while simultaneously striving to stay out of prison. Inter-club politics are nasty, especially the developing tensions between club President Jackson “Jax” Teller (played by Charlie Hunnan) and his stepfather, Ex-President Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman).
There are no nice guys in Sons of Anarchy. The club members are violent, the police and FBI agents on scene are corrupt, and the girlfriends and wives of the club members are equally as vicious, on occasion, as their men.
In Orca Shrugged, SAMCRO successfully sways a vote by Charming’s city council by drugging councilman Fat Jake (Joe Caniano, Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire), dressing him in bondage gear, and, when he awakes, photographing him with hired dominatrix van Damme astride him.
Walter Goggins, wearing realistic breast prostheses was clearly having fun as van Damme. So, too, were the rest of the cast members. Throughout the scene club member Tig Trager (Kim Coates) is clearly sexually interested in van Damme. “Really?” says club member Juice (Theo Rossi) as he raises an eyebrow at Tig.
Tig is Interested
Throughout the scene Jax treats van Damme with respect, using female pronouns and giving her an additional $2000 when she requests it for an extra service asked of her (having sex with the naive 21-year-old stepson of the councilman who blunders onto the room so he will be forced to keep his mouth shut). There’s no shortage of raised eyebrows and amazed looks in the scene, but at no time is the van Damme character treated discourteously.
So what’s the beef? How is this anti-trans?
Will Kohler finds the portrayal objectionable because 1) Goggins doesn’t pass as female; 2) is an overblown stereotype of a transsexual woman; and 3) because of the OMG! Transsexual! nature of the blackmail.
Despite makeup, wig, and prosthetic breasts, Goggins doesn’t come close to passing, but I’ve known hundreds of transwomen who don’t pass. Passability doesn’t make one more transsexual, and it’s something some of us aren’t even looking for nowadays. Besides, for purpose of the blackmail, SAMCRO needed a non-passing transwoman.
Obviously van Damme is a prostitute, and most of us aren’t. Her behavior and breasts are accordingly over the top and she makes a big point about having a penis (which most of us don’t), but certainly the portrayal rings true—there absolutely are trans women like van Damme, and having any other type of transgendered or transsexual woman in the scene would have made no sense. Pretty much everyone in the series, male or female, is a scumbag. Putting a nice, passable, middle-class transsexual in the show would have been gratuitous. Goggins’ hooker is no better or no worse or more or less appropriate than any other character.
It’s unfortunate but realistic that SAMCRO hit upon the idea of blackmail using a transgendered women, but changing social mores would have rendered a natal female prostitute, a woman of another race, or another man less effective than would have been the case twenty or thirty years ago. That leaves fetishes, sex with an underage boy or girl, or a transsexual in play. Fetish wear is integral to the scene. The club and show producers wisely chose not to incorporate pedophilia into the blackmail. So what’s left? Venus van Damme, and more power to her.
Certainly most portrayals of transpeople in the media remain stereotypical, and just as certainly women, racial minorities, and gay men and lesbians tend not to get cast unless rolls specifically call for their “type.” trans characters tend to appear only when trans parts are written—but I see no harm here.
Daniel Mikelonis has a valid point, however—the episode depicts forced sex with an unconscious man. Despite the unlikability of the victim, and despite the humor of the scene, what is depicted is rape. Rape is wrong, rape is ugly. So while I see no problem with the transsexual depicted, I, like Mikelonis, have problems with the scene itself. So, too, does Zack Handlen.
The guys laugh it up and have a good time, but what they’re doing is a fairly nasty form of assault; the episode tries to downplay it by having Goggins camp it up, having the victim be (gasp) really overweight, and having his stepson show up and assure everyone that the fat guy is just this huge asshole, but that doesn’t change the essential unpleasantness of what’s happening.
Yeah, I know: lighten up. Different viewers obviously will have different standards for this sort of thing, and it would be silly of me to rail at the episode for some kind of lapse in moral judgement. The Sons are outlaws, after all. That’s built into the DNA of the show, and likable as they are, they frequently engage in questionable behavior; Jax’s (and to a lesser extent Tara’s) struggle to find out just how far they’re willing to go has been a long-running theme for Sons of Anarchy, and it would be dishonest for them, or for any of the rest of the club, to suddenly turn into saints. (Handlen, 2012)
Sources
Handlen, Zack. (2012, 9 October). “Orca Shrugged.” A.V. Club. Read it here.
Kohler, Will. (2012, 10 October). FX’s Sons of Anarchy uses negative transgender stereotype for comic relief. Back2Stonewall. Read it here.
Mikelonis, Daniel. (2012, 9 October). Sons of Anarchy recap: All this sex and violence is getting old. Buddy TV. Read it here.
Further Reading
Reed, Natalie. (2112, 10 October). The eunuch, the rapist, the whore, and the child who simply knew. Sincerely, Natalie Reed. Read it here.
Reed begins by denouncing this transphobic article about the Orca Shrugged episode and slips into an an analysis of the ways transwomen are viewed. A good read, Reed! If you happen to read this, Ms. Reed, go here for an even more transphobic review.