Business Insider scrubs article defending Scarlett Johansson playing a trans man

Maxwell Tani
The Daily Beast
Tue, 10 Jul 2018 11:17 UTC

© Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Business Insider removed a post about portrayals of trans individuals in Hollywood after staff complained internally about the column, saying the article did not meet the publication's standards.

On Friday, conservative columnist Daniella Greenbaum published a piece titled: "Scarlett Johansson is being unfairly criticized for doing her job after being cast as a transgender man."

In the piece, she criticized the backlash to the decision to cast Johansson as a trans man in the upcoming movie, Rub and Tug.

"The job of an actor is to represent someone else," Greenbaum wrote. "Johansson's identity off the screen is irrelevant to the identities she plays on the screen. That's what she's paid for. And if she does her job, she'll make everyone forget about the controversy in the first place."

Several Business Insider staff told The Daily Beast that some employees were offended by the column.

The publication took down the piece on Friday, and appended an editor's note to the page on Tuesday saying that "Business Insider removed the column because, upon further review, we decided it did not meet our editorial standards."

The decision also prompted the publication to alter its own internal editorial policies.

In an email to editors on Monday obtained by The Daily Beast, global editor-in-chief Nich Carlson announced that BI would create an internally available list of employees who had "volunteered to talk about culture and identity issues" to other staff. Further, Carlson also announced that "culturally sensitive columns, analysis, and opinion pieces" would now be reviewed by the company's executive editors before publication.

"Editors should make sure we are not publishing shallow, 'hot takes,' but instead, fully thought-out arguments that reflect and respect the opposing view," Carlson said. "There should be no partisan name-calling, e.g. 'social justice warriors,' 'libtards,' or 'rednecks.' Opinion and arguments should feel reported and researched, and not like quick reactions."

Comment: While this sounds like a good policy, they are not so subtly implying that this characterizes Greenbaum's article, which is not the case (see comment below). The piece is neither a 'hot take' nor an example of 'partisan name-calling'. It simply points out the hypocrisy of the manufactured outrage over an actress doing her job. In other words, since it counters the liberal narrative effectively, the article had to go.

"This does not mean our argument-writers should not take big swings, or that they must have opinions shared by everyone in our newsroom."

Comment: In this case, "This does not mean..." is Orwellian double speak for "This means precisely that..."

Since Business Insider hired her earlier this year, Greenbaum has published a series of right-leaning opinions on the site that have occasionally sparked controversy. A recent column suggesting that Democrats embrace former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's political views was widely criticized on Twitter by many on the left.

Through a Business Insider's spokesperson on Tuesday, Greenbaum said she disagrees with the decision to take down Friday's post, saying she stands by her original piece.

Comment: The original Business Insider piece can be found through Google cache:

Scarlett Johansson is being unfairly criticized for doing her job after being cast as a transgender man

Daniella Greenbaum Jul. 6, 2018, 10:56 AM

• She's a cisgender woman playing a transgender man. Most people would call it acting. Others are calling it insensitive.
• Scarlett Johansson is being criticized for doing her job.

Scarlett Johansson is the latest target of the social-justice warrior mob. The actress is being chastised for, well, acting.

She has been cast in a movie in which she will play someone different than herself. For this great crime - which seems to essentially define the career path she has chosen - she is being castigated for being insufficiently sensitive to the transgender community.

Johansson is set to play a transgender man in an upcoming film, "Rub and Tug," a film based on the true story of transgender massage parlor owner Dante "Tex" Gill. The announcement quickly garnered a reaction.

Trace Lysette, a transgender actress who plays Shea on "Transparent" took to Twitter: "And not only do you play us and steal our narrative and our opportunity but you pat yourselves on the back with trophies and accolades for mimicking what we have lived... so twisted. I'm so done."

Her framing of the issue, which has been echoed by other actors and activists, is off base. "Stealing" narratives - or, more charitably, playing parts - is precisely what actors are hired to do. But that reality seems to have been forgotten. CNN wrote a story about the issue entitled, "These trans actors could have been cast instead of Scarlett Johansson in her new movie."

It's hard to imagine people having the same reaction in other scenarios - a rich actor being hired to play a poor person; an actor whose real-life parents were still living being hired to play an orphan; a perfectly nice, upstanding member of society being cast as a rapist; or an actor with no scientific experience being cast as a paleontologist.

Yet all of these examples (and dozens more) could also be strangely characterized as "stealing" narratives. I'm sure there's a class on how to do just that at the Yale school of Drama.

A New York Times story on the fallout described the online backlash as being "led by transgender actors, who argued that such casting decisions take opportunities away from members of marginalized communities."

What they fail to acknowledge is that the job of an actor is to represent someone else. Johansson's identity off the screen is irrelevant to the identities she plays on the screen. That's what she's paid for. And if she does her job, she'll make everyone forget about the controversy in the first place.