‘The socialist in me welcomes the kind of democratization these platforms are bringing to our creative community and the viewing public,” executive producer Jill Solloway said of her Amazon.com web-based series Transparent, which premiered in February. “I feel like I’m part of this creative revolution, like an Arab Spring . . . sweeping across the land.”
Not a very promising description, and unfortunately, Soloway’s Transparent has only gone downhill from there.
Transparent is one of Amazon’s early attempts at keeping up with Netflix’s impressive lineup of original new shows (House of Cards, Peaky Blinders, etc.), but it feels more like an attempt to win Best New Cultural Indoctrination Vehicle at Sundance than something intended to attract new viewers/subscribers.
The story revolves around the neurotic, selfish, broken members of the Pfefferman family in Los Angeles, who learn of their 68-year-old father Mort’s (Jeffery Tambor) decision to come out as an openly transgender female named Maura. Formerly a renowned history professor forced to hide his double life from his ex-wife and kids, Mort/Maura now leads an existence of retired leisure in Pacific Palisades, where he must navigate the tricky task of embracing his new persona without totally freaking out his family.
His three adult children — a Type A, married eldest daughter; a hipster music-producer son; and a depressed, drug-addled, nymphomaniac youngest daughter — are all basically “cool with it.” Sure, it might take some time getting used to the fact that their father is now a second mother, but all of these characters have their own destructive behaviors to engage in, which doesn’t leave much time to fret over the fact that Pops now wants to use the ladies’ room at the mall.
The eldest daughter, Sarah, champions her father’s gender-bending metamorphosis, but is mostly preoccupied with a rekindled, passionate love affair with a lesbian crush from her college days. The fact that Sarah is currently married (to a man) and has two impressionable young kids is small potatoes when compared to sexual encounters with her new/old partner, Tammy. Sarah takes off for long stretches from her duties as a wife and mom to rendezvous with her.
But all is forgiven, and Sarah is depicted as a moral compass, because she supports her dad’s lifestyle. Sarah’s husband, Len, is an intolerant rube because he isn’t very comfortable with seeing his pre-teen kids exposed to complicated sexual-identity issues at such a young age.
What a bigoted fool!
Sarah’s little sister, Ali, is a pill-popping, money-wasting, panty-dropping trust-fund baby who dresses like a teenage boy on his way to wrestling practice and can’t decide whether she loves listening to random vinyl records from the ’70s or really loves listening to random vinyl records from the ’70s. Ali is a free spirit and is certain that there is such a thing as a free lunch. She is supportive of her father’s choices, but only begrudgingly, because it takes away from the “I’m the most messed-up one in the family” spotlight that used to be exclusively hers.
The middle child — a witty, bearded, cooler-than-you kid named Josh — is the last to find out about dad’s movement on the gender spectrum. Like Len, Josh is given intolerant, red-state, Bible-thumping lines about being fine with Mort/Maura’s activities so long as he does them in the privacy of his own home. But don’t worry: Josh is made to see the error of his prejudiced ways and realizes that his parents are messed up people like the rest of us, so who is he to judge?
The only likeable male character in the show is the father who wants to be a woman.
Despite its best attempts to make you think differently, there is no morality at play in Transparent, save that of the most strident, progressive-minded type (where there is only one right answer). This means that there is no drama to speak of in Transparent. It plays more like the dramatization of a Gender Studies lecture at Berkley (or Madison, where the show’s creator went to college) than a compelling narrative.
Putting all politics and cultural issues aside, to see such reckless, self-focused behavior in the midst of broken (or breaking) homes and vulnerable young kids is heartbreaking. At one point, Mort/Maura lectures another character who is uncomfortable with the way the family is publicly handling the situation by saying, “You can either get in this whirlpool that we’re all in, or you can get out.” I wanted out. And I wanted to take the children with me.
In a departure from family-comedy series of the past, the first season of Transparent does not depict much in the way of familial love. This is because love requires sacrifice and putting others before yourself. Here, self-indulgence masquerades as cultural progress (all while wagging a finger at anyone who isn’t wholeheartedly on board).
You’re better off keeping up with the Kardashians than the Pfeffermans.
— R. J. Moeller is a writer based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @rjmoeller.