Transparent is an American comedy-drama web television series created by Jill Soloway for Amazon Studios that debuted on February 6, 2014. The story revolves around a Los Angeles family and their lives following the discovery that the person they knew as their father Mort (Jeffrey Tambor) is a trans woman. Transparent's first season premiered in full on September 26, 2014, the second season on December 11, 2015, third season on September 23, 2016, and the fourth season on September 21, 2017.
Amazon picked up the series for a fourth season ahead of the premiere of the third. The fourth season premiered on September 22, 2017. Shortly before the premiere, Amazon renewed the series for a fifth and final season.
At the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, the show won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy, while Jeffrey Tambor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. This is the first show produced by Amazon Studios to win a major award and the first show produced by a streaming media service to win a Golden Globe for Best Series.
The series began airing on Sundance TV starting August 9, 2017.
On November 19, 2017, Tambor announced he had left the series after two sexual harassment allegations were made against him. He was officially fired from Transparent on February 15, 2018.
Video Transparent (TV series)
Cast
Main cast
- Jeffrey Tambor (seasons 1-4) as Maura Pfefferman (born Morton Pfefferman), a retired college professor of political science who finally opens up to her family about always identifying as a woman.
- Amy Landecker as Sarah Pfefferman, the oldest sibling. She is married and has two children. She leaves her husband for Tammy, a woman she fell in love with in college. She is initially the most accepting of her father's transition.
- Jay Duplass as Joshua "Josh" Pfefferman, the middle sibling. A successful music producer who has troubled relationships with women. He seems to have a hard time accepting his father's transition at first.
- Gaby Hoffmann as Alexandra "Ali" Pfefferman, the youngest sibling. She is perpetually unemployed and has a tendency to be immature for her age. Hoffmann also plays Maura's mother Rose in flashbacks.
- Judith Light as Shelly Pfefferman, Maura's ex-wife and the mother of Sarah, Josh, and Ali. She has been aware of Maura's desire to express her inner femininity for years.
- Kathryn Hahn as Rabbi Raquel Fein (recurring Seasons 1-2, main cast Season 3) Josh's ex-fiancée and rabbi at the Pfeffermans' synagogue.
Recurring cast
Maps Transparent (TV series)
Episodes
Background
Soloway felt inspired to create Transparent after their father came out as transgender. They created the pilot for Amazon.com, which became available for free streaming and download on February 6, 2014 as part of Amazon's second pilot season. Amazon Studios picked up the pilot for Transparent in March, 2014, ordering a ten-episode season.
Tambor had previously portrayed transvestite judge Alan Wachtel on the police procedural television show Hill Street Blues in the 1980s. Soloway wrote Hoffmann's role after seeing her performance on Season 3 of Louis C.K.'s show Louie.
Transparent premiered all ten episodes simultaneously in late September 2014. In Canada, where Amazon's video streaming service was not available, the series premiered on the Shomi platform on January 23, 2015.
Religious themes
The series depicts several Jewish characters and deals with spiritually and culturally Jewish themes. Jill Soloway, the series' primary creator, is Jewish and uses Rabbi Susan Goldberg of Wilshire Boulevard Temple as a consultant for the show. They also seek advice from Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of New York, describing him as "a God-optional patriarchy-toppling Jewish modern mind. There's a mandate among religious and spiritual thinkers to be thinking about the binary, the gendered, the feminist, the goddess, and Amichai reminds me of that every day." The focus is mainly on the Jewish experience as viewed through the dual prisms of Reform Judaism and Jewish cultural identity.
Production
Soloway has said that they hope to use the series to explore ideas of gender identity through a "wounded father being replaced by a blossoming femininity" and that they pictured Tambor as Maura when writing the character.
Soloway, the writers, and the cast developed, workshopped, and rehearsed both seasons with consulting producer Joan Scheckel at Joan Scheckel Filmmaking Labs.
As part of the making of the show, Soloway enacted a "transfirmative action program", whereby transgender applicants are hired in preference to cisgender ones. As of August 2014, over eighty transgender people have worked on the show, including Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst who are transgender consultants and co-producers.
In 2014, Our Lady J was chosen as the first openly transgender person to be a writer for the show. All the bathrooms on set are gender-neutral.
The original pilot made available in February 2014 (with Gillian Vigman in the role of Tammy) was partly reshot after the series was approved.
On November 19, 2017, Tambor quit the show amidst sexual harassment allegations made against him.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season holds an approval rating of 98% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "As much about a change in television as it is about personal change, Transparent raises the bar for programming with sophistication and sincere dedication to the human journey, warts and all." On Metacritic, the first season received an average rating of 91 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Alan Sepinwall from HitFix named Transparent the best new show of the Fall 2014 season and Amazon's "most impressive volley yet". He added:
"... [The] show looks gorgeous and displays an instant command of both tone and this particular pocket of life in Los Angeles; Soloway is incredibly confident in introducing us to the parts of the show that are more universally relatable (a marriage gone sour, a disappointing child), knowing that we'll then follow her into more unfamiliar territory--not just with Maura, but the many disreputable behaviors her kids get tangled up in."
The second season of Transparent received a 2015 Peabody Award. The second season holds a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 36 reviews, with an average rating of 9.2/10. The consensus reads: "Transparent's second season ups its dramatic stakes while retaining the poignancy and humor that have made the series such a consistently entertaining example of the best that modern serial drama has to offer." On Metacritic, the second season received an average rating of 94 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
On Rotten Tomatoes, the third season has an approval rating of 100% based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Uniquely its own, and compelling and poignant as ever, Transparent continues to transcend the parameters of comedic and dramatic television with sustained excellence in its empathic portrayal of the Pfefferman family." while Metacritic granted the season an average rating of 90 of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
International broadcast
In Australia, the first two episodes of the series premiered on the Nine Network on January 27, 2015, and all subsequent episodes premiered on streaming service Stan upon its launch.
Amazon Video, which was not available in Canada at the time, was launched on the Shomi platform.
Awards
On December 11, 2014, the series was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the category Best TV Comedy. On January 11, 2015, Transparent won two Golden Globe awards for the first season of the series. Tambor dedicated his win for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series to the transgender community, while Soloway dedicated their award to the memory of Leelah Alcorn.
See also
- Normal (2003)
- Becoming Us (2015)
- List of transgender characters in film and television
References
External links
- Official website
- Transparent on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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