Scarlett Johansson has come under fire
for taking a transgender role.
The 33-year-old Johansson is slated to
play a transgender character in the upcoming film Rub & Tug.
In the film, Johansson will play Dante “Tex” Gill, a transgender
man who owns a massage parlor in Pittsburgh in the 1970s.
“Literally the LEAST you could do
when making a movie about trans people is to cast a trans person in
the role that was written for them,” a user wrote on Twitter.
“Scarlett Johansson needs to stop naively choosing roles, and
studios need to do better.”
Another user suggested Johansson should
“ask Hollywood to keep looking” for a transgender actor to play
the part.
In a
statement given to Bustle,
Johansson responded to the criticism, saying that such critics should
be “directed to Jeffrey Tambor, Jared Leto and Felicity Huffman's
reps for comment,” a reference to actors who received critical
acclaim for playing transgender characters.