Why 'A Fantastic Woman' star Daniela Vega should be the first trans performer nominated for Best Actress
You may not know her name now, but Daniela Vega does some of the best work of the year in A Fantastic Woman — a most fitting title for this gorgeous Chilean movie — which should earn her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. If that happens, she will become the the first trans person to ever be nominated for acting.
In Sebastián Lelio's film, Vega plays Marina, a woman suddenly beset by tragedy. In the opening moments we see her celebrating her birthday with her boyfriend Orlando. The two of them clearly have a deep affection and passion for one another. Minutes later, he's up in the middle of the night short of breath. Soon after, he's dead.
Marina immediately stifles her devastation, aware of the judgment his family passes on their relationship. But she is bombarded with their unrestrained vitriol as they infiltrate the life she built with Orlando and go out of their way to make sure she does not mourn him in public.
On top of that, she is forced to endure the humiliation of a detective looking into Orlando's death as suspicious, the prejudiced assumption being that, because Marina is trans, she was likely involved in sex work. These people intrude on the peaceful, love-filled life she had built for herself, taking aim at her humanity while they do so.
A Fantastic Woman explores Marina's grief and how the pain of that is compounded by the bigots that surround her. However, Vega's work is largely about defiance in the face of that hostility. You can see it in the way she carries her body — her stature is a rigid challenge to the callousness she's experiencing. But in her eyes you can see the buried trauma of losing a loved one and the repressed pain caused by the aggressions she's facing.
No sequence exemplifies this more fully than one that comes relatively late in the film. Marina has just been abducted and tormented by Orlando's vindictive son and his friends. They pull tape around her face, disfiguring it while spewing hate, and then dump her in an alley. She stares at her obscured reflection in the mirror of a car, before ripping off the tape and heading to a club where she dances with abandon — her posture finally loosening — and throws herself into a casual hookup.
And then fantasy seeps in. Her sweaty dancing turns into a choreographed routine. She's suddenly wearing a jacket with marvelous, shimmering fringe. Euphoria hits her eyes as the camera focuses on her face. It's a subtle yet marvelous transformation.
It's almost expected at this point that if a cis actor plays a trans role in a prestige movie, he or she will be nominated for an Oscar. The Academy has previously handed out trophies to Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry and Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, and nominated many more.
It's worth noting that Vega would not be the first trans nominee ever: In 2016, Anohni was nominated for Best Original Song, and in the 1970s, Angela Morley was nominated twice for her scores. But a nod for Vega would challenge a trend that has become outdated to the point of insidiousness.
The Oscars, for better or worse, mean a lot in Hollywood. Even a nomination for a trans actor in a trans role could potentially signal a sea change, yielding more opportunities for trans performers and dissuading filmmakers of the notion that hiring a big name cis star is the only path to success.
There's a possibility A Fantastic Woman simply won't get the attention it needs to propel Vega to Oscar glory. It's a foreign film, for one, and a piece that's decidedly understated. But Vega already has some buzz behind her, and the talent to match.
Topics LGBTQ
