Amazon’s new show Jack Ryan under fire for transphobic slur
John Krasinski premiere of “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” at The Opening Night of Los Angeles Fleet Week 2018 at Battleship Iowa on August 31, 2018 in San Pedro, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
A new Amazon show that premiered on Friday has been criticised for its use of a transphobic slur as part of a joke at the expense of trans people.
While watching the third episode of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, LGBT+ activist Eliel Cruz noticed the problematic dialogue exchange and denounced it in a series tweets addressed to the show’s official Twitter account.
“This just came out and I’m on the third episode and they use a trans slur. In 2018. As two trans women were murdered in the last 24 hours,” he wrote, referring to the killings of Dejanay L. Stanton and Vontashia Bell, in Illinois and Louisiana respectively.
(Eliel Cruz/Twitter)
“Trans women die because of shit like this. It’s not a throw away joke,” he continued, including a clip of the dialogue, in which a Navy Officer asks her colleague how he got a black eye. “Did you accidentally pick up another tranny on Fremont Street?” she says.
“Like FFS. How did that script get approved,” Cruz wondered. Dozens of other social media users agreed with Cruz, liking and retweeting his posts hundreds of times, echoing his outrage.
“Hey @jackryanamazon, this is unacceptable because it bolsters the idea that trans women aren’t women, and that men should be ashamed for being involved with them. These kinds of toxic cultural ideas lead to the murder of trans women of colour REGULARLY. You need to do better,” writer Austen Hartke wrote in support of Cruz’s point.
A general view of the premiere of Amazon Prime’s of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan at the Battleship Iowa on August 31, 2018 in San Pedro, California (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty)
“Love being the butt of the joke when I see my sisters being murdered every day and their murderers getting away with it because obviously ‘trannys’ don’t matter. Canceling my prime membership been meaning to do it because of how they treat their workers too,” a student tweeting from the handle Tahlia_Rene wrote.
Trans rights activist Emily Gorcenski shared a personal experience in denouncing the slur. “I’m a trans woman who has survived an actual terrorist attack in real life, ran toward the attacker, and then spent the next 12 months shifting entire military policy. You wanna explain the use of this slur to my face, you cowards?” she wrote.
Amazon’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan was shown at Battleship Iowa on August 31, 2018 in San Pedro, California (Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty)
In a recent case involving transphobia at the company, several Pride posters were defaced at the company’s headquarters in the past few months—in one instance, reported in an internal email seen by CNBC, the “T” in “LGBT” was crossed out and the word “Why?” was added to the sign.
Amazon employees have reportedly been left dissatisfied by the company’s response to a number of Pride posters that were defaced at its headquarters, which was to remind employees that “posters are company property” and that “defacing posters is a violation of Amazon’s policy,” without addressing the transphobic and homophobic attitudes symbolised by the acts of vandalism.
In relation to this issue, an Amazon spokesperson told PinkNews that the company has “always been, and always will be, committed to equal rights, tolerance and diversity.”
