The Guy Pearce Apology is a Capitulation?
I think not. What am I missing?
We are very familiar with celebrities saying something that goes against Critical Social Justice ideology, receiving a backlash from activists and then offering a grovelling apology. This apology typically takes the form of the author:
Deeply regretting the pain they have caused by expressing a quite reasonable and arguable view that attacks nobody.
Saying they now realise how harmful and/or violent such thinking was and committing to never engaging in unauthorised thought again.
Unquestioningly accepting all criticisms of their own words, beliefs and motivations as valid whether they remotely represent what they said or believe or their motivations for doing so or not.
Deploring several of their own immutable characteristics such as being the owner of a penis which is of a light colour and responsive to members of the opposite sex and affirming that the owner of such an organ can never have a valid opinion about anything.
Affirming that only people who belong to the relevant identity group and ascribe to Critical Social Justice ideas are legitimate authorities on the correct opinion to have on the current issue.
Promising to shut up and learn from such individuals what the correct opinion is while recognising that they have no responsibility to expend their emotional labour in educating anybody.
It is all extremely tiresome and cringeworthy. It is not even likely to appease the offended parties who will just find something to problematise in the apology and further evidence that the apologiser is evil and fan the flames of outrage and increase the risk of cancellation. This has led to the generally sound advice not to apologise to the professionally offended.
Therefore, many people are disappointed that Guy Pearce has apologised for questioning whether only trans actors can play trans characters and believe he has fallen into this trap. Having read the apology, I really don’t think he has. Rather, I think it is clear that he has apologised only for raising the issue on Twitter, the home of perpetual outrage, and for raising it in relation to one group when his point was much broader. Otherwise, he has asserted his right to discuss the point he was making, stressed the importance of being able to do that even if it pisses people off, unapologetically clarified what his point was and what it wasn’t, and further argued for it while rejecting the primacy of “lived experience” in the field of acting.
Bravo, sir, I say.
Pearce did all this from the start. His original tweet asked the perfectly reasonable question:
“A question – if the only people allowed to play trans characters r trans folk, then r we also suggesting the only people trans folk can play r trans characters?
“Surely that will limit ur career as an actor? Isn’t the point of an actor to be able play anyone outside ur own world?”
His point was that this position severely limits the job opportunities of trans actors in this context and of all actors in a broader one. When people responded to this by arguing that there were too few roles for trans actors, he rightly pointed out that this is an entirely different issue to whether or not actors ought to be confined to certain roles, saying,
“Ok, so if this debate is actually about Trans actors not getting the opportunities to work like other actors do then let’s be clear about that & state that precisely. That’s a very different point. Good to be exact, I say.”
This is somebody being politely assertive about what his point was, not capitulating to any ideology. When Pearce wrote his apology, he continues in this vein, only apologising for things he himself thought were misjudged. He did not apologise for what activists would like him to apologise for: having an opinion on identity-based casting while being a straight, white man. He did not recite any of the approved mantras of trans activists and he explicitly rejects identity-based lived experience as an overriding authority to which everybody of a different identity should bow. Rather, he asserts that this is an issue of concern to the whole artistic community that must be able to be discussed.
I find myself somewhat confused that there are a significant number of people who would normally approve this attitude seeming not to see what I see in what he actually wrote, but only noting that he apologised and feeling that he shouldn’t have.
Therefore, I am going to close-read Pearce’s apology and anybody who thinks I am misreading it when I see it as a defence of artistic freedom and opposition to standpoint epistemology & identity-based casting, can tell me where they think I am going wrong.
“Hello everyone,
[Decidedly casual and not very penitent greeting]
I see that raising the question of gender identity within the casting process on a platform like Twitter was not a good idea. For that, I apologise, enormously.
[He’s apologising for raising the issue on Twitter. It is that for which he is apologising, not for raising the issue at all. Further, he describes this as '“not a good idea” suggesting an error, not an offence]
I acknowledge it has only stirred up and inflamed attitudes and made us all dig our heels in. I take responsibility for that and again, apologise for starting a fire.
[The problem is that Twitter is a place where things blow up and people are resistant to changing their minds. He thinks he should have known one simple tweet would start a drama and regrets not anticipating that. Also note how he says ‘made us all dig our heels in.’ He’s definitely not conceding moral authority to his critics but including them as barriers to productive conversation.]
This is a subject that needs to be discussed face to face, person to person and over a good amount of time where we are all heard and understood.
[This line is absolutely packed with unapologetic assertiveness about the need to be able to discuss things as individuals on an equal footing. Pearce has no intention of shutting up and thinks this needs to be discussed. Note the individualism in ‘face to face’ and ‘person to person.’ There is no mention of identity groups or identity-based knowledge, just of individual people talking to each other. Note the universalism in “where we are all heard and understood.” This is not someone who is going to sit down & be told what to think. This is someone who is going to listen to and understand other points of view but also expects that courtesy to be returned. He acknowledges no single authority in this discussion]
It is also a subject that I understand is complex and sensitive.
[Well, yes, it is. Following the assertiveness of his previous statement about everybody’s right to discuss how casting should work, Pearce is now vulnerable to accusations of being too blasé and not realising that it is a sensitive issue for many people. He assures them that he does]
I want to take this opportunity to say it is very clear to me that in many areas of life discrimination, which should have no place in a modern society unfortunately still thrives. Indeed members of my own family have been subjected to different but every bit as pernicious prejudice
[Pearce then expands on this by making it clear that he is well aware that discrimination has not gone away. He then steps into dangerous waters again, though, with “different but every bit as pernicious prejudice.” This clearly implies that trans people do not have a monopoly on being discriminated against which is likely to be received angrily by trans activists, but it is also an acknowledgement that trans people do face prejudice. By bringing together different forms of prejudice as common experiences that should be consistently opposed by everybody, Pearce is invoking the universal liberal position that stands in direct contrast to the identity politics approach. See here for an explanation of this].
I understand how my question – asking ’If trans actors are the only ones allowed to play trans roles then are we also suggesting trans actors are therefore only allowed to play trans characters?” is insensitive.
[It is not clear at this point why he thinks it is insensitive, but, given the universal liberal approach above, we can anticipate that the reason is because it singled out one group rather than applying the principle more broadly]
The point I wanted to raise was one about defending the definition of acting and nothing more. Throwing the subject onto one minority group in particular was unnecessary…
[Bingo. He has broadened out immediately to defending a principle that he considers of relevance to all actors and the art of acting and regrets having raised this principle in relation to one group. He thinks this was a misjudgement for two reasons. Calling it “unnecessary” suggests that relating it to trans actors and characters does not assist with the broader point and could actually distract from it. Calling it “insensitive” suggests that relating it to trans actors and characters could be misunderstood as having a specific issue with trans actors or trans people].
…especially from a man like me, with a “Full House” of privilege. I’m in no position to complain about fairness, at least not on my own behalf.
[This seems to confirm some feelings of anxiety about having singled out trans actors in this example and that he could be seen as targeting a minority group while not belonging to any minority group himself. He wants to make it very clear that this was not his intention. The reference to having the ““Full House” of privilege” indicates that he does see himself as having certain unfair advantages due to being a straight, white man and a responsibility not to make advancement any more difficult to those without those advantages. [[It is likely this reference to “privilege” has set off a chain reaction in the heads of many people hyper-alert to the language of Critical Social Justice and made them perceive a capitulation to the ideology in the apology that I do not think is warranted in the broader context. If Pearce does indeed believe straightforwardly that straight, white, men are privileged in the art world, there are very many artists who fit that description and artists who don’t who would like to argue with him about that claim, and he seems open to that process. In any case, this belief, if held, certainly does not stop him from continuing to argue against identity-based casting and for the right of everybody to have and express views, and therefore this does not appear to be any kind of capitulation.]]]
I raised the question because for 30 years now I’ve had many people ask me since doing Priscilla “Don’t you think gay people should’ve played those roles?” and now many similar discussions are occurring about trans actors and trans roles. It has led me to reflect even more about acting as an art form and its place in the world.
[More independent thinking appears to be forthcoming]
Our industry is already a cesspool of politics, bums on seats funding, nepotism, and favouritism.
It’s clear a great many minority communities are underrepresented on screen and that so too are actors from those communities.
[Pearce is making it clear that he can find common ground with many criticisms of the art world and film in particular and will make common cause with some of his critics on those issues. Identity based casting, however? Nope. We’re heading into the big finale now and an impassioned defence of the art of acting]
But I don’t believe artists should have to announce their personal identity, sexual preference, political stance, disability, religious beliefs etc to attain work.
[A powerful sentence. Get out of people’s identities and cast them on their acting]
I believe that to suggest ‘acting’ can only come from our own lived experience annihilates our imagination.
[This appears to be the crux of the matter for Pearce. What is acting worth if people can only act out what they have lived? Where is the art? The creativity?]
I wouldn’t want that restriction placed on a minority actor or any actor for that matter, myself included.
[Is it not clear now that this is not an apology for the original statement but an even stronger assertion of it following some explanation of what he is not saying?]
What I will say though, if I am going to play miles outside myself, it better be good. And on that metric I have always been willing to be judged, as I would hope the actor with lived experience is.
[This sounds suspiciously like a defence of meritocracy in the acting world and is potentially even more problematic than the original statement. It essentially argues that if an actor who is not, say, trans plays a trans character better than a trans actor also auditioning does, that former actor should get the role. Even more than that, the trans actor should also evaluate themselves on the metric of their acting and not on their identity or their life experience and he would hope that they did. This is a strong and provocative statement to CSJ activists that goes against everything they believe as well as a call to artists from minority groups to value their art over their identity and defy the identitarians.]
None of this is straightforward. But I do believe the artistic community must discuss and develop this within itself, yes, even if that involves a little shouting.
[He is well aware of how controversial this stance is but it is also vitally important to the art world. It must be discussed and he will not stop doing so even if people yell at him]
God forbid politicians or the press barons tell us what is acceptable.
[He will fight them on the beaches/die on this hill etc]
Thank you for reading
[He is deadly serious here. Read it again. Think about it. Help]
And again, sincere apologies for crassly focussing on just one already harassed minority in my original tweet.
[It’s really, really not about a problem with trans people. Please try to see the bigger picture and the actual point]
Guy Pearce
I've read through each of his statements, first without then with your commentary, and have to agree. I see him trying to politely raise an important matter of professional integrity, and questioning the future of acting if we are all placed into boxes we cannot escape from, because escaping from the boxes we are placed into is, I would say, the raison d'être of acting, the essence of why acting—and even all art forms—exists in the first place.
I would even go on to say, and I know you generally agree with this, is that this is one reason identity politics, whilst it can be useful from a certain point of view, is definitely not an ideology one should base one's entire life upon, at least not to the point where it becomes irrational and spiteful. I see Guy here making this point too, if from a narrower perspective.
I don't think you're missing anything - it's definitely not an "apology" for his views, or really an apology for the (pertinent) question he originally asked.
He does give half a nod (or maybe a quarter nod) towards a recognition of the themes of 'progressive' angst when he mentions his privilege, or asserts that a "great many" minority communities are underrepresented (just how many of these bloody 'communities' are there?), or when he describes his question as 'insensitive' (which it isn't - it's using a really hot-topic example to make a point - but any mention of 'trans' outside of, the seemingly mandatory, celebratory fawning is unacceptable).
He echoes Simon Callow's views in an interview where he states the general principle that "actors are involved in acting, rather than being".
The interview clip can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIq8Pv26bAM
I think Pearce should have just made his points without doing his half-hearted appeasement towards the current progressive themes, but it does, as you say, fall far, far short of the full-throated grovelling 6-step apology program that you (beautifully) outline.