14 DAY TRIAL // A new ABC sitcom is generating a very intense debate even though it's not out yet. GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign are taking offense with the way “Work It” presents transgender people to the viewers at home.
“Work It” is based on an idea that's been done and over-done in feature films, that of men dressing up as women in order to land a job.
It might seem a relatively harmless idea ripe with comedic potential, but it's actually sending the wrong message to viewers at home: namely, that all transgender women are actually men in women's clothes.
Both GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign are urging people at home to plead with the network to stop the show from airing, Radar Online reports.
“The HRC is urging supporters to send emails asking the network not to 'air a show that reinforces negative and damaging stereotypes about transgender people',” the e-zine says.
“The show doesn't claim to depict transgender people, and in fact the network has called it an updated version of Bosom Buddies, but the two groups don't see the humor,” notes the same publication.
“Work It” tells the story of two men played by Ben Koldyke, Amaury Nolasco, both unemployed car salesmen, who decide to dress up as women and apply for a job with a pharmaceutical company looking to employ only female salespeople.
As you can see, the idea is not new. Even so, GLAAD says it will only come to pour fuel on a fire that's already burning brightly.
“Transphobia is still all too prevalent in our society and this show will only contribute to it,” GLAAD acting president Mike Thompson says in a statement cited by Radar.
“It will reinforce the mistaken belief that transgender women are simply 'men pretending to be women,' and that their efforts to live their lives authentically as women are a form of lying or deception,” Mr. Thompson further says.
So far, ABC has not commented in any way the call for boycott coming from the two groups. “Work It” is scheduled to premiere on January 3 so that means network bosses have only so little time left to change their mind.