“I Don’t Get It”

By now I think most of you have heard the ABC comedy “Work It”, which has the trans-community up in arms. The show is so wrong on so many levels.

ABC chief on 'Work It' harming transgender community: 'I don't get it'
Entertainment Weekly
By Lynette Rice
January 10, 2012

Sorry, GLAAD — ABC Entertainment topper Paul Lee doesn’t get why you have issues with Work It.

While talking to reporters at the annual Television Critics Tour in Pasadena today, Lee said he was stumped by a campaign from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign that accuses the cross dressing comedy of being harmful to transgenders. “I didn’t really get it,” he said. “I loved Tootsie. I still love Tootsie. I didn’t get it. But that’s probably me.”

But he clearly realizes the polarizing show remains a hot topic — which is why he began his morning panel with his idea of a joke: “So what do you think of Work It?” The Brit was loath to say exactly how he feels about the comedy’s (dreadful) performance so far, other than to stick to his original mantra about developing “ambitious” shows. “We thought there was room for a very very very silly show.”But apparently, there isn’t room for another light comedy, Cougar Town. ABC’s still not ready to announce a start date.

Why is that the people with power never know how they are oppressing those without power? For the trans-community this is the equivalent of Blackface. This is not Tootsie, but it is slapstick and the butt of the jokes is trans-people.

About eight or ten years ago a local gay bar had a blackface comedy act where a white man was in blackface as a fat black woman and when there was a huge backlash the bar owner just couldn’t understand why people were upset. The television show is just as degrading.