Comedy

One transgendered woman, 8 bachelors, and no secrets

Transamerican Love Story is perhaps more accurately described as a reality dating series than a comedy, but there is awful lot of campy comedy in this reality.

No secrets here, either. I’ll offer a personal disclaimer: series star Calpernia Adams is a friend of mine, as is her production partner and co-host Andrea James. I watched this project take shape at not-too-great of a distance, and screened the pilot on Andrea’s couch, surrounded by friends and cats.

What is familiar about Transamerican is the format. Like Bachelor , Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire, and whatever that sorry series is with the rock star and the skanky women, contestants in Transamerican are real people, vying for the attention and love of the show’s star. One by one, they’re eliminated. What is different: Calpernia is a tall, ethereally beautiful, sidesplittingly witty, trans woman. So is her longtime collaborator and confidant in real life, Andrea, who servse as consigliere here, too.

Part of what I enjoy in this show are the rhythms of tease and reveal, and what they teach us viewers about our own presumptions of gender identity. That ultramasculine, dominating drill sergeant guy on the beach, who brutally administers test after test of suitors’ physical endurance? A female-to-male trans person. And the bachelors who pursue Callie range from straight, to “pansexual,” to transsexual male.

There is no television format more tightly bound to traditional gender roles than reality dating programs. The fact that this show’s stars don’t fit in those roles is what lends the show magic, and makes it fresh. Callie and Andrea’s dry, at times self-deprecating humor imbues what would otherwise be a predictable fomat with fierce LOLs.

Calpernia and Andrea, together and separately, represent an amazing body of work — including roles as producers and cast in the first-ever trans performance of The Vagina Monologues, Andrea’s work on the movie Transamerica (starring Felicity Huffman) and Callie’s numerous and popular DIY music videos on YouTube.

Calpernia first came to public attention ten years ago, in a very different context. She explains:

In 1999 I met a soldier named Barry Winchell. I was a showgirl, he was in the Army, both of us at defining moments in our lives, and we fell into an intense, private relationship almost immediately. We found something in each other that made us happy and kept the dark side of existence a little farther away from our demanding, difficult lives. We only had a short time together, enough time to begin to hope that things could progress and life could change from loneliness to love, and then he was murdered by two fellow soldiers. Stolen away from his family, friends and me. You never know when life is going to change, or to end.

The story of their relationship, and of Barry Winchell’s death, was retold in the movie “Soldier’s Girl.” Here’s a related NYT article. Here’s the page on Callie’s website about the personal story, and the film.

You’ll notice on the bottom of that web page that Callie asks strangers not to bring up Winchell’s death, out of the blue, when meeting her for the first time. Sometimes fans do that, and it’s hurtful. I mention it here because — I know this is corny, I’m sorry — I believe that at its best, the kind of comedy created by people who have suffered and prevailed in life resonates in a deeper way.

Whatever you learn from Callie’s show, and yes, it is a silly reality show, I think you’ll learn that being “Transamerican” is not easy. And I think you will also learn that great beauty, and great comedy, can come from a life not easy.