Yes, the BC Liberals will not be marching in Vancouver’s annual Pride Parade and we all know why. Every other publication has beaten this story to death and I don’t have anything more to contribute. I have no interest in voicing my opinion because fuck my opinion. I’m not even living in Canada anymore. Instead, I am going to tip you off to the movie of the summer that you all must run and go see the minute you are done waving your rainbow flags.
Tangerine is the masterpiece of director Sean Baker. Widely known for his past films about Flatiron District counterfeiters and indebted Chinese delivery men, Tangerine is the story of Alexandra and Sin-Dee, two African American, transgender sex workers living in Los Angeles who discover that Sin-Dee’s boyfriend cheated on her over Christmas Eve. While eating donuts at a dumpy Hollywood spot, Alexandra accidentally spills that Sin-Dee’s boyfriend banged some “white fish”(slang for a cisgender white chick), so the two go on a rampage to find the girl and destroy her. Tangerine is the Sundance select of 2015 and has been getting rave reviews from New York Times to Buzzfeed to The Village Voice. Oh, and the whole movie was filmed on an iPhone. (You heard me.)
Being a straight male, Baker didn’t want to just jump into this story without some clout and understanding of a world he knew very little about. He tried to talk to women on the street, but most thought he was either a John or a cop and stayed away. Eventually, he met up with Mya Taylor (who also stars in the movie as Alexandra) when visiting the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Taylor graciously took to Baker and the idea, enlisting her friend Kitana Kiki Rodriguez to play Sin-Dee. The two woman helped Baker shape his story and develop the plot.
“I was immediately interested, but I never imagined it would become this,”Taylor said in a recent YouTube interview with The Oral History of Hollywood.
Baker told i-D magazine that Taylor gave the film it’s “passport”and schooled the way he treated the entire production. “Mya [Taylor] said, 'I'll make this film with you if you promise me two things: one, I want you to go for it in terms of the realism. You need to show how hard it is for the women out here and I don't want you to shy away from things. But I also want this film to be hilarious because I want this film to be entertainment for the women out here as well.' It took me several days to think about it, worrying about this balancing act, and then I realized what she was asking me was probably saving me in many ways.”
Tangerine could not come along at a more poignant time, especially when it comes to trans people’s visibility and rights. Fully aware of this now (a year and half post-production), Baker said he experienced the discrimination facing the girls first hand while filming all over Los Angeles.
“This is something that these women have to deal with all the time, and I witnessed only a small part of it,”he told i-D. “My hope is that audiences in suburbia USA will connect with the characters of Alexandra and Sin-Dee, and that they then get on their computer and Google and start to learn more. That awareness will hopefully lead to acceptance.”
Political progress aside, this movie is hilarious and passionate. It’s raw in the right places, no Hollywood over-dramatic bullshit. Just off-the-cuff, unscripted scenes between two best friends surviving the way they know how.
“All men cheat,”Alexandra tells Sin-Dee after breaking the news about her boyfriend. Sin-Dee angrily taps her make-up brush on a glass window, darting her eyes. “Do them just as dirty as they do us. Out here it is all about our hustle…and that is it.”
• Tangerine is playing at VanCity Theatre July 31, August 1 & 3.
