Among the record number of documentaries hoping for an Oscar nomination this season, Disclosure is one that’s not only about Hollywood, but could also help change it.

The Netflix doc about trans representation (or misrepresentation) in movies and television has already made a profound difference, inspiring writers, actors, and producers to reexamine themselves and their upcoming work.

Director Sam Feder spoke with Vanity Fair about the storytellers trying to get it right, how audiences should feel about having laughed at the wrong things, and the classic cartoon rascal who struck a surprising high note for trans representation.

Vanity Fair: Disclosure premiered at Sundance a year ago, then on Netflix in the summer. What are some of the reactions you’ve gotten from those specifically in the film or television industry, and how are those reactions different between those in Hollywood who are trans and those who are cis?

Sam Feder: I think we have…uh, most of the trans people in Hollywood are part of the film in some way or another. [Laughs]

Right, true.

I mean, since the film came out, there are more and more trans people that are in Hollywood that we weren’t able to include. 

Your film is one of those in the Oscar conversation that’s really about Hollywood. I mean, it’s about trans representation and misrepresentation, but it’s about the work that Hollywood has done in this area. Are there any conversations you had with writers or producers or actors or anyone involved in film production who saw the film and came to a new perspective?

Absolutely. It kind of blew my mind how quickly it happened. I had people who were in the film who would tell me casting directors would ask them if they’ve seen the film. They’d be like, “Wait, have you seen the film?” For trans people who felt like they couldn’t push back—they need jobs. Actors need jobs, and they would get a script [with problematic depictions] and felt they couldn’t push back. Now they can say, “Watch Disclosure.” Right? They could tell their team; they could tell the agents; they could tell directors. 

So if they’re uncomfortable with something, then they can go, “I’m not just being a difficult actor, but please watch this movie and you’ll understand the perspective of why this is troubling.” Is that what you meant?

Exactly. There’s this new series coming out called Clarice, and it’s based on The Silence of the Lambs. This blew my mind. It had been written. They were ready to go into shooting. They hired Sydney Freeland, who’s a trans director, to shoot one of the episodes. Jen Richards is in the writers room. She’s also a friend of mine and [a] trans actress and writer. It turned out someone on the [Clarice] team, someone who was part of the creation, called Sydney and was like, “Oh, my God, have you seen Disclosure? We have to rewrite so much of this now.” That was incredible to me, that someone who was ready to go into production saw Disclosure and realized they had to take a step back and make it right. That’s when they brought in Jen to the writers room, and they redid, well, not the whole thing, but they readjusted. They added another trans character. They’ve learned, and they’re feeling empowered to do it better. That’s incredible. The series might have come out and perpetuated the harm that we see in Disclosure, but now that path is completely different.

Were there any other examples?

That was one of the moments where I was so humbled, just to know that it’s reaching the right people. Other thrilling stories I heard were that Ryan Reynolds reached out to both Laverne Cox and Jen Richards to say how moved he was by Disclosure, and how this will forever change how he sees films and how he makes them. He then started to announce a fellowship that he was making that was inspired by the fellowship we had with our team, and that he understood now the framing of stories in such a new way. 

Tracee Ellis Ross spoke on Instagram Live about how Disclosure completely [moved her]. She was like, “I didn’t think this would resonate with me, but it completely aligns to how I was impacted by the media, and now I have a different language and framing for it, and I see everything differently now.”

That was the goal of the film, wasn’t it?

When I hear people say that it’s affected how they’re seeing things, that’s really exciting because this is a new way of seeing. It’s talking about a way of seeing and its use of the trans perspective as a case study, but it can be applied to every identity. It can be applied to everyone’s experience, right? It’s not singularly [the] trans experience of looking at film and TV. We all need to understand how images are constructed and why, and how it affects people and people’s lives. Halle Berry was offered a role as a trans man in a film this summer, and our team heard about that and asked her team to watch Disclosure, and within 48 hours she walked away from the role.

Those are the uplifting responses, but has there been much defensiveness?

Some people have definitely said, “You’ve insulted my film. I’m not promoting your film.” I don’t want to say names, but one distributor said, “Well, a lot of our material is in Disclosure, so we can’t buy it.” It’s like, Wow, okay. Then, alternatively, I’ve had people come out of the woodwork with the [positive] stories I told you. I expected much more of the pushback, of the silencing, but I’m really pleasantly surprised at the openheartedness. I think a lot of that is because of the way we tell the film, right? We’re not finger-wagging. We give the nuanced explanations and responses, and nothing is ever all good or all bad. We have different views on that, and I think Laverne and I are really trying to do things in a loving way. It’s not a “you’re canceled” way. It’s a “here, this is what was wrong. Can you do better?” I think people are receptive to that.

One of the things that you opened with in the film is something that’s a longtime comedy trope: the man in a dress. Milton Berle, Flip Wilson, Jamie Foxx, Dustin Hoffman. Is that a comedy trope that should end?

I mean, I think it should, right, because what are we laughing at? Trans stuff aside, what are we laughing at? We’re laughing at how funny it is to be a girl? What’s so funny about that?  It’s like the greatest insult you can throw at anyone are derogatory terms about a woman’s body or “You’re acting like a girl.” What does that tell the world? That’s what a man in a dress is. It’s like, Oh, he’s so silly because he’s acting like a woman.

Or he’s so ugly, right? That’s the other part of it. 

“You’d make such an ugly woman,” and there’s nothing worse than being an ugly woman, right? I do think it’s tired. I think it’s old, and I think it’s lazy, and, ultimately, it’s de-womanizing. So yes, I want to see an end to that as a joke.

This is one of the things that really hit me in my heart. I felt a lot of grief and anger and disappointment in myself because I know I’ve laughed at those things, at those characters, and I’ve played along as an audience member or as a writer with the drag joke. “Look how silly or how ugly he looks in the wig and the dress.” How do you think we, the viewers, should feel about having been a part of all this?

This is something we all experience, trans and non-trans. We’ve all laughed. We’ve all been complicit. So what happens in real time in those 90 minutes [of the documentary]? That’s the magic. That’s what’s so precious. You’re suddenly questioning that laughter. You can’t teach that to someone. Someone has to experience that themselves, and have that growth in real time, and then walk out of the theater changed. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. We just need to understand it, and have a critical analysis of it, and be able to do that self-interrogation with the information. Now we know.

Something else you focus on are the crime shows and the medical shows that really treated trans existence as something bizarre or twisted. Shock value. It seems like the early part of the film focuses on the way we laughed at trans people, and then the next stage is the fear of them, right? 

Absolutely. It’s fearful; it’s frightening; it’s something that you should get rid of, right? Ultimately, what these stories tell us is two things: that we should not be part of public space because there’s something wrong with us, or that we aren’t who we say we are. We aren’t real: “We fooled you. You thought you saw a woman in the hospital, but this woman has a penis. It’s not really a woman.” That’s the twist: She is really a he, and that’s saying we’re not real. When we’re not real, we’re dehumanized, and then you can kill us off. 

After fear comes violence. You show scenes where characters in TV shows are melting down: “I’m in a relationship with a woman who turns out to be a trans woman, and that’s shocking and I’m angry, and I’m going to throw her against the wall.”

Yeah. The violence is the hardest one to contend with, and it’s real. Trans people experience violence in so many ways. Mostly, when trans people are in relationships, their partner knows they’re trans.

Right.

These are story lines of deception and deceit, and then there’s the disclosure, which was the inspiration for the title of the film. The onus is on the trans person to disclose something about themselves because they’ve been hiding it, and now violence will ensue because this other person has been fooled. It’s so dangerous because it’s teaching people that that is an appropriate response.

Not that we need another example, but yet another instance of the toxicity that surrounds our culture’s sense of masculinity.

Absolutely, absolutely.

In another sequence you explore Ace Ventura, and the revulsion of cis characters who get sick if they encounter, especially in a romantic situation, a trans person. That seems, again, like a no-brainer: something that should end in storytelling.

It really should. Yeah. To have your body evoke vomiting? It’s not a good feeling. Nobody wants that reaction.

So after all these stages—mockery, fear, anger—there’s another stage, and that’s theft. You get into the film Paris Is Burning and the choreography of trans performers that Madonna’s “Vogue” appropriated. Isn’t that part of prejudice? After suppression and denial, it’s “let’s steal this culture. Let’s just take what we want from it.”

I’m so glad you brought that up, because nobody has talked about that, about the stealing and the Madonna appropriation. That’s also part of the reason I wanted to make the film, because I was seeing so many non-trans people get accolades and patting themselves on the back for an increase of trans visibility, and just felt like trans people need to be part of this conversation. Trans people need to have their say. If we are going to have a shift in the world, in Hollywood, in the world at large around trans visibility, then the stealing is such a part of getting mainstream attention—we become a commodity. Once you become a commodity, usually you’re the last one to gain from that.

You mentioned Jen Richards earlier, and she has a moment in your film that really got to me. She’s talking about seeing a video of a father of a trans kid talking about that kid in a loving way, and that it reminded her of being turned away by her own mother, who said, “I can’t accept Jen because Jen killed my son.” That really rips my heart out. But then she adds that it’s hard for her to blame the people in her life because even she couldn’t see herself in the way this father talked about his child. I just felt heartbroken for her and wanted to put my arms around the television while she was talking about that.

Oh, man. Jen and I have been friends for a long time, and we’ve talked about so many of the things that she talks about in the film, but she never shared that story with me. Actually, she had never come to that sort of full conclusion before, so just from a filmmaking standpoint, it was an incredible moment to witness and be in that space with her as she was figuring things out in real time. We all, on set, had the same reaction that you’re having right now. Such heartbreak and connection to Jen’s experience. I think we’ve all felt it. I think it’s something so universal in “I can’t even see what I deserve.”

I wanted to end on a somewhat light note. You have a very unlikely and unexpected hero in your film. Tell me about Bugs Bunny. That is not where I expected the positive trans representation to come from, but you found it. 

Oh, my God. [Laughs] For that moment, to have some levity in the film was just so needed. I was so taken aback and just so tickled when Susan Stryker and Lilly Wachowski both shared that story. I just loved picturing these young people watching that, watching Bugs Bunny for the first time and feeling that joy and connection. When we were editing that film, that never ceased to bring me joy, to make me laugh, and I memorized the song. I just think Bugs is so empowered and beautiful and flirtatious, and such a beautiful character.

Confident, right?

We can learn...So confident, oh, my God, and she’s just like, I’m beautiful, and I can’t help it. It’s like, Oh, good, great, go! I love that scene so much.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

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