Its my real life.
Thats why Im here.
Thats what Im all about, even in comedy.
George Wallace and Laverne Cox in ‘Clean Slate’Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection
Lets get together and have some fun.
And with her, I think telling her story and coming back to me explained Wallace.
I dont understand it, but then boom, theres the answer there with a smile.
Laverne Cox and George Wallace in ‘Clean Slate’Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection
Laverne, the show is set in Alabama, which is where youre from.
Can you tell me a little bit about the significance of that?
So hopefully, weve done that by making these really intentional choices.
So, we came up with that …
COX:See, this is the thing.
Thats why Im here.
Thats what Im all about, even in comedy.
Lets get together and have some fun.
I dont understand it, but then boom, theres the answer there with a smile.
Its just about educating and loving.
Tell me a little bit about bridging the generational differences on those issues.
COX:Thats where so much of the comedy comes from.
And so the cultures are so whenever I go back to Alabama, its like a different world.
WALLACE:Shes just a total mess.
Everybody goes to New York, they go back home.
This is a mess.
You gotta change.
You gotta do what we do in New York.
COX:Well, I think those are pretentious people who think that way.
I certainly dont think I know everything.
The irony, shes classist and elitist and broke, and thats also funny.
How many people in life do we know who are classist and elitist and broke?
That actually used to be me.
Im not broke right now, but Im working on my class stuff.
Im a work in progress.
Can you tell me about the importance of showing faith in this community as well?
COX:Every church is different, and it really even depends on the pastor.
Some of the church stuff came from my life, girl.
But when its about love, its everything.
But even though I grew up Christian and Ive left the church, Ive never left God.
WALLACE:And what weve got to learn about the churches that always know that.
Its an inside job.
Its between me and the man upstairs.
It has to extend into the lived experiences in the real lives of everyday trans people.
Representation is incredible, but its only part of the equation for liberation.
We have to see it to imagine it, so thats where representation comes in.
Representation that is multidimensional, not stereotypical, not depending on tropes.
So then, consent has been manufactured in the media to dehumanize and discriminate against trans people.
How can we manufacture consent in the media to rehumanize and love trans people?
So we have a lot of work to do on a systemic level.
Representation is only part of it though.
We need systemic change, and I think that means its not coming top down.
Im talking tens of millions of us.
Thats what were gonna need to overthrow the oligarchic plutocratic regime that were now living under.
And we can do that with love, and representation that models that it can be helpful.
