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      Netflix Employee Who Criticized Dave Chapelle Is Among 3 Suspended

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      Netflix recently suspended three employees, including a transgender employee who posted a Twitter thread last week criticizing a new Dave Chappelle stand-up special on the streaming service as being transphobic.The employees were suspended after they attended a virtual business meeting among top executives at the company that they had not been invited to, a person familiar with the decision said on Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. Netflix said in a statement that the transgender employee, Terra Field, was not suspended because of the tweets critical of Mr. Chappelle’s show.“It is absolutely untrue to say that we have suspended any employees for tweeting about this show,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. “Our employees are encouraged to disagree openly, and we support their right to do so.”Mr. Chappelle’s comedy special, “The Closer,” debuted on Netflix on Tuesday, and was quickly criticized by several organizations, including GLAAD, for “ridiculing trans people.” Jaclyn Moore, an executive producer for the Netflix series “Dear White People,” said last week that she would not work with Netflix “as long as they continue to put out and profit from blatantly and dangerously transphobic content.”Ms. Field, who is a software engineer at Netflix, tweeted last week that the special “attacks the trans community, and the very validity of transness.”On Monday, after news of her suspension went public following a report by The Verge, she tweeted: “I just want to say I appreciate everyone’s support. You’re all the best, especially when things are difficult.”As criticism of Mr. Chappelle’s special began last week, Netflix’s co-chief executive Ted Sarandos sent a memo to employees defending the comedian.“Several of you have also asked where we draw the line on hate,” Mr. Sarandos wrote in the memo. “We don’t allow titles on Netflix that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe ‘The Closer’ crosses that line. I recognize, however, that distinguishing between commentary and harm is hard, especially with stand-up comedy which exists to push boundaries. Some people find the art of stand-up to be meanspirited, but our members enjoy it, and it’s an important part of our content offering.”Mr. Sarandos also cited Netflix’s “longstanding deal” with Mr. Chappelle and said the comedian’s 2019 special, “Sticks & Stones,” was also “controversial” and was “our most watched, stickiest and most award-winning stand-up special to date.”In 2019, Netflix was criticized when it blocked an episode of Hasan Minhaj’s topical show, “Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj,” in Saudi Arabia after the kingdom’s government made a request for it to do so. In the episode, Mr. Minaj criticized the Saudi Arabian government and questioned the role of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.“We’re not in the news business,” Netflix’s co-chief executive Reed Hastings said in 2019, explaining the decision. “We’re not trying to do ‘truth to power.’ We’re trying to entertain.” More

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      in Television

      ‘Sex Education’ Gets More Inclusive in Its Intimacy

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      With its new nonbinary characters and its scenes depicting chest binding and disabled intimacy, the British teen comedy-drama continues to widen its lens.Layla (Robyn Holdaway) slides a bin in front of the bedroom door, takes a small wicker box from its hiding place in a drawer full of clothes and opens it to reveal a roll of Ace bandages and a tin of safety pins.The scene that ensues, from Season 3 of “Sex Education,” depicts a routine that is all too familiar for many nonbinary and transgender youth. Layla — who, like Holdaway, uses they/them pronouns — proceeds to wrap the bandages tightly around their chest, which is already bruised and bloodied from unsafe chest binding.Later in the episode, Cal — another new and nonbinary character this season, played by the Sudanese American actor Dua Saleh — shows Layla a safer alternative: a chest binder, which is a compression undergarment often made of spandex and nylon.“I did it for a while with Ace bandages,” Cal tells Layla, who tries on a borrowed chest binder. “Until I nearly broke a rib.”Layla looks into the mirror, laughs incredulously and says with joy, “It feels so much better.”Laurie Nunn, the creator of this British dramedy, said that presenting such interactions, matter-of-factly with plenty of detail, is part of the show’s effort “to progress these conversations forward.”“It felt important to me that we see two nonbinary characters communicating with each other onscreen,” she said in a recent video interview. “It’s not just representation; it’s having as much of it as possible within the scope of the show.”Over two seasons, “Sex Education” has been widely praised for its frank but sensitive depictions of teen sexuality. In Season 3, now out on Netflix, the series has widened its lens to include more stories about queer relationships, gender presentation, intimacy with a disability and other experiences that rarely are explored on mainstream television.To do so in an authentic but respectful fashion, the producers use intimacy coordinators and a healthy dose of communication. “The show goes to great lengths to make sure that our actors are as protected as possible,” Nunn saidAt the same time, stars like George Robinson, who, like his character Isaac, uses a wheelchair, found themselves serving as both performers and de facto consultants, ensuring that the details and dynamics of their scenes were accurate. “Obviously, he’s playing a character, but it’s making sure that it feels authentic and true to his experience as a disabled actor,” Nunn said.George Robinson’s love scene was a rarity for a disabled actor, but everyone involved “stayed away from thinking too much about the significance of that scene,” he wrote in an email.Sam Taylor/NetflixOne such scene unfolds in Episode 4, when a dinner date between Isaac and Maeve (Emma Mackey) turns toward the intimate. Isaac is paralyzed from the chest down, like Robinson. Maeve starts kissing him, then pulls away. “Can …” she whispers, trailing off.“You want to know what I can feel?” Isaac asks.“Yeah,” Maeve replies.“Well, I can’t feel anything below my level of injury,” Isaac says. “If you put your hand on my chest, I’ll show you.”Isaac was originally conceived as an amputee, but the show’s producers decided to rewrite the role around the disability of whoever landed the part. Isaac is a painter, a brother, a lover and crucially, in Season 2, a jealous deleter of voice mail messages. His sense of humor is laced with cynicism, like Maeve’s.When asked how it felt to film the dinner date scene, Robinson responded in an email, “The easy and instinctive answer would be to think that in the moment, it felt like a real privilege to be a part of a ‘cultural moment’ type scene like that.“However, I have realized that in actual fact we (myself, Emma and the creative team) purposefully stayed away from thinking too much about the significance of that scene within the landscape of TV, film and media. We came to the conclusion that in order to make the scene successful, we had to make sure that it worked within the story and for the characters at that time in their relationship.”Kelly Gordon, a trainer at Enhance the UK, a charity run by disabled people, and Chris Yeates, an outreach and support coordinator at Back Up Trust, a charity that supports people affected by spinal cord injury, consulted on Isaac’s story line. The scene works because it’s not about the fact that Isaac uses a wheelchair. It’s a story about two awkward teenagers, an expression of affection and a burned lasagna.David Thackeray, an intimacy coordinator, worked on all eight episodes of Season 3, including this scene with Isaac and Maeve. Thackeray choreographs each take as if it were a dance sequence or a fight scene, mapping out physical boundaries with each actor beforehand.“We’re all sitting together, discussing the scene; we mark out where we’re happy to be touched,” Thackeray said. “Even to sit on George’s lap was like, ‘Are you happy with that?’ You keep that communication going.”Coordinators and consultants checked in constantly on the cast’s comfort levels. Jodie Mitchell, a consultant who advises productions about how to depict nonbinary characters and themes (and who also uses they/them pronouns), was initially brought on only to work on the script with the writers. Then one of the show’s directors, Runyararo Mapfumo, called, wanting to double check the details of scenes featuring nonbinary characters.“And then she really wanted me to come on set, which I think is indicative of how much this program really wants to get things right,” Mitchell said in an interview. “It’s not just about posturing for them or ticking the box of like, ‘Oh, we’ve checked it’s OK with someone.’ They really want to follow through to the highest level they can.”Mitchell worked on set for three days, focusing on nonbinary story lines, mostly consulting on those chest binding scenes involving Layla and Cal. Holdaway, who plays Layla, had the option of having an intimacy coordinator present for every scene.“But for a few of the scenes around bindings specifically, they were like, ‘Oh, actually, I just want someone who is trans and has lived experience with being trans in the room with me,’” Mitchell said. “So I was there.”Saleh, who plays Cal and also uses they/them pronouns, was a poet and musician before moving more seriously into acting (their third EP comes out Oct. 22). While Saleh has performed in some transgender- and queer-centric plays (“WAAFRIKA 1-2-3”) and theater groups (20% Theatre Company in Minneapolis), “Sex Education” was their TV debut.In a past theater production, “we had a lot of intimacy scenes, but we didn’t have a coordinator there,” Saleh said in a video interview last month. “So coming to ‘Sex Ed,’ it felt surprising how thoughtful and careful they were about our bodies, and about the ways that they helped us set boundaries with each other, and say what we weren’t and what we were comfortable with.”Like others on “Sex Education,” Saleh is a fan of the show as well as a star, and occasionally got caught up in resonant moments this season. Saleh was particularly moved by scenes portraying Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa), a gay Ghanaian-Nigerian character who attends a family wedding in Nigeria. Eric sneaks out of the reception to go instead to an underground club pulsing with color, queerness and gender nonconformity.“When I was a teenager, if I had seen this show, I wouldn’t have held onto all of the gross feelings about myself, just in me being me,” Saleh said. “I wouldn’t have been as shameful about just existing.” More

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      in Theater

      'Jagged Little Pill' Producers Respond to Controversies

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      “Jagged Little Pill” barrels into tonight’s Tony Awards with 15 nominations, more than any other show — but also with its producers confronting two controversies that have prompted scrutiny and an apology.The show, a musical featuring Alanis Morissette songs and a script that explores a host of social issues, is one of three contenders for best musical, and is a leading contender in the best featured actress and best book categories. It plans to resume performances on Broadway next month.But in the run-up to the Tonys the show’s producers have found themselves responding to criticism over how depictions of a character’s gender identity evolved as the show developed, and over the accusation by a former member of the cast who said they were asked to delay a surgical procedure. (The Tony voting period ended in March, before that accusation became public.)On Saturday, the show’s lead producers, Vivek J. Tiwary, Arvind Ethan David and Eva Price, said that they had hired an employment lawyer to look into an accusation from the former cast member, Nora Schell, who uses the pronouns they and them, and who said the production had asked them to delay a procedure to remove vaginal cysts. The union representing stage performers, Actors’ Equity, also said it would investigate; Schell said a union vice president was among those who mishandled the medical concerns.The statement from the producers came a little more than a week after the musical had issued an apology for its response to concerns about the gender identity of one of the show’s main characters, Jo, who is played by Lauren Patten, a nominee for best featured actress in a musical.During the show’s pre-Broadway run, some people saw Jo as a rare example of nonbinary representation in a major musical; when the show then transferred to Broadway, some of those fans were disappointed with how the role had evolved.“In Jo, we set out to portray a character on a gender expansive journey without a known outcome,” the lead producers said. “Throughout the creative process, as the character evolved and changed, between Boston and Broadway, we made mistakes in how we handled this evolution. In a process designed to clarify and streamline, many of the lines that signaled Jo as gender nonconforming, and with them, something vital and integral, got removed from Jo’s character journey.”The producers said they had “hired a new dramaturgical team (which includes nonbinary, transgender and BIPOC representation), to revisit and deepen the script.”Schell, who was a member of the ensemble when the musical opened in late 2019, voiced their concerns about backstage treatment on Twitter.“During previews for the Broadway run of JAGGED LITTLE PILL I was intimidated, coerced and forced by multiple higher ups to put off CRITICAL AND NECESSARY surgery to remove growths from my vagina that were making me anemic,” Schell wrote.The producers responded with their own statement, declaring themselves “deeply troubled” by the claims and pledging to “take this matter very seriously.”“Broadway shows are by their very nature collaborative human efforts, so there is nothing more important to us than our people,” they said. “We are committed to continuing to nurture a work environment where everyone feels valued and respected.”On Saturday, one of the show’s Tony-nominated stars, Celia Rose Gooding, said on Twitter that she was concerned by the allegations. Responding to Schell’s tweet, she wrote, “this is unacceptable. nobody should have to put off necessary medical treatment for a show, ever.”And, in a more general tweet bidding farewell to the show, which she is leaving for a role in “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” she wrote that she “cannot ignore the harm Jagged has done to the trans and nonbinary community.” More

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      ‘Little Girl’ Review: Growing Up and Seeking Peace

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      This sensitive documentary by the French filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz naturalistically explores the struggles of a 7-year-old transgender girl.“Little Girl,” the French filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz’s disarmingly sensitive documentary about a 7-year-old transgender girl, understands the power of close-ups. The camera often lingers on the face of our fledgling protagonist, Sasha, not to gawk at her appearance, but to challenge whatever moralizing preconceptions one might have with emotion laid devastatingly bare.One could easily mistake “Little Girl” for a fictional drama that tends toward observation and realism. Lifshitz follows Sasha and her family over the course of roughly a year, homing in on her mannerisms and means of play with naturalistic camerawork that heightens the idyllic splendor of rural France, while framing her home life as a kind of safe haven away from the cruelties of the outside world. Beautiful as it may be, the French countryside remains a stronghold of rigidly traditional values.Sasha’s mother, Karine, often takes the spotlight: We see her struggle to convince dismissive school administrators to correctly identify Sasha as a girl and, in direct interviews, witness the emotional toll of such perpetually thwarted efforts as she verbalizes her frustrations and insecurities.There are no rubbernecking, pity-provoking scenes of Sasha being bullied or spurned; perhaps more affecting are the images we do see: Sasha miming the movements of a girl in her ballet class, delighting in what it feels like to move her hands with feminine softness and grace.In conversation with a psychiatrist, Sasha hesitates to respond to a question about her treatment at school. But the proof is in her face, which twists, flits and goes blank before capitulating to tears. It’s in simple moments like these that Lifshitz invites us to consider Sasha’s feelings: the stark reality of her despair, the depth of which only images can communicate, asking us to reconsider what exactly is fueling our ideological fights.Little GirlNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘My Name Is Pauli Murray’ Review: Ahead of the Times

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      The pioneering legal thinker influenced Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But this documentary by the filmmakers behind “RBG” misses the mark.“My Name Is Pauli Murray,” the plainly pedagogical documentary by the filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen, hinges on the audience not knowing who Murray was: an activist, writer, attorney and priest. The easier to wow us with the onslaught of information, which rightfully situates Murray — a Black, gender nonconforming intellectual who died in 1985 — as a thinker ahead of the times.As the first African American student to receive a doctorate from Yale Law School, Murray was a civil rights trailblazer, and an early architect of the idea that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment should guarantee not just racial but gender equality. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the film’s many talking heads, explicitly cites Murray in one of her related Supreme Court opinions. Also touted is Murray’s refusal to sit at the back of the bus 15 years before Rosa Parks captured national attention by doing the same.Indeed, Murray’s story is a remarkable — and extensive — one that the filmmakers stuff into an hour and a half that feels like a dull and disorganized PowerPoint lecture.Murray was also a prolific writer who left behind troves of letters, diaries, poems and manuscripts detailing personal struggles with institutional rejection on the basis of gender or race (or often both) as well as romantic relationships with women. West and Cohen attempt to humanize their subject via these documents, but the effect feels cheesy and hollow, in no small part because of the overabundance of material. Along with audio recordings of Murray, the sound of a clacking typewriter is prominent and Murray’s cursive handwriting often floats across the screen.In “My Name is Pauli,” the filmmakers touch on more compelling themes than in their Ginsburg hagiography, “RBG,” by singling out a figure whose life and work reminds us that more complex and fluid understandings of race and gender are not strictly modern phenomena. But the result feels an awful lot like an illustrated textbook.My Name Is Pauli MurrayRated PG-13. 20th-century cruelty. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Untold: Caitlyn Jenner’ Review: Honoring the Athlete

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      Caitlyn Jenner recalls her past as a decathlon champion in this sports documentary directed by Crystal Moselle.Caitlyn Jenner is best known as a tabloid celebrity and family member of the Kardashian clan who publicly transitioned as a transgender woman. But “Untold: Caitlyn Jenner” — an episode of the new Netflix documentary series “Untold” that highlights underappreciated stories from sports — illuminates the events that brought Jenner her first taste of international recognition; namely, her gold medal win as a decathlon athlete in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.Jenner narrates her own story, describing an intense training regimen that included grueling practices every day for four years. The director Crystal Moselle (“The Wolfpack,” “Skate Kitchen”) supports Jenner’s recollections with archival footage, culled from home videos, practice footage and clips from the Olympics broadcast. The combination of contemporary footage and the present-day internal monologue creates a sports-broadcasting dream of sorts: allowing the audience to hear the athlete’s thoughts at the moments Jenner executes seemingly impossible leaps, races, vaults and throws.But if the sports footage is rich with detail, the treatment of the purportedly untold portion of this story is thinner. The documentary shows that the greatest athlete in the world — as decathlon winners are often called — was a transgender woman. Yet Jenner’s perspective on her past suggests a unique alienation. She speaks about how she “built this Bruce character,” as she puts it, and she attributes her successes to this invention. She acknowledges that she used sports to avoid coming to terms with her gender identity, but she remains proud of what her creation achieved. It’s an intriguing perspective that unfortunately receives little follow-up or elaboration, leaving the film flat-footed when it steps away from the track.Untold: Caitlyn JennerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 9 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      in Television

      She’s One of China’s Biggest Stars. She’s Also Transgender.

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      Jin Xing, the first person in China to openly undergo transition surgery, is a household name. But she says she’s no standard-bearer for the L.G.B.T.Q. community.Jin Xing, a 53-year-old television host often called China’s Oprah Winfrey, holds strong views about what it means to be a woman. She has hounded female guests to hurry up and get married, and she has pressed others to give birth. When it comes to men, she has recommended that women act helpless to get their way.That might not be so unusual in China, where traditional gender norms are still deeply embedded, especially among older people. Except Ms. Jin is no typical Chinese star.As China’s first — and even today, only — major transgender celebrity, Ms. Jin is in many ways regarded as a progressive icon. She underwent transition surgery in 1995, the first person in the country to do so openly. She went on to host one of China’s most popular talk shows, even as stigmas against L.G.B.T.Q. people remained — and still remain — widespread.China’s best-known personalities appeared on her program, “The Jin Xing Show.” Brad Pitt once bumbled through some Mandarin with her to promote a film.“All my close friends teased me: ‘China would never let you host a talk show,’” Ms. Jin said, recalling when she first shared that goal with them. “‘How could they let you, with your transgender identity, be on television?’”But even as Ms. Jin’s remarkable biography has elevated her to an almost mythic level, it has also, for some, made her one of the most perplexing figures in Chinese pop culture.Ms. Jin on the set of “The Jin Xing Show” with her co-anchor, Shen Nan. For years, the show was one of the most popular in China.The Jin Xing ShowThough often lauded as a trailblazer for the L.G.B.T.Q. community, she rejects the role of standard-bearer and criticizes activists whom she perceives as seeking special treatment. “Respect is earned by yourself, not something you ask society to give you,” she said.She also has attracted fierce criticism for her views on womanhood. In a 2013 memoir, Ms. Jin wrote that a “smart woman” should make her partner feel that she was a “little girl who needs him.” On “The Jin Xing Show,” she told the actress Michelle Ye that only after giving birth would she feel complete.“You say that as if you’ve given birth,” Ms. Ye said with a nervous laugh.Ms. Jin didn’t pause. “I’ve given rebirth to myself,” she said.Ms. Jin bristles at being called a conservative. If she were a male chauvinist, she said, she would have continued living as a man. She has denounced gender-based employment discrimination and called out China’s Women’s Day as an empty commercial holiday. In May, she was featured in a Dior campaign celebrating women’s empowerment, in which she said the most important thing any woman could be was independent.Still, she admits that she is not looking to upend the rules set by men, only to help women better navigate them.In addition to appearing on television, Ms. Jin hawks products on internet livestreams.Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times“What percentage of the world’s leaders are queens or female presidents? They’re still mostly men,” said Ms. Jin. “If men conquer the world to prove themselves, women can conquer men to prove themselves.”Ms. Jin was born in 1967 in Shenyang, in China’s northeast, to an army officer father and translator mother. In memoirs, she described being pleased when family friends compared her to a “lively little girl” for her love of song and dance.At 9, she was recruited by a military dance troupe. Her mother opposed the choice, but not on gender grounds, wanting her to instead continue with regular schooling, Ms. Jin wrote. Both boys and girls could earn prestige by dancing in the military, where the arts were seen as important propaganda tools.As a teenager, Ms. Jin won a dance scholarship to New York, where in 1991 The New York Times called one of her performances “astoundingly assured.” After four years in the United States, she toured Europe — picking up French and Italian, in addition to the English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese she already knew.But in 1993, at 26, she returned to China to prepare to come out as transgender.Though she had known she was female since she was 6, she did not want to announce it until she was sufficiently prepared, Ms. Jin said. Transition surgery, though legal, was heavily stigmatized. She decided to wait until she had become one of China’s most prominent dancers.“When you haven’t accumulated enough power, you can’t speak out,” she said. “Once you’ve achieved enough strength, and people can’t knock you down, then you can face them.”Ms. Jin with members of the Jin Xing Dance Theatre in “Shanghai Tango” at the Joyce Theater in New York City in 2012.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesHer calculation appeared correct. While some attacked her after her surgery, much of the public reception was supportive.China in some ways offers more recognition to transgender people than to gay people, said Bao Hongwei, a scholar of Chinese queer culture at the University of Nottingham, in England. In the 1980s and 1990s especially, surgery was seen as a cure that allowed transgender people to live within traditional gender roles.“She upholds all the gender norms,” Professor Bao said. “I think all this contributed to her being recognized in China’s media sphere.”Yet even as Ms. Jin hewed to certain norms, she flouted others.She founded Jin Xing Dance Theatre, the country’s first private dance group, in 1999. She became a single mother, adopting three children, though China’s one-child policy was still in place at that time.And she has made being unapologetically blunt the secret to her success on television.Ms. Jin’s television fame began in 2013, when her at-times abrasive assessments of competitors on a dance show earned her the nickname Poison Tongue. In 2015, she channeled that popularity into “The Jin Xing Show.” With guests she was warm and conspiratorial.Ms. Jin instructing dancers from her troupe in Shanghai in 2006. The Jin Xing Dance Theatre was the country’s first private dance group.Mark Ralston/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut she also didn’t hesitate to name celebrities who she thought lacked talent. She spoke openly about taboo issues, including sex.She was polarizing but wildly popular, saying on her show that 100 million people tuned in each week.Ms. Jin has consistently rejected the idea that her fame was tied to her transgender identity.“Don’t think that I did surgery and became an enchanting person. Wrong. When I was a boy, I was plenty enchanting,” she said. “Stick whatever label on me, male or female, I’m still a very luminous person.”In 2017, “The Jin Xing Show” was abruptly canceled. At the time, Ms. Jin blamed “small people” who were jealous of her success, but the details of the decision have never been made public.Since then, she has continued to run her dance troupe, sold products on internet livestreams and hosted matchmaking shows, though none has approached the popularity of her talk show.Ms. Jin has long talked openly about taboo issues, including sex.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesGuo Ting, a gender studies scholar at the University of Hong Kong, said Ms. Jin’s ebb in popularity coincided with a broader government crackdown on gender-related activism. While there is no clear link between the two, the state has recently sought to promote traditional values, Dr. Guo said.Still, others noted, many in China have grown more accepting of transgender people. They said they hoped Ms. Jin — vital as she had been to that acceptance — would no longer be the community’s only face.“I see Jin Xing as part of our parents’ generation: They have achieved progress in their time, but to us, they may seem outdated,” said Jelly Wang, 25, a transgender rights activist in Sichuan Province.That assessment is just fine with Ms. Jin.“I have always acted entirely according to my own wishes,” she said. “If I indirectly became an idol to some young people, that’s fine, but I have never made myself into a leader.“By living healthily and facing life positively, I’ve already positively impacted society,” she continued. “That’s enough.” More

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      ‘No Ordinary Man’ Review: The Life and Death of Billy Tipton

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      This documentary sheds light on a prominent jazz musician whose death became a spectacle when it was discovered he was transgender.The documentary “No Ordinary Man” examines the life and death of Billy Tipton, a jazz musician who came into prominence in the 1930s, and whose career lasted for over 40 years. Billy was described by his friends as a consummate gentleman, and he cherished his family, with three children he adopted with his partner, Kitty. Billy lived his life quietly, but his death in 1989 became a nationwide spectacle after it became clear during funeral preparations that he was transgender. Members of his family made appearances on talk shows, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where they attested they did not know Billy was transgender.The directors Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt use a variety of strategies to present a reconsideration of Billy’s life and memory. In interviews, transgender historians share their knowledge of his career, and they place the chaos that ensued after his death in the broader context of transgender representation in media. The filmmakers also script imagined scenes from Billy’s life, employing transgender actors to perform the role of Billy. The actors are asked to reflect upon their impression of Billy, and how his experience relates to their own. Most movingly, Billy’s son, Billy Tipton Jr., discusses his memories of his father.This is a respectful tribute that is a shade too morally and cinematically safe in its execution. It feels as if any revelation or assumption made about Billy among its speakers could rattle the private — and absent — person at the film’s center. The result is a movie that feels bittersweet, a collection of impressions for a man who may have never been fully known.No Ordinary ManNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More