Resourcefulness is a must in the world of indie film, but few are as scrappy as Siobhan McCarthy. In addition to writing and directing the ultra-low-budget She’s the He, McCarthy was a camera operator, editor, co-composer, and animator for the film, which plays this weekend at Oklahoma City’s deadCenter film festival.
“I had to do all that because we just didn’t have money to do any of those things,” says McCarthy. “I taught myself how to use Logic to produce the score in like a week and ended up doing it on a free trial.”
The film, which is also playing in New York City and arrives in Los Angeles on June 19, recalls the energetic studio teen comedies of the 2000s like Easy A, Mean Girls, and She’s the Man (yes, the film’s title is a nod).
“U.S. studios used to make this kind of comedy and export it globally. We are the center of this type of teen boisterous comedy, or at least we were, and it is an export that we no longer make. says McCarthy. “Studios just aren’t as interested in fulfilling that taste of young people, and it is kind of falling on our shoulders to make things for ourselves.”
The comedy follows high school boys Alex (Nico Carney) and Ethan (Misha Osherovich) who decide to claim to be trans women to a) stop rumors of being gay and b) get closer to Alex’s crush Sasha (Malia Pyles). The only kicker? After the two get access to the girl’s locker room and girl’s-only hangouts, Ethan finds out she actually is trans.
While Ethan legitimately coming out as a trans woman isn’t a spoiler – it’s in the trailer after all – the rest of the breezy, bawdy run-time explores Ethan’s relationships after coming out, nuances of gender, and the absurdities that so-called “Bathroom Bills” claim to solve.
She’s the He Director Siobhan McCarthy on Casting, Costumes and Distribution
As the trailer’s voiceover states, the film features “trans people playing cis people and trans people playing trans people.” McCarthy intentionally cast 20-to-30-somethings as high schoolers so that She’s the He would feel similar to the high school comedies of the aughts. But balancing gender and age requirements was a tough feat for the production team.
“With transness, you’re extremely limited on a casting front because Hollywood has not given trans actors all that much leeway or all that many options,” says McCarthy. “So we really had an incredibly limited group to even cast off from the first place.”
The film’s cast was assembled mostly through pitching trans and queer actors by Instagram. Tatiana Ringsby was cast as Forest thanks to producer Vic Brant’s access to a L.A. lesbian phone tree (as McCarthy puts it, “every lesbian in Los Angeles knows each other.”) Hacks and Ugly Betty alum Mark Indelicato was cast as Davis thanks to Brant and Indelicato’s college friendship at NYU. Carney, a trans comic with a substantial Instagram following, was pitched and joined the film just one week before shooting.
“It was so important to me that trans men play the cis characters, and that we have trans people highlighted in this movie,” says McCarthy. “Because most of the cast is trans, most of the crew is trans. Even the background actors, the people you see walking in and out of bathrooms, are almost all trans as well.”
Leah Morrison’s costume design was particularly supportive of the majority-trans cast.
“Clothes are always made to fit cis bodies,” says McCarthy, who points out that society largely doesn’t create mass-produced clothing to fit trans people well.
“We were incredibly lucky to have trans designers doing all of our costumes, which meant that we could custom-make a dress for Misha. My costume designer Leah and our stylist Robbie [Lundegard] did so many of these costumes by hand, built so many of these costumes from the ground up with absolutely no money, and through that ingenuity.”
Ingenuity carried the She’s the He team right into post-production too. To make it into McCarthy’s dream festival, SXSW, they only had six weeks to assemble an edit.
“It really was one of those things where none of us expected it even to go as far as South by, and then we got so lucky to sell out most of our — I think — all of our screenings at South by, and we got an additional screening because we played so well,” says McCarthy.
A whirlwind tour of festival plays followed for She’s the He: Seattle, San Francisco, along with international festivals like FICValdivia in Chile and BFI London.
“Our little trans comedy going around the world is bananas, and is a crazy reminder that there really are trans people all over the world, like, we are absolutely everywhere,” says McCarthy.
But with a daunting distribution for almost all films, and the additional problem of “American politics that is really aggressively oppositional to trans identity,” the film faced challenges getting distribution. But then, Obscured Releasing stepped in.
“They were so receptive and so queer, and so understood the heart of the movie,” says McCarthy.
Obscured Releasing also understood the needs of the limited theatrical release, and that playing in the heart of the country was vital for this film.
“I feel especially lucky to be getting to play in the South and in the Midwest, and in places where it feels so necessary to me to have trans people get eyes on a movie like this,” says McCarthy. “Especially in parts of this country where I think that people lose track of the fact that there are still trans people who need this content, who need to see this, who need to see themselves even in the center of America, where people might not think we exist.”
McCarthy says it can be especially hard for trans teenagers to find positive representation in much of the country.
“I just hope that this is a confection and a respite for any of those kids,” says McCarthy. “They really are the ones, they’re in the trenches right now, and if I can help any trans person just make it through another day, I will have done my job.”
She’s the He plays Sunday at the deadCenter film festival. You can follow all of our film festival coverage here.
Find showtimes for She’s the He by following the film on Instagram.
Main image: Misha Osherovich, left, and Nico Carney in She’s the He. Obscured Releasing