Nicole Maines is changing television forever tonight: On the CW’s season premiere of Supergirl, she’ll portray TV’s first transgender superhero Nia Nal, a.k.a Dreamer. In an interview with the New York Times ahead of her big debut, Maines talked about how excited she is to have landed the role and what her historic casting means for trans representation.
Maines, who first rose to prominence as a plaintiff in the Maine Supreme Court case Doe v. Clenchy over transgender bathroom rights, told the Times that it’s “a phenomenal time to be a queer nerd,” likely referring to other high-profile castings, such as Ruby Rose being chosen to play a lesbian reimagining of Catwoman, also on the CW. “We have so much representation on the superhero shows!” Maines said.
She also opened up about the importance of kids meeting her character for the first time and having a trans superhero help bring more awareness to trans experiences.
“I think kids need to watch Supergirl for Nia, because there are more and more trans people coming out younger and younger,” she said. “I think it is necessary to educate folks on trans issues and to make them aware of trans identities and normalize it, because it is normal. But when you’re shielded from something and it’s actively censored, it takes a negative connotation. If people are more educated and they’re more aware of these issues and more familiar, they won’t feel so foreign.”
Maines was also asked why it’s critical to have a trans person playing a trans character, a question that has been continually brought up when non-trans actresses are chosen to portray trans people (Scarlett Johansson recently left a production after trans rights supporters called for more authentic representation.) Maines’ answer was eloquent and straightforward: “Because it’s validating.”
“When we have a trans woman playing a trans woman then you see, ‘Oh wait, this is what trans really is. This is what it looks like: a person.’ That sends a message to trans kids that they are valid in their identities, that they are allowed to exist. It also sends a message to cisgender people, to parents, that trans people are not dangerous or sexually deviant or any of these myths that have kind of been construed by conservative outlets. It’s just an identity that people live,” she said.
Maines will continue to make history as the show goes on. Supergirl airs tonight at 8/7 central.
Nicole Maines made history as the plaintiff in Doe v. Clenchy, the Maine Supreme Court case that helped set a landmark precedent for allowing transgender people to use the bathroom that matched their gender identity. Now, the actress and activist is changing the game yet again: The CW just announced that she’ll join the cast of Supergirl as Nia Nal, a groundbreaking character who marks TV’s first trans superhero.
“I haven’t really wrapped my head around it,” Maines said in an interview with Variety earlier this week, adding, “I’m nervous because I want to do it right.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nia Nal—a.k.a. Dreamer—is a “soulful young transgender woman with a fierce drive to protect others.” Dreamer is loosely based on the DC Comics character of Nura Nal, a superhero with the power of seeing people’s deaths in the future.
After the Maine Supreme Court ruled that her right to use the bathroom matching her gender identity had been violated under the state’s Human Rights Act, Maines went on to become the subject of the book Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt, as well as one of the transgender people featured in the HBO documentary The Trans List. She also appeared on the USA Network show Royal Pains, in which she played a transgender teen.
Maines’ casting comes at a time in which many people have pointed out the lack of trans representation on screen. Actress Scarlett Johansson recently pulled out of the film Rub and Tug after facing backlash for being cast as a transgender man. Maines touched on the controversy with Variety and said that keeping Johansson in that role would have only furthered stereotypes about the transgender community.
“I think that cisgender actors don’t take roles out of malice—it’s just a failure to realize the context of having cisgender people play transgender characters,” she said. “We don’t see the same issue with sexuality; we see straight people play gay all the time. With trans folks we have a lot of people accusing us of just playing dress up for whatever reasons, and that’s just not true. Having trans people play trans roles show that we are valid in our identities and we exist.”
The first scene of The Bold Type’s second season, which premieres tonight, stays true to the show’s essence. In it, Jane (Katie Stevens) and Sutton (Meghann Fahy) are posted outside an airport gate waiting for their friend Kat (Aisha Dee) to return from her international flight. A 30-minute wait morphs into two hours. Then three. They’re exhausted, but they keep waiting. After all, Kat was abroad to win back her maybe-girlfriend Adena (Nikohl Boosheri). An intense situation like that warrants an immediate update, so Jane and Sutton wait.
When Kat eventually comes through the gate, Jane and Sutton’s energy resurges. They’re so happy to have their friend back—happy to again be the trio thousands of people grew to love when The Bold Type premiered last summer.
That, in a nutshell, sums up the appeal of this glossy Freeform show that follows three twenty-somethings as they climb the New York media ladder. You might have caught the show when it debuted in June 2017, but most likely watched on Hulu several months later—that’s really when The Bold Type gained its feverish following. And rightfully so: It’s quite simply one of the most delightful shows on television, one you shouldn’t sleep on anymore.
PHOTO: Freeform
Aisha Dee as Kat on The Bold Type
Especially not this season, when the stakes and the drama are higher than ever. You’ll be pleased to learn the two-hour premiere of The Bold Type‘s second chapter is good—very good. The show picks up where things left off last year: Jane quit Scarlet magazine to start work as a writer for the political website Incite. Sutton’s now a fashion assistant at the magazine and figuring out her relationship with Richard, an older executive within the company. Meanwhile, Kat traveled to South America to be with Adena, an artist who she may or may not be in love with. These issues are all addressed in the premiere, and fully resolved in surprising ways.
Fans will have a blast watching The Bold Type this season, but they don’t need more incentive to tune in. My goal here is to appeal to those who wrote the show off as just schmaltzy, shallow fare. While, yes, there’s definitely an element of froth to The Bold Type—the fictional world of Scarlet is very glitzy and celebrity-filled—it’s more than just pure escapism.
At the center of the show is an unbreakable friendship between three young women. The first season threw everything at Jane, Sutton, and Kat, yet their loyalty to each other never wavered. Sure, that might seem a bit overly earnest, but it’s actually pretty radical for a female-centered show, especially one that’s set in the world of magazines. The Devil Wears Prada, The Hills, Ugly Betty, and countless other shows set in fashion infamously presented a frigid, woman-eat-woman universe.
Then there’s female-driven programming at large. Gossip Girl, Big Little Lies, even The Real Housewives franchise: All these shows zero in on the catty behavior among its protagonists, who are, by and large, women. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that; it’s unrealistic to expect characters to get along all the time, regardless of gender. You need conflict to move a story along, and watching a rich bitch on screen is, admittedly, so much fun.
But it’s nice that The Bold Type doesn’t have one. There’s this problematic idea in our society that women can’t get along with each other in the workplace. Take the Ocean’s 8 cast members, who were plagued by rumors of on-set feuding for months. “Certain members of the media have wanted us to fight each other…. They wanted there to be competition and catfights,” Anne Hathaway said on the Today show in May. That mentality filters into so much of the content we consume daily. We’re inundated with catfights.
Which is why a show like The Bold Type is such a breath of fresh air. For a series this dramatic and dishy and delicious to feature virtually no female fighting is exciting. It proves female-centered narratives can be captivating without the cattiness. Of course, Kat, Sutton, and Jane will most likely have an argument at some point—it’s inevitable—but it’s fine because the first point of entry for their characters isn’t “They hate each other.” That’s important, and it will fuel how all the conflict unfolds this season. No matter what storylines come their way, Jane, Sutton, and Kat will be OK. It’s just in their DNA.
PHOTO: Freeform
Katie Stevens as Jane on The Bold Type
If more shows like The Bold Type existed (alongside The Real Housewives; I’m not ready to give them up), then maybe these preconceived notions about women at work wouldn’t exist. Ocean’s 8 is certainly eradicating those notions. “We were all collaborating—all the time. Now we’re friends. We genuinely love each other and we’re so there for each other. It’s a beautiful thing,” Hathaway said about her Ocean’s 8 costars.
And so is The Bold Type. What the Ocean’s 8 women had offscreen is what The Bold Type leads have on, and we need to see more of that. Showcasing all types of female relationships on TV—the good and the bad—will certainly help debunk the reductive stereotypes that’ve existed in pop culture for eons. To believe it, you have to see it.
The Bold Type airs Tuesdays at 8:00 P.M. ET on Freeform.
