Trailer: Transparent Season 4 premieres this September
David Farnor | On 29, Jul 2017
“You’re a boundary pusher.” “I have no idea what boundaries are.”
That’s the sound of Transparent returning this September for a fourth season.
The fourth season of Amazon’s most award-winning and ground-breaking original series charts the coming out of the Pfefferman family patriarch as a woman, a revelation that cause the whole family to spin into a journey of discovery about who they are and who they are going to become.
Jeffrey Tambor, who has won two Emmys and a Golden Globe for his lead performance, will once again reprise his role as Maura, with Judith Light, Amy Landecker, Jay Duplass, and Gaby Hoffman all returning.
Season 4 sees the Pfeffermans take off on a spiritual and political journey as they dig deep into their family’s history. Maura heads to Israel to speak at a conference and makes a startling discovery. Before long, the rest of the family joins her for an explosive adventure. Adrift in the desert, each member of the family ultimately set off on their own paths to find acceptance, love, and truth.
The show’s fourth run arrives at a time when transgender issues have never been higher in profile, as US President Donald Trump announced this week a ban on transgender people serving in the military. The cast and creators of Transparent issued a joint statement in response:
“We feel very lucky to get to make art inspired by themes of love, home and boundaries, and how they operate in both human beings as well as nations. Sharing this work amidst President Trump’s continued assault on the transgender community is painful. We are outraged that he announced in a tweet that transgender people would not be allowed to serve ‘in any capacity’ in the U.S. military. It is reprehensible to deny an estimated 15,000 current trans service members, and 134,000 trans veterans, the dignity, respect and safety that they deserve.
“At Transparent we believe in the integrity of the trans community, which we know firsthand because we are all either trans or allies to the trans community. It is a revolutionary act for a trans person to simply leave the house and walk down the street. We tap into the incredible history of survival the trans community has achieved against all odds, knowing that our fight is noble and on the side of justice and human rights.
“To our trans community members serving in the military and to transgender veterans: We work in solidarity with you and will continue fighting and creating art for our community’s well-being and future. We hope that you’ll enjoy the trailer for season 4 because our visibility and our stories are more important than ever.”
All episodes of Transparent Season 4 will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on 22nd September. Not seen Transparent? You can catch up with our reviews of Season 1, 2 and 3 here – or hit the button below to start catching up on one of the best TV shows of the last decade.
Transparent Season 4 heads to Israel
14th June 2017
Transparent Season 4 is heading to Israel, writer Our Lady J has revealed.
The singer, who has worked with Lady Gaga in the past, is hardly your typical screenwriter, but Transparent is hardly your typical show. After writing a short story about her experience of growing up trans, Our Lady J landed a gag writing for Jill Soloway’s series.
The programme, which follows the Pfefferman family in Los Angeles as they react to their father coming out as Maura (Jeffrey Tambor), has won two Golden Globes and three Emmys for its nuanced and taboo-breaking depiction of trans life in modern America. Now, though, Our Lady J has confirmed that the series, which has also explored the family’s religious faith in detail, is expanding its horizons.
“This next season we go global, quite literally,” she told Deadline. “We’ve been in Los Angeles for the first three seasons and it’s about life in LA, but also life in America. With everything that’s happening politically in the world right now, we wondered, how would the Pfeffermans react? We take a little trip around the world and we find out. You can watch them misbehave in the holy land, not just Los Angeles.”
Season 4 will also be more political, inspired by the country’s shift towards voting for the conservative appeal of populist president Donald Trump.
“I come from Amish country in Pennsylvania. I wasn’t surprised that the country was going to lean in this conservative direction again. It felt somewhat like the trauma of growing up in rural USA as a trans person,” she commented. “We can isolate ourselves in these metropolitan cities and really forget what’s happening outside. There was this feeling of doom that was impending–we just were hoping it didn’t happen. Then when it happened, it did feel like we needed to re-break everything.”
“It felt like—when we were counting on having our first female president—we were writing for these characters and these stories that were going to be taking place in that America. Then, we took a step back and we realised that our themes that had been running through what we were writing were actually right in line with what the country was feeling,” she continued. “There was this general anxiety, there was fear, there was uncertainty. We ran with those themes and we really leaned into those things.”
While her name on the credits might surprise some, Our Lady J admitted that she was always determined that she “was going to be involved somehow in Transparent, because I believed in it so much”. Indeed, she actually auditioned for the role of Davina in Season 1, although she said that she is happy Alexandra Billings got the role, because she is “a goddess and amazing”.
Now she’s in the writer’s room, she said that she wants to take the kid globes off and really explore all the sides to Maura.
“When I got into the writer’s room, one of the first things that I wanted to do was take off the kid gloves with Maura. There was this feeling that trans-ness was really handled quite reverently in Season 1, but every other character wasn’t handled reverently. In a way, the trans-ness, I wanted to rough it up a little bit, make it a little bit more real, include some of the ugly things.”
Season 4 of Transparent will premiere later this year.