PHOSPHENES

This past Spring, model and actor Jari Jones made history as the first black trans womxn to produce a film at Cannes. Here’s proof that it’s only the beginning.

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From the outside looking in, making history seems to be an emboldening, empowering experience. As far as LGBTQIA+ rights are concerned, it’s had to not only be an act of fearlessness, but an act of defiance. But as Jari Jones will tell you, being the first black trans womxn to produce a film at the fabled Festival de Cannes was a quiet victory, albeit “a little fucked up” that it’s taken this long.

What sets Jones apart, however, is her muted self- assuredness, that even on the Cannes red carpet in her scarlet ball gown, she oozes a silent intelligence and ease that cannot be misplaced or mistaken. And that’s part of her power: she often speaks in a whisper, but everyone cranes in to hear.

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Jones’s Producer credit was on Port Authority, which boasted Martin Scorsese as Executive Producer: the tale of a cis, white boy named Paul (played by Fionn Whitehead) from suburbia falling in love with a trans womxn, Wye (played by Leyna Bloom, the first black trans womxn to star in a Cannes film) and ballroom culture in one fell swoop.

“I initially got involved when I auditioned as an actress. The director was like, ‘would you be a script consultant on the film?’ And I was like, ‘yeah, sure!’” she remembers. “And then Martin Scorsese jumped on board, and I got the producer credit, just to keep the script and the story as authentic as possible.”

Fast forward to Cannes, when the cast made their way to the south of France by GoFundMe. Jari emphasized the importance of bringing a community that doesn’t always get its cultural dues into the limelight. “We brought some of the boys with us, and they vogued on the red carpet, which was unreal. The head of Cannes came up to us and said, ‘I’ve been doing this a long time, this is a big week for photographers to make a lot of money, and this is the first time I’ve seen photographers put down their cameras to applaud.’” And even though the film didn’t snag any awards, the cultural impact of the moment alone was enough for Jones. “Monica Bellucci has no pictures at Cannes because the photographers were applauding,” she laughs.

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Between acting and modeling, Jones is paving the way for more mainstream cultural recognition of people who look like her, and for those who don’t. By making a name for herself, she not only pushes the culture forward, but brings more opportunities to those in the communities she belongs to. “I like to call it the infiltration system,” she says with a smile. “Use my privilege of beauty, get into these rooms, and then overturn them.”

Even though her grandfather was a model, Jones didn’t think she’d have much of a shot at her acting and modeling career when she was done transitioning, a process she started at the age of 18. Not when the pinnacle of trans representation was comedic portrayals on daytime talk shows, keeping the marginalized to a punchline, if visible at all. “The only representation was The Maury Show, Jerry Springer. I was like, ‘I’m definitely not gonna work again.’ It was the opposite,” she says. She’s since had roles on Netflix’s Tales of the City, and Ryan Murphy’s Pose.

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Cannes — and Port Authority — was nothing less than a coup for Jones, but she’s had plenty to celebrate before, and even more to celebrate since. This past September, she walked her second season for Becca McCharen-Tran’s famously inclusive swim and bodywear at Chromat, only to cap off NYFW with another runway appearance for Gypsy Sport, and the premiere for Transparent Musical Finale.

All in all? Jones is happy with where she is, but she’s just as ready for things to move forward for the community as she is for her own career. There hasn’t been a more progressive time to be a black trans womxn in acting and modeling, but there’s still a lot of work to be done, she notes. “It has its amazing days, and it has its awful days. We’re moving towards a place that’s going to be inclusive of everybody, but what I’m afraid is we’re being inclusive, but we have a checklist of who’s meeting the standards. How close are you to whiteness? How close are you to eurocentricity, how close are you to cis-ness?” she says. “We have to work towards a place where we’re accepting of it all, and that’s when we’ll get the real stories.” JM