Butterfly - All my colors
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| German title | Butterfly - All my colors |
| Original title | butterfly |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| year | 2018 |
| Production company |
Red Production Company |
| length | 44 minutes |
| Episodes | 3 in 1 season |
| genre | drama |
| idea | Tony Marchant |
| production | Louise Sutton |
| music | Michael Stein, Kyle Dixon |
| First broadcast | October 14, 2018 on ITV |
| German-language first broadcast |
January 21, 2020 on RTL Passion |
| occupation | |
Butterfly - All My Colors (original title Butterfly ) is a British miniseries that premiered on October 14, 2018 on ITV . It is about 11-year-old Maxine, who realizes that she is transgender . For this reason, she wants to start a gender reassignment program before she hits puberty . The series describes how their private and school environment and the authorities deal with their wishes.
The idea for the series comes from the playwright Tony Marchant , who has dealt with gender issues in his works in the past. The German broadcasting rights of the production lie with RTL Passion , where the series has been shown since January 21, 2020.
action
The young Maxine is transgender and wanted to appear as a girl when she was five. Her mother Vicky let her wear feminine clothes at home, but forbade her to do so in public, while her father Stephen lives apart from the family when he once slapped Maxine during a tantrum for being too feminine in his eyes. At the age of eleven, Maxine suffered from a gender identity disorder and developed self-harming behavior as a result . Maxine wants to start a gender reassignment regimen before she hits puberty and her body develops into that of a young man. While her mother Vicky and her sister Lily fully support Maxine, Stephen, her grandmother Barbara and their grandfather Peter are initially skeptical of their plan. The series not only focuses on the slowly growing acceptance of their family members, but also on prejudices that Maxine encounters both in school and in everyday life, as well as on regulatory hurdles that she has to overcome before she can start the measure.
production
The idea for the series came from the British playwright and screenwriter Tony Marchant , who wrote the screenplay for the film The Little Difference in 1996 , in which the main character is also transgender. According to Marchant, the "exploration of ( gender- queer ) gender identities " has always appealed to him. For the series, he consulted with Susie Green, the head of the British organization Mermaids , which advocates for minors, transgender people. The main character also has similarities with Green's daughter Jackie, who at the age of 16 was the youngest person in Great Britain to receive gender reassignment surgery .
When writing the script, Marchant consulted with families supported by Mermaids, among others. According to Marchant, the show wanted to "destroy" two myths about transgender minors. These are the identification as transgender in order to be considered “fashionable”, and the supposedly easy access to GnRH analogues , which are important for the gender reassignment measure.
Filming began in January 2018 and lasted about two months. Actually, the main role should be filled with a transgender actress, but Green advised against this, as such a role is "really difficult and painful" for a corresponding actress, and it is better if transgender minors remain anonymous. For this reason, the child actor Callum Booth-Ford was finally hired for the lead role, who is cisgender . The parenting roles were cast by Anna Friel and Emmett J. Scanlan , who also spoke to families of transgender children in preparation.
occupation
The synchronization of the series was created at Taunusfilm under the dialogue direction by Heike Kospach.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Maxine Duffy | Callum Booth-Ford | Arthur Wolfgang May |
| Vicky Duffy | Anna Friel | Manja Doering |
| Stephen Duffy | Emmett J. Scanlan | |
| Lily Duffy | Millie Gibson | Johanna Schmoll |
| Barbara Pannell | Alison Steadman | |
| Paula | Lorraine Burroughs | |
| Gemma | Amy Huberman | |
| Peter Duffy | Seán McGinley | |
| Molly | Lola Ogunyemi |
Episode list
| No. | German title | Original title | First broadcast in UK | German language first broadcast (D) | Director | script |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | episode 1 | Episode 1 | Oct 14, 2018 | Jan. 21, 2020 | Anthony Byrne | Tony Marchant |
| Stephen Duffy, who lives separately from his wife Vicky, spends the weekend with their children Max and Lily and his new girlfriend Gemma. Max wants to be treated as a girl even though she was born a boy. On Max's first day in high school, when she reluctantly has to wear her boy's uniform, she wets herself because she is not allowed to use the girls' bathroom and she does not want to go to the other toilet. At home, Lily helps Vicky prepare for a date, while Max tries to persuade her mother to meet Stephen instead. Shortly before Vicky leaves, Lily notices that Max has cut his wrists. At the hospital, Max asks Stephen to move back in with them. Vicky and Stephen explain to a psychiatrist that Max has only wanted to wear girls' clothes since she was five, so they are referred to Ferrybank, a gender identity counseling center . Stephen later says that he wants to "put his son in order," which is why Vicky reluctantly allows him to live with her again, whereupon he separates from Gemma. A flashback shows Stephen slapping Max because she is too feminine in his eyes. Back home, Max watches a documentary about transgender people and then goes dancing with Lily and her friends. Afterwards, Max is bullied by some students, but Lily can defuse the situation. At the end of the episode, Lily announces that Max has bought a school uniform for girls and would henceforth be called Maxine. | ||||||
| 2 | Episode 2 | Episode 2 | Oct 21, 2018 | Jan 28, 2020 | Anthony Byrne | Tony Marchant |
| Vicky and Stephen attend a meeting for the Mermaids charity , which works primarily for minors who identify as transgender. Maxine later tells her father that she has been harassed and threatened, which is why he threatens her tormentors with violence, much to Vicky's indignation. When Maxine spends half an hour in the toilet, Stephen breaks the door open. There he, Vicky and Lily see how Maxine holds a piece of glass in her hand and complains about her penis . The following day, Maxine and her parents talk to an employee of the school, who first expressly warns Maxine about the permanence of a possible new, female identity and then writes a letter for Maxine's class in which the students are informed of their new first names. At school, Lily has a date with a friend, while Maxine befriends Molly, who also injured herself . Meanwhile, Vicky is heavily criticized by her mother Barbara for allowing Maxine to present herself as a girl. Later, Maxine and her parents go to Ferrybank. There an employee explains to them that Maxine will not receive any testosterone blockers, whereupon Vicky yells at him. Stephen talks to Gemma and asks her opinion, while Vicky borrows money from Barbara under an excuse. She flies to the United States with Maxine so that she can get the medication there. | ||||||
| 3 | Episode 3 | Episode 3 | Oct 28, 2018 | Feb. 4, 2020 | Anthony Byrne | Tony Marchant |
| Stephen realizes that Vicky and Maxine have left the country, leaving Barbara angry because Vicky claimed the money was for their business. In Boston , Maxine is undergoing some medical exams to prepare her to take the testosterone blockers. Doctors tell her that after a while, she will have to come back to Boston for more tests. In the UK, Lily complains to Stephen about feeling neglected and therefore moves in temporarily with her grandmother. Stephen then reports Vicky to the police, when she and Maxine come home, she is arrested while Maxine is questioned by the police. The family gets into an argument, which is why Stephen moves in with his father Peter. Gemma manages to get him to pull the charge against Vicky, but the relationship between him and his wife is still strained. A family court therefore orders an investigation by an employee of the youth welfare office, who is supposed to assess whether Maxine is doing well with her family. Vicky is irritated during the visit and reveals to the employee that Stephen slapped Maxine. Then she apologizes to Barbara for her behavior and learns that her mother put in a good word for her to the employee. She then apologizes for neglecting Vicky and meets Gemma while Maxine visits Molly in the hospital. After she comes back, Vicky and Stephen tell her that she can no longer go to Boston. After talking to the youth welfare office, they get an appointment where Maxine is finally approved to take the testosterone blockers. | ||||||
reception
In the Internet Movie Database , the series received a rating of 6.3 out of ten stars based on 1,473 votes. On Rotten Tomatoes , the critics' rating was 93 percent and the audience rating was 60 percent.
Sean O'Grady of the Independent rated the series four out of five stars. It was "incredibly touching", and he especially emphasized the portrayal of the main actor Callum Booth-Ford . He described Butterfly as a "groundbreaking ITV production," citing a scene in which Lily refers to Maxine as her sister as an example.
Lucy Mangan also gave the series four out of five stars in the Guardian . The production is "wonderfully tender", the characters are completely realized through "uniformly brilliant representations".
Gabriel Tate rated the series three out of five stars in the Daily Telegraph . It is indeed "captivating" and a "finely tuned resistance to lazy prejudices". However, Tate criticized clichés in the plot, some passages also looked like a "public educational film", and Alison Steadman would "rattle off" the text in her role.
The Gender Identity Division of the National Health Service criticized the sequence in which the main character attempts suicide. This is "not helpful" because eleven-year-olds are very rarely among the survivors of attempted suicides, and not even one percent of the patients in the department tried to kill themselves, which is why the scene is unrealistic. ITV commented that the series was "the fictional story of a single family". According to a report in the Sunday Times , producers of the program came to the clinic for research purposes, but ended the collaboration because of "differences".
Web links
- Butterfly - all my colors in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Butterfly - All my colors at Fernsehserien.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jeff Robson: Butterfly, ITV, review: A sensitive 'social issue' drama that's also a sparky slice of life. In: inwes.co.uk. October 14, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Adam Arndt: Butterfly - All my colors: German premiere in January. In: Serienjunkies.de . December 19, 2019, accessed December 27, 2019 .
- ^ A b Ash Percival: 'Butterfly' Writer Tony Marchant On Changing Attitudes To Transgender Children And The Importance Of Trans Representation On Screen. In: Huffpost . October 14, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Amy Hunt: Fans praise Anna Friel's 'powerful' new ITV drama Butterfly. In: Woman & Home. October 15, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Alice Broster: Who Is Jackie Green? The Real Life Story Behind ITV's 'Butterfly' Is So Inspiring. In: Bustle.com. October 11, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Joe Anderton: Emmett J Scanlan and Anna Friel play a formerly married couple in first look at ITV's drama about a gender variant child. In: Digital Spy . January 8, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Laura Donaldson: Butterfly ITV: When is the drama on, what's it about and who's in the cast with Anna Friel and Callum Booth-Ford? All the details. In: OK! October 17, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ^ Ellie Harrison: Paris Lees: 'Butterfly is the best thing to happen to the trans community for years'. In: RadioTimes . October 28, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Elisa Bray: Anna Friel on transgender drama Butterfly: 'If it was my daughter, I don't know what I would do'. In: The Independent . October 12, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ German synchronous index | Series | Butterfly. Accessed January 21, 2020 .
- ↑ Butterfly. In: Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved December 28, 2019 .
- ^ Sean O'Grady, Butterfly, episode one review: 'An incredibly affecting drama'. In: The Independent. October 12, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Lucy Mangan: Butterfly review - an important, truthful drama about a transgender child. In: The Guardian . October 14, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ^ Gabriel Tate: Butterfly review: a well-intended pushback against lazy prejudice. In: The Telegraph . October 14, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Andrew Gilligan: Butterfly: Teen transgender drama 'inflates suicide risk'. In: The Sunday Times . October 14, 2018, accessed December 28, 2019 .