Laverne Cox Hopes ‘Clean Slate’s “Multidimensional” Representation Counters Anti-Trans “Media Propaganda”

deadline.com:

With a new wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation coming out of the first days of 2025, Laverne Cox is well aware of the cultural significance of her new show.

In Clean Slate, Season 1 of which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, the actress plays a proud trans woman named Desiree who returns home to her estranged father Harry (George Wallace) in Mobile, Alabama, after 17 years, telling Deadline they set the series in her actual hometown in attempt to “humanize Desiree” amid the ongoing battle for trans rights. “I wanted it to just have that sort of authenticity, and I wanted to kind of have it be an exploration of what it means to come home, how difficult that is,” explained Cox. “I have such a difficult relationship with Mobile, honestly, to this day, and I thought that tension would be great.

It’s my real life.” And while their dynamic is ripe with generational divide on a myriad of issues, including trans rights, Wallace noted that Harry represents a more progressive parental figure who can “be educated, learn how to live and let live.” “That’s why I’m here.

That’s what I’m all about, even in comedy. Let’s get together and have some fun. Let’s laugh. And with her, I think telling her story and coming back to me—” explained Wallace. “I don’t understand it, but then boom, there’s the answer there with a smile.” As being openly LGBTQ so often does, Clean Slate inadvertently serves as a political message in the wake of a string of policies targeting the LGBTQ community, particularly trans people, implemented in the first days of Trump’s second term.