What Elliot Page’s Transition on “Umbrella Academy” Gets Right
by Maya Williams
How Elliot Page’s Transition Honors Viktor Hargreeves’ Manhood While Also Honoring the Women in His Life in the Third Season of Umbrella Academy.
This essay contains light spoilers of season three of Umbrella Academy.
I have been invested in the aesthetic and themes of time in all three seasons of Umbrella Academy, but out of all of them, the third season is my absolute favorite. The series showcases seven adopted siblings with special abilities sucked into the failed intricacies of surviving apocalypses and traveling through time. It warms my heart to hear Elliot Page say in his interview with Seth Meyers that his acting career feels better because of how he feels better in his body. And seeing that reflected in a character such as Viktor who had been through a lot of hardship and exclusion in and out of his family in the first two seasons, the fact that coming out makes him feel the most included, maybe at ease, is remarkable.
I want to be sure I give credit to the writers, directors, and consultants of the show who really made Viktor’s storyline shine this season.
A Black lesbian woman, Cheryl Dunye, directed Viktor’s most pertinent episodes. A new head writer of Umbrella Academy, Michelle Lovretta, has experience in writing queer stories because of her show Lost Girl.
Trans journalist and boxer Thomas Page McBee was a consultant producer on the show because of his close relationship with Page in previous work.
McBee’s collaboration helped Jesse McKeown grow in his writing as he depicted Viktor being reintroduced to his powers as a way of coming into his own again since the first season. This season, McKeown is the lead writer of the episode where Viktor gets his first masculine haircut and comes out to his siblings. Although I don’t believe Viktor needed to ask his family if they are “okay” with him coming out, that doesn’t make me any less happy at how readily his siblings are okay with him. The approach of having the character Sissy, Viktor’s lover in season two, being the catalyst coming out is especially endearing.
Too often, we hear cisgender women “grieve” transmasculine people coming out, when there’s nothing to grieve at all. The idea of “grief” comes from a trans exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) lens that doesn’t honor trans people’s humanity. So to have Viktor be confident because Sissy encouraged him to be who he is, and always loved him for who he is regardless of the stage of life he was in, truly helps eradicat that trope that we’ve seen of cis women “grieving” (looking at you, The L Word).
Moreover, before Viktor’s transition, his sister, Allison, calls him “a good sister.” After his transition, she genuinely refers to him as her brother. There’s no “grieving” of a “sister.” Allison knows that her brother has always been there.
That certainly doesn’t mean Viktor and Allison’s sibling relationship is all rainbows and butterflies. Because of their actual grieving–they get viscerally mad at one another, butAllison crucially doesn’t say anything transphobic to Viktor.
Way too often in television, and in real life, people use their anger as an excuse to misgender and/or deadname their loved ones. I remember the last episode of the first season of Work in Progress breaking my heart because of the lead character deadnaming her boyfriend because he broke up with her. I understand that season two of Work in Progress focused on the main character seeking forgiveness and holding herself accountable, but my point still remains.
Writers Jesse McKeown and Aeryn Michelle Williams, who are responsible for Allison’s story arc in season two, didn’t need to stoop to that level in order to show Viktor and Allison’s rage at one another later in season three. The writers closest to these characters understood the complexity of family while still honoring each family member’s humanity.
Finally, have people forgotten that a trans person is the executive producer of this show because of his creation of the comics of the same name? Let’s not erase Gerard Way, folks. Umbrella Academy has always been a trans story.
On one end, Page is still white and has the financial privilege to be an out transmasculine person. That needs to be acknowledged. On another end, it’s not fair that Page has been forced into a role of “the activist” just for existing.
The showrunners, actors, and collaborators of this show have done so much right by Elliot Page and Viktor Hargreeves. It’s an example for many other television and film makers to follow. But I don’t want it to be the only one. I also don’t want it to be the only one that celebrates the meaning of humanity within the family unit.
About the Author:
Maya Williams (ey/em/eirs; they/them/theirs; she/her/hers) is a Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor currently residing in Portland, ME. Ey has a Masters in Social Work with a Certificate in Applied Arts and Social Justice, a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a Focus in Poetry, and published essays in venues such as The Tempest, Rooted in Rights, Black Girl Nerds, Black Youth Project, and more. They also work as a spoken word poet and community care program coordinator. Follow Maya@emmdubb16on Twitter and Instagram. Maya also has a website:https://www.mayawilliamspoet.com/
