Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Op-ed Defending Scarlett Johansson Transgender Casting Decision Is Yanked

Business Insider removed a published op-ed defending the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a transgender man in an upcoming film, the Daily Beast reported.

The Weekly Standard went on to publish the piece by conservative columnist Daniella Greenbaum, which had been taken off Business Insider’s website after staffers complained that it was offensive.

In “Scarlett Johansson is being unfairly criticized for doing her job after being cast as a transgender man,” Greenbaum criticized the backlash to the casting decision for the movie “Rub and Tug,” where she will play a real-life trans man whose Pittsburgh massage parlors were used as fronts for prostitutes.

“The job of an actor is to represent someone else,” Greenbaum wrote. “Johansson’s identity off the screen is irrelevant to the identities she plays on the screen. That’s what she’s paid for. And if she does her job, she’ll make everyone forget about the controversy in the first place.”

In an editor’s note posted Tuesday, Business Insider noted that upon further review, the column “did not meet our editorial standards.”

Removing the article moved the publication to alter its own internal editorial policies. In an email reviewed by the Daily Beast, global editor-in-chief Nich Carlson announced that Business Insider would create a list of employees who had “volunteered to talk about culture and identity issues.” Also, “culturally sensitive columns, analysis, and opinion pieces” will now be reviewed by the company’s executive editors before publication.

Through a Business Insider’s spokesperson, Greenbaum said she disagrees with the decision to take down Friday’s post and stands by her original piece.

Greenbaum, formerly of Commentary magazine and the Wall Street Journal, also attracted attention as a college student for her op-eds in the Columbia Daily Spectator.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.