The Power: The Basics Of Amazon’s Paradigm-Shifting Series
Naomi Alderman’s “The Power” gives voice to all trans, intersex, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people
TRANSlating Everything is a newsletter by me, Stephenie Magister ✨ (and occasional guests), covering the “invisible” trans representation in all forms of media throughout history.
The Power recap series covers each upcoming episode of the series from my perspective as a transgender 40 Under 40 Nominee, a media critic pushing the limits of gender representation, and an editor for best-selling and award-winning authors.
So why a recap series? Why not just stop here with the point that hey, this show includes trans people?
There’s so much to unpack about how this novel and (hopefully) the show transcends representation for trans people.
The 9-part global thriller is based on Naomi Alderman’s bestselling novel of the same name.
In The Power, all teenage girls in the world suddenly develop the power to electrocute people at will. It’s hereditary, it’s inbuilt, and it can’t be taken away from them. The Power follows a cast of remarkable characters from London to Seattle, Nigeria to Moldova, as the Power evolves from a tingle in teenagers’ collarbones to a complete reversal of the power balance of the world.
Meet the gender non-conforming characters and the TRANSformative actors playing them
The #1 trans representation in the show, of course, is the literal trans actor cast as a literal trans character.
Sister Maria (Danielle Vega)
Sister Maria Ignacia, played by acclaimed trans actress Danielle Vega, is one of the nuns in the convent where Allie stays.
It is from Sister Maria, a trans woman, that Allie is inspired to emphasize the female figures in various religions. Maria Ignacia teaches that Jesus learned love from his mother Mary, and from this inspires a religion born from the womb of a trans woman.
Danielle Vega’s leading role in A Fantastic Woman (2017), awarded as Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Oscars, gave international recognition to the Chilean actress. She set history as the first out trans actress to present an award for the Oscars.
But wait, there is more. The cast and story for The Power is practically bursting with gender non-conforming representation.
Senator Margot Cleary-Lopez (Toni Collette)
There is a voice in Margot’s head. It says; You can’t get there from here.
She sees it all in that instant, the shape of the tree of power. Root to tip, branching and re-branching. Of course, the old tree still stands. There is only one way, and that is to blast it entirely to pieces.
Played by the legendary Toni Collette, Margot Cleary-Lopez begins as a small-time Mayor uncertain how to combat the unique problems presented by a world rooted in patriarchy. When the Power first begins to manifest, she takes political action to restrain and control what she fears.
And then her daughter awakens that same Power in Margot, and nothing will ever be the same.
Imagine House of Cards if it had started with Robin Wright as the main character — and she’d had the Power. Watch out for Josh Charles as Daniel Dandon, the governor of Washington State determined to crush her from existence.
Jos Cleary-Lopez (Auliʻi Cravalho)
Jos is Margot’s daughter. Yep, she’s the one who awakens the Power in her mom — and yet Jos has little control over her own abilities.
She is like many other cisgender, intersex, and transgender women who struggle with a variety of medical obstacles to society accepting them as real women. It is this unique experience of bigotry that makes her empathize with one of the only men in the story (Ryan) to also manifest the Power.
Allie/Mother Eve (Halle Bush)
“God loves all of us,” [Allie/Mother Eve] says, “and She wants us to know that She has changed Her garment merely. She is beyond female and male. She is beyond human understanding. But She calls your attention to that which you have forgotten. Jews: look to Miriam, not Moses, for what you can learn from her. Muslims: look to Fatima, not Muhammad. Buddhists: remember Tara, the mother of liberation. Christians: pray to Mary for your salvation.” — Mother Eve
Allie begins her life in circumstances not entirely dissimilar from those in which I grew up in Mississippi. The only difference is that I was nearly 40 years old before I found my Power.
She begins as a 16-year-old girl in Alabama living with foster parents. She’s frequently beaten and sexually violated by her father…until a voice tells her how to fight back. Until a voice commands her to claim her Power. Thus begins her ascension into politics, religion, and her role to bring Power to all people.
Mother Eve will be the cosplay of the next century.
Roxy Monke (Ria Zmitrowicz)
With immense control, she deadens their arms one by one, making them drop their guns. Roxy then jolts the water, making the policemen drop to their knees.
There is Roxy’s story as a cisgender woman of Power who is then forcibly [REDACTED]…!!!
It spoke to me deeply about being forced through trans conversion therapy in Mississippi in the 90s so my parents could follow “God’s” orders to turn me into a copy of my brother. Even at the end of her story, the scars of her trauma are described as an inverted rainbow.
The less you know about Roxie, the more fulfilling each surprise will be. In the meantime? Imagine if Stephen King’s classic horror character Carrie had been able to awaken the same Power in everyone else who’d ever been bullied.
Darrell (Archie Welch)
But there is more. There is Darrell (Archie Welch), the boy who is surgically implanted with a skein after stealing it from [REDACTED].
There is the agony of having that girl’s Power being forcibly taken from her, the hubris of those men who take what is not theirs, and the vengeance that comes to anyone who does not respect a woman’s right to say NO.
Ryan (Nico Hiraga)
And finally there is Ryan, a man born with a skein and thus awakened with the first shock from a woman — and all the horrible bigotry that comes to a man when he can do things that the world condemns as gender non-conforming.
Catch up with our ongoing exclusive coverage of The Power
TRANSlating The Power: An Exclusive Recap Show For The Amazon Original Series
The Power: Explaining The Show’s Connection To The Handmaid’s Tale
The Reason People Keep Thinking “The Power” Might Be Transphobic
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