You know what Good Omens does NOT get enough credit for? How it never, not once, makes gender presentation the butt of a joke.
Crowley presenting as female to be Warlock’s Nanny? The way this was filmed, acted, and written wasn’t made to be funny whatsoever. She was stunning, I loved the hat!
Archangel Michael, who has a traditionally male name, played by a female actress? Never questioned.
Lord Beelzebub’s androgyny? Only respect for the Lord of Hell.
Aziraphale sharing Madame Tracy’s body? Crowley recognized his angel and accepted it no problem. He was right about the dress too, it did suit him!
Crowley’s pure, unfiltered non-binary/gender-fluid energy in general? Fucking fabulous. Who could seriously make fun of this demon’s style? As someone once pointed out to me, you could swap him with Tilda Swinton and I’d see no difference. What an icon.
Good Omens is the first big show I’ve seen to basically avoid transphobia all together when the opportunity presented itself, and even say fuck you to the gender binary as a bonus. If the biggest binary in all the universe, Heaven and Hell, don’t give a damn about it then why should you?
Thank you! That was definitely what we were going for. I’m not certain we always achieved it – or at least, people didn’t always seem to see that was what we were doing. (It made me sad when a few people on Twitter reacted to Crowley-as-nanny as if it was meant to be a transphobic man-in-a-dress joke.)
For our angels and demons, it was intensely liberating having male and female actors auditioning for the same roles, and just picking the ones who we felt nailed the characters best.
Also, can I just hear a wahoo for the wonderful Archangel Uriel, Gloria Obianyo?
