LGBTQ Actors Say Queer Characters Need to Recruit Queer Writers (VIDEO)

,[There] There should never be a situation where you have gay characters and don’t have gay writers, at least to go along with those characters, said “Yellowjackets” star Nicole Maines, who is transgender. “If you’re going to have a trans character, hire a trans writer as well because it shouldn’t just be on that actor to play the teacher and be the token person.”

In addition to Guillén (he/she), Jacobs (he/she) and Mains (he/her), the roundtable – titled The Fight Continues: Hollywood’s Role in LGBTQ Representation and Safeguarding Rights – also featured “Ted Lasso” actor Jodi Balfour. were involved. (he/she), “Fire Island” writer/actor Joel Kim Booster (he/she), “Schmigadoon!” Actor Titus Burgess and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” actor Nico Santos (he/she).

All seven actors personally experienced homophobia and transphobia on productions, both overt and subtle. Most of these incidents stemmed from ignorance rather than hatred, and few ended up with a positive outcome or effected change. Still, the actors agreed that it’s not solely on them to educate those they work with, and there is still a long way to go to make the industry truly inclusive.

Homophobia and transphobia often appear in scripts. Early in her career as a guest star on the CBS sitcom “2 Broke Girls,” Nico Santos got a line that gave her pause.

Santos recalled, “Basically, it meant that my character was a pedophile because he was gay.” “And I was like, ‘Do you really have to say that she’s into underage boys?’

Santos expressed his concern to someone at CBS, who escalated it to the head of the network. The line was eventually changed to something “less offensive” but “still offensive”. At the time, Santos feared that even voicing his concerns would land him on some sort of blacklist, so he felt he had to “grin and bear it.”

Jacobs recalls a time when he portrayed the character Two Souls and had to define the term. She remembers getting the next draft of the script “literally a Wikipedia search of what Two Souls was”—a result, she says, of not having Indigenous, gay, and two Soul writers in the writers’ room.

Other times, the homophobic stereotype pervades the direction, not just the scripts.

Joel Kim Booster recalled the time the directors questioned his ability to catch the ball in a scene that exposed, as he called it, “benevolent homophobia”.

“They were like, ‘Oh, if you’re not comfortable catching the ball, we don’t want to embarrass you,'” the comedian recalled. “It was clear it was a gay thing. And I was like, ‘Thanks for watching, I guess. But I’m gay and I can catch the ball. Thank you very much.’

It was also the time Gullen was told that he was playing a scene too emotionally. While shooting a coming out scene for her “What We Do in the Shadows” character, director Kyle Newcheck asked Guillén to do it again, “Did you think you’d be so emotional?”

“Have you come out for anyone?” Guillen remembered the answer.

“Touch, touch,” replied Newcheck. The episode ended up winning a GLAAD Award, and Neuchek later told Guillén that their conversation was a learning experience.

For Balfour, it is not a specific line or direction, but “less tangible content”.

“It feels like they’re a heterosexual couple on the show, with love scenes that look a certain way. And my character who’s in love with a woman, when we have sex, it’s only to a certain degree.” Or like we kiss on camera very rarely,” explained the actor.

Burgess states that the discrimination, which she says she has experienced in every job, is rooted in white male supremacy. “It’s not so obvious because it’s the result of having too little vocabulary,” he explained. “There are few words to describe the color and range of emotions that we go through when we are faced with something that we do not understand. And most of my encounters with homophobia/transphobia/racism have just come from someone who didn’t know what to do.

Educating those “who don’t know what to do” is a task (often unpaid and emotionally draining) that falls exclusively for queer people.

“During the resurgence of awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement – which never went anywhere – this rhetoric was going around [Black people] Often said, ‘You know, we shouldn’t be teaching you right now.’ But if we don’t, who will?” Burgess made the statement.

“I have felt very much that with being the only trans person on set, does the burden really fall on me to correct people,” echoed Maines. “I’m the first person they go to [ask], ‘Hey, what does this script look like? Hey, what do we want to do? Hey, can you tell us what transphobia is?’ I’m glad you’re asking the question, I’m glad I’m engaging in the conversation. I just don’t like the person involved because my experience as a cis-passing, white trans girl who had accepting parents who had access to gender affirming care at a young age is transness. My experience with is not cookie cutter, copy paste. There are many different ways to experience trance. There are many different ways to experience queerness. And it’s so intertwined with every other aspect of our lives, that my own sole experience as a trans person doesn’t even begin to cover the full range of the story.

Santos agreed, saying that she hesitates to express her opinion on certain matters because there are countless voices out there, not just hers. “Please don’t take my word for it like the gay experience or the Asian experience, the queer experience,” he explained. “But if I don’t say anything, where are they getting their information from? It is sometimes a delicate dance.

More representation comes from hiring and leaning in more diverse voices, the panel agreed.

“What we need to do is demand less that every queer representation in television and movies and media be perfect, and just demand more so that we see more across the spectrum, and that every representation should be able to embody everyone’s experience.” Don’t expect and just let us have more options to find ourselves,” said Kim Booster.

To hear more from the panelists, including their thoughts on non-gender award categories, watch the full panel above.

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