We Need to Talk About Queer Media
There’s some good, some bad, some ugly, and a whole lotta hope.
As we end our second month of The Queerest Year, we have been talking a lot about the state of queer media and queerness in media. We are asking questions such as: What counts as queer? How do you define queer media? Who is making the queer films and shows? Who has control over production? How do you find it once it’s made? How is queerness depicted and by whom? It’s all quite messy, complicated, and vexing. And once you see what’s possible, once you witness a queer maker depict our realities and illuminate our imagination, you’ve taken the red pill and there’s no going back.
On the one hand, we have been cautiously optimistic so far about the volume of queer film and television available on streaming services, in addition to our own physical media collection; we should have plenty of queer films and shows to watch all year—even if nothing new comes out, which won’t be the case. And a decent amount of it is good! There are some interesting new concepts and we are seeing some varied representation (even if it feels check-boxy in some cases). The queer community is getting more and more maker and actor opportunities, such that we are still achieving “firsts” in mainstream media moments, which is at once celebratory and infuriating.
On the other hand, the quality and quantity feels extremely tenuous. New queer content is seemingly cancelled as quickly as it’s released. We already find it tiring that, as we find new shows, we learn that they are already canceled or, in the case of some (like Dead End: Paranormal Park), they get canceled just after we start watching. Despite a fervent, ongoing nun-worthy fight, Warrior Nun is still dead. (Although the campaign did get the desperate fans a few crumbs by way of a short script page for a never-filmed scene.) Also, the shows that toxic fandoms—fueled by their homophobic white supremacist “nostalgia”—feel any kind of “ownership” over and that dare to incorporate any kind of compelling queer and/or BIPOC representation are getting review-bombed (see examples A League of Their Own; The Eternals; The Last of Us; etc.). Don’t get us started about the not-canceled-but-not-renewed purgatory that ALOTO is in.
Which brings us to a critical aspect of this conversation: Who is in control of both what gets made and by whom. The white cishet and mostly male corporate powers-that-be have all the say, leaving marginalized communities with a dearth of control at the highest levels. They say who. They say when. They say what and for how long. Capitalist henchmen will go the way the money blows. They don’t actually care that trans people are thoughtfully represented on screen. They don’t actually want to see lesbians for who we really are, nor do they dream about showing Black queer joy. They just want to make money. So when it was cool and cute to green-light queer projects, they did.
But they didn’t change anything about the system that is designed to reward their “norm,” so our media struggles to thrive. The marketing dollars are paltry. The algorithms are biased. The major studio executive ranks are not representative of population demographics.1 The time for a show to find an audience is short; the patience for small but enthusiastic audiences is absent. The queer community, alongside some other systemically marginalized communities, will never have the population numbers to tip the scales in our favor when weighed against the heft of the normative mainstream. Mainstream shows are given large depth and breath to have a long run (we’re looking at you, Law & Order) and movies win big by catering to the lowest common denominator (hello, Top Gun: Maverick). The same system is kept to define and evaluate “success,” one that will only ever reward the dominant group (surprise—it’s the cishet white one!) behaving in their normy ways. All of this matters because, while media has a terrible capacity to promote tyranny, we know that art has the capacity to emancipate.
Queer art and media are important because they are beacons for not only possibilities, but also revolution. Truly queer art is made by people who can see as well as operate contrary to the rules and live outside of the game. These queer artists and makers then create works that show how queerness looks and what it means and how it’s possible. They tell our stories in the form of important and life-changing and world-shifting art. Media made by us and for us can be life affirming just by it existing in a time when trans, Black, and/or queer lives are being actively and increasingly persecuted. But, the thing is, all types of queer people also deserve mediocre or silly or terrible media, too. Shows like First Kill and movies like Bros aren’t exactly the highest of art, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t be enjoyed. Sometimes we just want a silly fun show with characters that represent some part of us to ease our minds after another day we have survived. Is that too much to ask?
Actually, we have a few additional requests. What if there were shifts from the focus of power in corporate headquarters to the communities hungry for content that speaks to them? What if our shows were given marketing budgets and time to build an audience? Or what if it were okay to have a smaller but rabid audience? What if algorithms catered to the transgressive weirdo, the niche obsessive, or others at the margins of society? What if queer content didn’t have to appeal to or explain itself to the cishet norm? What if a piece of queer media didn’t have to be everything for everyone? And what if you didn’t have to spend over $125 per month across over 15 streaming services—a barrier to access, alongside the privilege of time, that not everyone can get past—to have access to enough movies and shows so that you could watch only queer content?
It’s not only important that our stories are told, that we are visible and have representation. It matters how they are told and by whom—and how they are received. Alongside the increased representation in media, we are experiencing a dangerous backlash, especially virulent against our trans and gender non-conforming community (on top of the ongoing state violence on Black people). In showing more and more how much artifice and choice is involved in gender, we have scared normative society. With choice comes freedom, and with freedom comes power. They are working very hard right now, every day, to take away our choices, our freedoms, our power.
We create possibilities unknown to most, unseeable to many. Our very existence embodies the beauty of potentiality and difference, of possibility and imagination. Some people are frightened by our queer power. Others are envious of our queer power. ~H. Petrocelli2
So much has to change in order to have what we hope for and need. Marginalized people need to have some control over what media is made. We need for our stories to be told by us and for us. We hope that, from the media that is made, we can experience transgressive and revolutionary art. We hope that there are more queer characters and that these roles are filled by people who have lived a broad spectrum of queer reality. And we need A League of Their Own to be renewed already, for fuck’s sake.
The report states: “In early 2020, UCLA’s report documents that film studio CEOs were 91 percent white and 82 percent male, while studio senior management teams were 93 percent white and 80 percent male, and studio unit heads were 86 white and 59 percent male. The statistics for television networks were similar in 2020, if not a little more inclusive with respect to gender: Network CEOs were 92 percent white and 68 percent male, network senior management teams were 84 percent white and 60 percent male, and network unit heads were 86 percent white and 46 percent male.” The full report can be found here.
Note: While this “report analyzes gender and racial diversity in the film industry,” its intentional focus is on Black diversity (or lack thereof) in the industry and approaches gender analysis through a binaristic lens.
www.instagram.com/p/CoLMx5NPW_O
Love the stills, especially the perfect placement of Portrait under "we know that art has the capacity to emancipate".
And ALL OF THIS: "What if queer content didn’t have to appeal to or explain itself to the cishet norm? What if a piece of queer media didn’t have to be everything for everyone?" So, so much this. We want to be able to have more ALOTO, and also First Kill, Fire Island, and Bros (though really, maybe cool it on the stories centering white men).