Sunday, March 12, 2006

Clarification Part I

I've seen one thread of the preceding entry a bit more clearly, and want to share that now. If a film is made that effectively tells a story about women or people of color, that process simultaneously gives work to members of those respective groups. Over time, the pool of successful actresses and performers of color grows in direct relation to the number of films dealing with their experiences. That process does not happen for queers (do I have to keep writing glbt or are you with me?). There may be a growing number of films dealing with queer experiences, but almost always they are portrayed by straight actors. I would argue there is even a strong preference for casting straight actors, either because of homophobia among the powers that be, or because of the perceived homophobia of the target audience. So while the number of images may be increasing, the number of actors benefitting from the increased visibility isn't growing at all, at least not through that method. "Will & Grace" did not lead to a single actor coming out during it's entire run (unless Sean B. Hayes finally broke his policy of refusing to answer the question, and somehow I missed it). I am glad for the rise in the number of queer characters in film and TV, but if we want an increase of openly queer actors, the push for that is going to come in some other way.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you erase the original entry on purpose? It seems to have vansished...

Anonymous said...

Or vanished, even. (Oops.)

Patrick said...

Oops, that worried me for a second, but no, I must have hit 'save as draft' rather than 'publish post' after making some corrections. Thanks for the head's up.

Statcounter