As a Young Lesbian Queer Representation Saved Me

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there are things i can’t force

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i must adjust there are times when the

greatest change needed

is a change of viewpoint

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before i begin i’d like to acknowledge a

content warning about my talk

as you can see my talk discusses themes

of suicide

homophobia homophobic slurs and

repeatedly uses the word queer

in a reclaimed sense if any of these

things are uncomfortable or triggering

for you i advise you to click away from

the video

for a moment thanks

every queer person has a story of the

first time they saw another queer person

the light bulb moment a flash of

recognition

something that lay dormant in themselves

that they see active

in another for me

it was season two episode four of fox’s

hit teen drama

glee the series follows a group of

misfit teens performing in a show choir

at their mainly conservative high school

the episode in question centers around

two cheerleaders

brittany and santana kissing for the

very first time

i’ll never forget the moment that i saw

that kiss

i remember thinking to myself wait a

minute two girls are allowed

to kiss it was something i never even

thought of before

but the more that i did think about it

the more that i realized it was

something

i kind of wanted to do before i ever

heard the word lesbian or even

sexuality that kiss remained present in

my mind

and it was that kiss that launched my

journey into self-identity

and discovery that would lost last

throughout my entire jet my entire

adolescence

the theme of these this year’s

convention is the new age of

enlightenment and i believe no one

represents that theme better than my

generation

generation z gen z babies were born

anywhere from 1996

to 2012 and despite our young age we

have already made our mark on this world

climate change activism the black lives

matter movement

anti-gun violence protests these are all

things that my generation has taken an

active part

in participating in fun fact about gen z

we are actually the queerest generation

to exist thus far

according to a 2017 study by ipsis mori

66 of jen’s ears identify as

strictly heterosexual in comparison to

71 percent of millennials and 85

percent of but why is this

going to talk to you a little bit about

why queer representations specifically

on screen

matter so much to me and regardless of

your identity

it should matter just as much to you

now in order to have an educated

conversation about queer representation

on screen we first need to get

a baseline level of knowledge about how

queer people have been treated by the

film industry

and to do that we need to look to the

past and begin

by taking a look at the golden age of

hollywood which lasted from the early

1930s

until the late 1960s the pinnacle of the

film industry during this era was

something known as the studio system

wealthy producers created studios such

as mgm

20th century fox and others each of

which

had their own company of actors writers

directors and designers

all contracted under the specific

specific studios

to make movies the suits the studio

system ensured that these creatives were

given fair

livable wages but it often meant that

they had to sacrifice creative control

over their projects

together the heads of these studios

created a strict set of moral guidelines

any film produced under the studio

system had to follow

in order to be given a wide release the

set of rules was known as the haze code

one no picture shall lower the moral

standards of those who view it

hence the sympathies of the audience

shall not be thrown to the side of crime

wrongdoing evil or sin

two correct standards of life subject to

the requirements of drama

and entertainment shall be presented and

three

law human and natural shall not be

ridiculed

nor shall sympathy be created for its

violation

the haze code put a prohibition on any

studio system produced film

of nudity suggestive dancing superfluous

use of liquor

miscegenation ridicule religion lustful

kissing

scenes of passion and of course

discussions of

sexual perversity aka homosexuality

these guidelines put into place a system

in which no queer character could be

existing on a screen

in a studio system produced film unless

they were in some way punished

for their queer identity imagine being a

queer person

during this era going to see a movie

seeing a character on screen that for

some reason and or another

reminds you a little bit of yourself

watching that character

be brutally defeated the protagonists

celebrating that their evil

has been vanquished that sends the

message to that queer audience member

that not only is their queerness

something that they should be ashamed of

but it’s something that they deserve to

be punished for

now imagine every single movie you see

with a character that reminds you a

little bit of yourself

ends the exact same way

this is what the haze code did to its

queer audience members

in a time in which queer people were

already being isolated

mocked and even killed for their

queerness they couldn’t even find the

solace

seeing a movie the studio system died in

the late 1960s and the haze code along

with it

however the set of ideals that made

something like the haze code possible

in the first place still remained very

much ingrained into american culture

arguably

until the late 1990s that’s when things

began to take a turn for the better

in 1998 the history of queer characters

on screen would forever be changed

by the success of nbc’s hit sitcom will

and grace

the series followed two best friends a

gay man and a straight woman

living in new york city navigating love

life friendship

and career it was a massive hit running

for seven seasons and even garnering

revival

in 2017. will and grace was so important

because it was the first time a

mainstream sitcom showcased a queer main

character

in a positive light the character in

question

was a gay man but he was also a

successful lawyer

he was rich intelligent well spoken

he was masculine and defied many of the

harmful stereotypes that existed about

gay men at the time and his actor

eric mccormick quickly became the

household crush of men

women and people of all different

genders all across the country

will and grace was so important for

queer audiences because it showed for

the first time

that queer life was more than just

sadness

and death and interestingly enough

it wasn’t just queer audiences who were

affected by it

according to a study conducted by edward

shiapa of the massachusetts institute of

technology

71 of will and grace viewers he

interviewed

believed homosexual relationships to be

just as normal

as heterosexual ones and that’s in

comparison to 45

of those who believe the same thing who

did not watch the show

i’m not trying to say that this one tv

show caused an

entire generation of people to become

less homophobic

but i do think that will and grace is an

incredibly important piece of media that

showcased a time in which queer

issues were finally coming to the

forefront of public knowledge

when we look back on will and grace from

modern perspective it’s certainly not

perfect and there are absolutely aspects

of it that are outdated

but it arguably did more than any other

piece of media of its time

to further queer representation on

screen

so now you know a couple of examples of

what queer representation has looked

like in the past

but in order to fully understand why

this topic is so important i’d like to

talk to you a little bit about my

journey

to get here why i decided to start

speaking on this topic

in the first place

i grew up in southern california in an

area called orange county

and i was just like any other kid i like

to go to the mall

hang out with my friends eat pizza read

good books

but i always knew that there was

something different about me

i could never quite put my finger on it

but i just knew there was something that

set me apart from the rest of my friends

i felt disgusting and i had to kiss a

boy in the school play

my heart skipped a beat every time my

female best friend held my hand

when the boy i had a crush on asked me

out i completely panicked and stopped

talking to him altogether

and when i watched season 2 episode 4 of

glee

everything began to fall into place

now you would think of california as a

generally accepting open diverse

place and it is for the most part nobody

cares who you’re kissing in

san diego or l.a but in orange county

one of the state’s few historically

conservative districts

things are different they were nice

people

but i wasn’t anything like them

shortly after i came out one of my

classmates approached me

after jim and told me that i needed to

start changing

in the bathroom because it made her and

the rest of our female classmates

uncomfortable

to be sharing a locker room with a dyke

i was the only out queer woman i knew

and i felt completely and horribly alone

so i did what most lonely teenagers do

i went on the internet my google search

history was filled with

best lesbian movies tv shows with

lesbian characters best fictional

lesbian couples and on one particularly

frustrating day

oh my god why aren’t there any lesbian

rom-coms as good as the ones made for

straight people

i devoured every piece of queer media i

could get my hands on

one life was tough the fictional

lesbians of orange is the new black

imagine me and you but i’m a cheerleader

and buffy the vampire slayer

were there for me and they were enough

to get me through

at least for a while but my loneliness

always persisted

long after the end credits

along with a few other mental health

issues i was struggling with at the time

that loneliness eventually became so

overpowering

that in the spring of 2016 i attempted

to end my life

i’m still here as you can see

and my mental health has only gotten

better since then

but i got lucky i had a family that

supported me

when i came out with the financial means

to pay for my mental health treatment

and who have always strived to give me

the best

opportunities and support system that

they possibly could

not every queer kid has those things

and it’s a sad fact that suicide rates

amongst

queer youth are becoming dangerously

high

as of 2018 the cdc reports that 15

to 34 percent of queer students

have attempted suicide at least once in

their young lives

that’s in comparison to the three to

nine

percent suicide rate of their cisgender

heterosexual peers

my attempt to take my own life was

indicative of how i felt as a queer

person

existing in a straight world completely

alone

and the pieces of queer media that i

often relied on to help me feel less

alone

weren’t always quite right the movies

and tv shows that empowered my queer

identity were few and far between

most were hard to access painted a

negative stereotype about my identity or

were just

plain bad

the pieces of media that showed me that

my queerness was something to celebrate

help keep me alive during some of the

darkest points of my life

and the ones that told me it was

something to be ashamed of

worsened my pain

not all queer media is created equal but

there are ways we can assess it

the gay and lesbian alliance against

defamation

glaad was founded in 1985 and since its

origins

has strived to create a world with

impactful empowering queer media

one of the ways that they do this is

through the publication of their annual

studio responsibility index

a set of of modules and

and data that showcases every instance

of a queer character

in a mainstream film each year

according to the 2020 studio

responsibility index

the amount of queer characters present

in these films went up by 0.4 percent

which is amazing unfortunately it’s not

all perfect

more than half present had less than

three minutes of screen time each

bechtel test it’s a series of questions

composable

meant to assess how well any given movie

or tv show treats its female characters

named after their co-founder vito russo

to pass the veto russo test a film or tv

show

must have three big requirements one

it must contain an identifiably queer

character

two that character must not be solely

identified by their queer sexuality or

gender identity

and three that character must be tied to

the plot in such a way

that their removal would cause a

significant effect

with these three simple rules the

average consumer has the ability

to assess what any given piece of media

thinks

about its queer audience members and

as a young queer audience member

having a tool like that is an incredibly

empowering thing

growing up queer was not easy for me i

had a family that accepted me yes

my friends and peers did not and

honestly

i didn’t always accept myself

more often than not queer people have

been portrayed on screen as evil immoral

people who deserve to be punished

for their queer identities generations

of queer people have had to watch their

identities

mocked on screen for the purposes of

entertainment

and until today the media that society

has praised

has encouraged us to stay in the closet

the media of today paints a more

brighter picture

however it tells us queer audiences that

their queerness is not something to run

away from

but something to celebrate and it sends

the messages

to all of its audience members that

their identity is something that they

should be proud of

no matter what it may be

if what i had to say to you today has at

all

sparked your imagination

i have a challenge for you think

critically

about the media that you consume how it

treats its queer people

and specifically about what kind of

relationship it’s fostering

between the queer and cisgender

heterosexual communities

be an active consumer

you don’t have to pick something apart

to the point of no longer enjoying it

but be aware

of what messages the media you consume

is trying to tell you

because at least for me those meth

messages hold an incredible amount of

power

queer representation saved me and if we

think critically

about the media that we have access to

maybe it can save someone else

thank you

mental health resources for anyone for

anyone who might need it

thanks