Holy moly, you're doing great work here, HG! Just upgraded to paid.
I agree with 99% of your essay. GLAAD is powerful and I shudder to think what they'd do with my script that features a queer boy exploring who he is with skirts and tiaras, etc. IRL teens explore who they are.
I fear that GLAAD would push this character way out of balance -- no gray at all, 100% trans -- which would destroy the film. I hope the aggressive extremism of that side has calmed some over recent years. Militancy like that can kill a movie.
As to the 1% that I disagree with: your quote that activists are "...the most joyless audience members on earth."
As a one-time activist, I think I'm pretty joyful. I laugh. I smile. I joy.
And yes, I agree on how they would want to resolve that ambiguity in an odd way. I’ve worked with consultants before and I’ve never met someone more certain of their worldviews.
Haha thanks so much! I was a former activist myself so I feel you. I think it’s the challenge of trying to see social change in movies instead of experiencing them as an audience member.
They should fund more interesting queer movies instead of these studies!
Brilliant piece with all the receipts needed...to call out that the (Gay, Latino, Black, Asian, et all) Emperor's ( COMPLAINTS) have no clothes ( aka merit).
Tell a great story in a great way, and people will come and see - regardless of the segmentation and demographic "represented". How about we make films and TV- instead of propaganda?
More excellent work, man, thank you. Thanks for walking us through this "study", which is actually clearly just a sales pitch. That Vitto Russo test is kind of a perfect example of the fact that we're just dealing with ideology not information. This is so far from research that it wouldn't even hold water in the softest of soft scienes like sociology. I don't disagree with the ideological position that reality would be improved by more nuanced and humanistic and holistic portrayals of people of all walks of life, but what the fuck does that have to do with a Farrelly brothers comedy, or a kids cartoon, or a kung fu movie, or any other type of film that's being made for entertainment and profit? We're going to condemn studios because they didn't go out of their way to shoehorn in favorable positive representation of every oppressed minority group into a large number of films? And surely it matters more What sorts of projects and what sorts of visibility they get more than just overall numbers. It surely is better that Elliot Page was in the Odyssey than if there was a conspicuously shoehorned trans persom in every Universal studios release for 2026. At a certain point you'd "do well" according to the GLAAD scorecard, but piss off the whole country so much with the performative inclusion that you'd actually produce the opposite intended political effect. I mean I'd like to start by looking at the data around whether this sort of ideological pressure or scorecard produces the desired outcome.
Holy moly, you're doing great work here, HG! Just upgraded to paid.
I agree with 99% of your essay. GLAAD is powerful and I shudder to think what they'd do with my script that features a queer boy exploring who he is with skirts and tiaras, etc. IRL teens explore who they are.
I fear that GLAAD would push this character way out of balance -- no gray at all, 100% trans -- which would destroy the film. I hope the aggressive extremism of that side has calmed some over recent years. Militancy like that can kill a movie.
As to the 1% that I disagree with: your quote that activists are "...the most joyless audience members on earth."
As a one-time activist, I think I'm pretty joyful. I laugh. I smile. I joy.
And yes, I agree on how they would want to resolve that ambiguity in an odd way. I’ve worked with consultants before and I’ve never met someone more certain of their worldviews.
Haha thanks so much! I was a former activist myself so I feel you. I think it’s the challenge of trying to see social change in movies instead of experiencing them as an audience member.
They should fund more interesting queer movies instead of these studies!
Totally!💯
Brilliant piece with all the receipts needed...to call out that the (Gay, Latino, Black, Asian, et all) Emperor's ( COMPLAINTS) have no clothes ( aka merit).
Tell a great story in a great way, and people will come and see - regardless of the segmentation and demographic "represented". How about we make films and TV- instead of propaganda?
More excellent work, man, thank you. Thanks for walking us through this "study", which is actually clearly just a sales pitch. That Vitto Russo test is kind of a perfect example of the fact that we're just dealing with ideology not information. This is so far from research that it wouldn't even hold water in the softest of soft scienes like sociology. I don't disagree with the ideological position that reality would be improved by more nuanced and humanistic and holistic portrayals of people of all walks of life, but what the fuck does that have to do with a Farrelly brothers comedy, or a kids cartoon, or a kung fu movie, or any other type of film that's being made for entertainment and profit? We're going to condemn studios because they didn't go out of their way to shoehorn in favorable positive representation of every oppressed minority group into a large number of films? And surely it matters more What sorts of projects and what sorts of visibility they get more than just overall numbers. It surely is better that Elliot Page was in the Odyssey than if there was a conspicuously shoehorned trans persom in every Universal studios release for 2026. At a certain point you'd "do well" according to the GLAAD scorecard, but piss off the whole country so much with the performative inclusion that you'd actually produce the opposite intended political effect. I mean I'd like to start by looking at the data around whether this sort of ideological pressure or scorecard produces the desired outcome.