Straight People in LGBT Roles
Throughout film and television there has been a variety of gay portrayals. The problem is most of these gay characters are being played by heterosexual individuals, this arouses mass amounts of problems in the LGBT community some of these problems include less job opportunities for members of the LGBT community.
The reasoning that this is a problem is because when a gay character is portrayed by a straight person they haven't dealt with the hardships of being a gay individual in the real world and experiencing the emotions that a member of the LGBT community experience daily thus meaning they can't give 100% into the role that they are assigned because they know nothing of the lifestyle where as an LGBT individual can commit to that role and actually put themselves in that position because they've gone through the same thing that the character they’re portraying has.
One of the many reasons I am determined to write about this is because as a member of the LGBT community it is already hard enough to find a job in acting due to it only becoming a new form of “trend”. Many directors are hopping on to take advantage of this and increase their viewership amongst the young population due to it being “relatable content”. I take great issue with this because being gay or a member of the LGBT community is not the trend and is something that people have many amounts of problems with just because of the stigma behind these people and the betrayal they have had in the past by the media and in films. It is also believed that it is harder for a gay individual to get assigned an acting role in film and television where you are not having to put aside some of your morals to get behind a character that is blatantly blown out of portion. Many people have also noticed that in film gay people are usually assigned either the role of the side best friend who never really gets the main role or somebody who is a villain. This creates problems because people will then take what they have seen in the film and some will apply it to the real world. This is an issue because not everybody falls under either of those categories, so you are just throwing a mass amount of population into one category and it just is not right and it's also dehumanising.
Not to mention the ongoing decline of gay men in roles changing by the year, GLAAD reported that “As with the other platforms tracked, gay men make up the majority of LGBTQ regular and recurring characters at 36 percent (51) on scripted streaming series. This is a decrease of six percentage points and 13 characters from last year.” (GLAAD, 2020-2021)
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An example of a straight individual playing a gay character would be in Darren Criss, in Glee he portrayed Blaine Anderson who was a gay individual, thriving and very flamboyant. He also did a musical production of Hedwig And the Angry Inch where he played the Main Character Hedwig, admitted to “kissing men from the audiences” during every production.
Darren Criss has later stated "I want to make sure I won't be another straight boy taking a gay man's role.” (Corinthios, 2018) And talks about how he felt like he would be stripping the LGBT community of more job opportunities than they already have access too.
In the Enough is enough: It’s time to stop giving straight actors gay roles article, Maddy Mussen states “I don’t want to deprive the world of nuance, but when there’s a small pool of gay roles and you’re handing 90 per cent of them out to straight people, you have to know that something’s wrong there.” (Mussen, 2021) Which statistically shows an issue that the majority of the LGBT roles are taken by straight people even though LGBT people already have limited access to roles in the film industry and it’s causing many people to be led to believe the entire industry is against us and pitting everything they possibly can against us to make sure that we aren't given the roles that were qualified to do and instead they are handed off and given to somebody who is unqualified and has no experience in that role and/or lifestyle.
TV Writer Russell T Davies says "I'm not being woke about this... but I feel strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are NOT there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance. It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020.” (Sky TV, 2021) Which raises another point of it being received as authentic and not something anyone can do. He then goes on to say "You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair, you wouldn't black someone up. Authenticity is leading us to joyous places.” (Sky TV, 2021) Which further reiterates his previous statement.
Russell T Davies says in another article “Nobody’s better at studying straight people than we are. Straight people don’t know themselves; gay people do.” (Baker, 2021)
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In conclusion straight people are not qualified to play gay roles in acting industries and the industry needs to start allowing gay people to play the roles that they qualified to play without being cast aside or given the role of the side best friend or the villain as it's degrading and dehumanising and doesn't represent the wider spectrum of the LGBT community and the upcoming members of the LGBT community need someone they can relate and lookup to.
References
Baker, E. (2021, January 21st). Russell T Davies on It’s a Sin: ‘Straight people don’t know themselves – gay people do’. Retrieved from inews: https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/russell-t-davies-its-a-sin-cast-interview-neil-patrick-harris-olly-alexander-838983
Corinthios, A. (2018, December 21). Darren Criss Explains Why He Will No Longer Play Gay Characters. Retrieved from People: https://people.com/tv/darren-criss-will-no-longer-play-gay-characters/
GLAAD. (2020-2021). Where We Are On TV. New York: GLAAD.
Mussen, M. (2021, January). Enough is enough: It’s time to stop giving straight actors gay roles. Retrieved from The Tab: https://thetab.com/uk/2020/12/11/straight-actors-just-stop-taking-gay-roles-at-this-point-186124
Sky TV. (2021, January 12th). Russell T Davies: Straight actors should not play gay characters. Retrieved from Sky TV: https://news.sky.com/story/russell-t-davies-straight-actors-should-not-play-gay-characters-12185652
Images Used:
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