Attempting to Change the Narrative

Written by Lucas Schaffer-Wood for GNDS 125

As I walked along Princess Street towards the Screening Room I wasn’t sure what to expect, this being my first Queer Film Festival. I expected nothing more than a slightly larger audience. However, when I arrived, I found myself in front of a relatively small screen, in a tranquil environment surrounded by sophisticated looking people. The film that screening was titled Queering the Script, directed by Gabrielle Zilkha. This movie took the viewer through the dissection of how the depiction of queer women in media such as television is loaded with cliches that exist to help create shock value when their character inevitably falls. The documentary followed the progression of queer representation in TV over time and showed how the basis for the inclusion of non-binary, and LGBTQ+ characters on the screen is heavily reliant on fan directive. This basis offered an expansive point of view on how viewers interact with creators to change the narrative. 

As the film starts, we are engaged with the world of fandom. Director Zilkha explores ClexaCon, a fan convention representing LGBTQ women, and she begins to realize the negative impingement of the industry on the normalized depiction of Lesbian characters in mainstream media. Throughout this documentary’s depiction of fandom, I found myself believing that there are many different roles to fandom. There are types of fans that capitalize on the representation that currently exists and attempt to expand the genre while offering an inclusive platform, as well as fans that are quite critical of what can feasibly be achieved, given the current societal bias against LGBTQ+ characters that heteronormative audiences are attracted to. Both of these types of fans contribute to fan directive, yet the industry plays its part in targeting messages. 

One method that directors of television shows and films have employed to target queer audiences is queerbaiting. As seen from exploring Pop Culture as Industry in lecture, queerbaiting was defined by Bea Mitchell for Pink News as “authors, writers, or showrunners (etc) attempting to attract an LGBT audience by hinting at same-sex relationships between characters, though they’re never actually consummated” (Mitchell 2019). 

This concept struck a chord with me, as this is simply a technique to appeal to a broader audience in order to capitalize on the wish for  LGBTQ+ representation in the movies. To see your favourite characters who you pictured so perfectly in a same-sex relationship, and to watch them be stripped of the identity that you envisioned and end up being in a heteronormative relationship could make any LGBTQ+ viewer feel as though they have no place on the screen. Reelout helped me realize that this was the norm, as I drew the conclusion I had never seen a movie with the lead role of anyone other than a straight, cis-gendered character. As studied in Pop Culture as Industry, individuals that attempt to fully relate to these characters are missing an essential element of comparability – representation of their sexual orientation. An intersectional approach regarding the combined identities of, for example, an African-Canadian Lesbian, presents an even more substantial gap, even seen in Queering the Script, where there seemed to be a primarily caucasian cast. This lack of representation hurts the LGBTQ+ community and denies them of full ability to relate to their favourite fictional characters. However, we must remember how vital the fan directive is towards shaping the narrative of these films.

If queerbaiting can be seen as evidence that the narrative is based around fan directive, it can also be seen that “fan cultural production was born from a mixture of fascination and frustration… Fans engage closely with texts because they are fascinated; they continue to rework them because they are frustrated with some aspect of the original” (Jenkins 2017). This fan frustration is a factor that while they are reworking texts or films, it is also instrumental towards the continued attempt to change the narrative. If these audiences were to be satisfied with both the quality and quantity of narrative, any bait that is offered to them by directors that require a longing for representation would immediately become irrelevant. 

The way that authors and directors lead on individuals by making them believe that their favourite characters are going to form romantic or sexual relationships contributes to a constant repetition of hiding queer identity. This simply stagnates the feedback that creators rely upon for their fan directives. The lack of inclusion may empower certain people to be the voice for their representation, and this may be exactly what Gabrielle Zilkha had in mind for her film. Yet what is missing from this is the method in which high budget blockbuster heteronormative narratives can avoid queerbaiting, and introduce strong, fictional protagonists that openly, and evidently identify as LGBTQ+ regardless of how they look or sound. This establishes a precedent for prescriptive, supposedly especial orientations and identities on screen. From there, fan directive may be able to ground itself, and the back and forth between creator and audience will shift the narrative slightly in favour of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. 

Recognizably, my perspective as a cis-gendered straight male does not assist my ability to fully comprehend the necessity behind an immediate changing of the narrative. While I have become comfortable attending the most conventional, industry-defined films, ‘Queering the Script’ made it evident to me that just like any entertainment-based product, the narrative is reliant upon the audience, and audiences can tend to stray from pre-established norms. The shock value that may precipitate with heteronormative audiences from seeing a black, lesbian lead could very well have the same awe factor that is sought through queerbaiting, as well as the demise of a lesbian character. A lead that is not defined by societally expected cliches associated with that character, cliches that are being challenged in front of everyone’s eyes, is a part of the narrative that shall drive inclusion and representation. The narrative starts and ends with the viewer, so why are so many viewers not seeing characters they can relate to, in a film with the budget of Baywatch.

1008 words

Works Cited

Mitchell, Bea. “Queerbaiting: What Is It and Why Is It a Problem?” Pink News, 2019, www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/02/26/what-is-queerbaiting-everything-you-need-to-know/.

Jenkins, Henry. “Negotiating Fandom.” The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, Mar. 2017, pp. 383–394., doi:10.4324/9781315637518-46.