What examples from the past or recent history of queer representation can you find in your artform? How is queerness represented? Would you say it is authentic representation? How does intersectionality complicate the representation?
Using film and television as my field, which isn’t the path I’m certain I’ll travel down, but most likely will, queer representation is complicated. Often, from my understanding, queer representation is often included in major productions as a particular selling point, i.e. similar to performative representation. For example, Disney. Disney has made sure to mention multiple times that it has queer representation in a particular film. Disney has continually added queer characters into its modern films, according to a Forbes article, however they are often in parts that can be editing out for regions that don’t have LGBTQIA+ rights (Placido, 2021). The article does also mention that select children’s media already has openly queer characters (Placido, 2021). This not also mentioning both newer and older media having harmful queer representation. The authenticity of queer representation in film and television media is hard to parse and define as overall positive or negative. Adding intersectionality into the mix increases the complexity of the issue. Even changing the gender of the queer representation drastically changes the amount of representation present in that media. When you start adding over parts of a person into the mix, the amount of representation has downward trend in commonality, from what I have seen. This is especially present in mainstream film and television. This is an area of media that hopefully will improve over the coming decades as hopefully general acceptance continues to also rise.
In many of the examples listed this week, comedy and a light-hearted approach was used in both positive and negative ways. Think about all of the examples we’ve looked at from the past few weeks. What role do you think comedy will play in your particular creative practice? How do you approach things that are worth laughing at? Do you think comedy can be used as a weapon in your work to push a political agenda?
Comedy is an important part of my own identity and as such is an important part of my work. Regarding how I approach comedic things, it is difficult to define. Over the years, I have found myself to be more critical of the contents and context of a joke. This idea is something that, I’ll admit, I used to have a different opinion on when I was younger. I used to believe that jokes were just that, jokes. Comedy can definitely be used to further political agendas. From my understanding, jokes on a topic can normalize ideas on a topic if those jokes have far enough reach. While this can be used to, from one perspective, push things in the right direction, they can also normalize harmful stereotypes and such.
Finally, we’ve reached the end of another module. Take a look at your definition of cultural responsibility from week one and week four. How would you revise it now? You can extend it to a paragraph if you wish.
Cultural safety and responsibility is having a considered environment that allows for different cultures to be accepted and unhidden. To have cultural safety means that having a different culture isn’t looked down upon, but instead seen for the positive it is. Cultural safety is also about protecting people’s cultures being diminished and/or forgotten. It is also about making sure that cultures have the ability to defend themselves from harmful attacks.
References:
Placido, D.D. (2021). How Many Times Is Disney Going To Introduce Its ‘First’ Gay Character? [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2021/05/24/how-many-times-is-disney-going-to-introduce-their-first-gay-character/?sh=475992205204 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2023].
