#on top of that ... there is queer rep in the show and the issues concerning rigid gender roles is sorta flipped about iirc

[arckhaic]

idk what im saying but i just think hating on a piece of media bc it's been made into a different form ( specifically book into a movie / show / play / etc ) is so limiting ... like ur not any better bc you hold the opinion that the book is better than show and picking it apart to show the differences only the proves the point that they're Two Different Pieces of Media ... interpretations aren't inherently bad they're just different

you can enjoy them both

[dgcatanisiri]

Tried to make a brief summary of the issues of Mass Effect Andromeda’s handling of queer men and how it relates to why we’re (broad use here) upset with the Legendary Edition failing to provide better representation than the originals, and it kinda turned in to what amounts to an open letter for BioWare.

So, what the heck, here it is.

A little personal background. I spent my high school life completely in the closet. After graduating, I had a new computer and the opportunity to play a new game. The game chosen was BioWare’s Jade Empire. Still a fairly recent release, and I was a big fan of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, also by BioWare. So, being a young gay man, still uncomfortable and uncertain of who I was, I was very excited when I got to play this game that would allow me to play a gay romance, a romance that featured two men. I burned through two playthroughs of the game within less than a week, enjoying that rush of acknowledgement that yes, gay guys could be the hero. It was a massive affirmation for me at the time, something that said that my sexuality was not going to prevent me from being the hero, which legitimately was a message that I felt like most media was giving me to that point, because gay men barely appeared in anything other than guest roles for an episode or two on a TV show, but certainly not in video games. That game, that experience... I’ve said for years that it had cemented me as a BioWare fan for life.

If I say that now, it is a statement with a few caveats.

The history of the failure of Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to provide any male/male romances is well documented. I was excited, very eager to romance Kaidan Alenko in Mass Effect 3. But even then, I noticed that there were things that were lacking in the romance. It was noticeable, for instance, that the basic dialogue between male Shepard and female Shepard was unchanged, if either was starting a new romance with Kaidan. The thing that always felt... WRONG about that was that if I’d had the option to begin a romance with him in the first game, I would have. Yet there’s not even a bit of dialogue that even references that inability, no comment of “I didn’t think you were available,” or anything of the sort, nothing to say that, say, Shepard was interested in Kaidan at the time, but didn’t believe he’d be receptive, didn’t want to damage their friendship, something of the sort. There was even a cut in the romance scene, where female Shepard will sit in Kaidan’s lap before being lifted up and carried to the bed, but with male Shepard and Kaidan, just fades to black. And then in the Citadel DLC, while all the other pairings walked in to the casino arm in arm, male Shepard and Kaidan are leaving plenty of room between them. There’s also the absence of any cuddling as they return to the Normandy.

To say nothing of the lack of Steve Cortez during the story segments of Citadel – he is not part of the big team entrance to the apartment, just spontaneously appears in the lounge room. He doesn’t participate in the briefings, and he is not a casino date, despite being part of the assembled team. Cortez also suffers from the fact that his romance spends so much time on how he needs to move on from the death of his husband, Shepard can come across as predatory towards him, trying to push him out of his grief and his pants. Due to the lateness of his arrival in the story, in game three, as opposed to game one or two, there is significantly less time to establish him as a person – beyond his past as a pilot and the death of his husband, we gain almost no concept of his personality or personal history.

I bring all of this up to help set the stage of what was expected when Mass Effect Andromeda was nearing release. Mass Effect had been full of problems of representation of queer men specifically (not that they were perfect on the count of female/female relationships either, because there’s plenty to talk about there, but as I’m not a lesbian or bisexual woman, I don’t feel comfortable talking about their experiences for them). While there were flaws, Dragon Age, what is often considered Mass Effect’s sister franchise, HAD managed to provide male/male romances in every iteration of that franchise.

In fact, considering that Dragon Age’s most recent installment, Dragon Age Inquisition, had been put out with a lot of fanfare about the first gay male companion, who was considered rather popular in the fandom, and the game itself receiving the Game of the Year award that year, indicating that, if there was any risk in the business sense of providing representation of queer men, it was negligible at most in the bottom line of that game, the attitude of a lot of gay men in the lead up to Andromeda’s release was some variation of “okay, Mass Effect has been flawed, but BioWare’s learned from their past mistakes, and they’re coming off the heels of a hugely successful game that had a gay character whose gayness was front and center in his storyline... We can expect that things will be fine, and we don’t have to worry.” That was the dominant attitude I found in a lot of my queer-oriented spaces.

But we started getting uncomfortable as the developers remained cagey about romance options in Andromeda – there were Twitter responses to “we’re concerned about Mass Effect’s history of gay representation, we would like to know about the options” that came out as “we checked and yep! They’re there!” These responses came across as flippant and even tone-deaf – the reason that the question was being asked was because of prior failures to be included, and not simply a desire to get all the details before launch.

As the trailers started coming out, the questions continued from the fans, and the response from the developers... continued to be uncomfortable. When asked directly for a listing of romances prior to release, the response was that the developers wanted players to learn as they played, that “the fun is in experiencing it!” This was a specific response when it was learned that the romance options could be flirted with regardless of orientation, but they would shut it down. Despite the fact that the trailers DID include content from certain romances – specifically, the male Ryder/Cora and male Ryder/Peebee romances.

This was uncomfortable for a lot of queer players like myself because it spoke to a lack of consideration of what it is like to be queer. In many places, it is a serious question of safety to even put yourself out there to find a partner, to flirt with someone openly unless you are already certain that there is a chance for a positive response. There are places where a queer person flirting with the wrong person can get them harassed, assaulted, even killed for doing so. Even in the safety of a virtual construct of video games, these are honed instincts that queer people have developed. And no matter how many times we would say this to the developers, no one seemed to understand. Likewise, the fact that the trailers felt free to show off heterosexual romances, but not queer ones felt... questionable.

Then, finally, firm details started coming out, and... There were problems. Early data-mining said that there was an even split of romances between orientations. But there was a bit of discomfort around the reveal that the gay characters, Suvi and Gil, were limited to the ship, rather than being companions who would accompany Ryder on missions. There is a history of companions being given more involved storylines and involvement than secondary characters. It also didn’t help the disappointment from queer people who’d been eager for Cora or Liam as romances, who were firmly established as straight (Cora herself had a popular lesbian following).

That discomfort increased when it came out further that, ACTUALLY, Jaal would not be available for Male Ryder. This caused a lot of upset. Now it was a case where there was NO M/M squadmate romance option. This on top of the group of fans who were uncomfortable with the idea that, in a sci-fi series, gay men couldn’t romance an alien, while this had become a staple of the series, considering Liara, the character from a species described as equivalent to Star Trek green-skinned Orion girls, had been available for straight men and lesbian/bi women from ME1, and straight women got in on the act with Garrus and Thane in ME2, on top of straight men also getting Tali.

This got worse when the achievement listing for the game was released and there was an achievement for “romancing three different characters.” Meaning that it was absolutely impossible for a gay man to play the game and get this achievement without playing a sexuality other than his own.

This is why I led with my experience with Jade Empire, why it was so affirming to me. Because to hear all this, ten years later, to see what had been so affirming to me a decade prior be functionally dismissed, be shown to take a secondary position at best... It hurt.

And the game proper did not help that feeling at all.

So first we meet Gil Brodie. Engineer of the Tempest. One of the first things we learn about him is that he has a close friendship with a woman named Jill. And then he immediately tells us that one) she is a fertility specialist, and two) she “says [he’s] part of the problem” because he won’t have kids the natural way. This is immediately setting off red flags to me – I can think of plenty of my friendships where we give one another grief for various things, but I would never think of introducing any of them to someone else with that fact. So my reflexive thought in this situation is “what kind of a friend is this really?”

And then, as the game goes on... This is the only thing that Gil’s conversations involve, the prospect of having kids. We do not learn much more about him, just have him talking about considering the idea. The lock-in for his romance requires Ryder to meet Jill, who Gil again says that she will talk his ear off about his “civic duty” to reproduce, a fact that makes those earlier red flags wave higher and more furiously, because who DOES that to a total stranger? And this is passed off as being “charming.” This leads to the culmination of the romance, where Gil says that Jill has decided she wants to get pregnant and she wants Gil to be the dad.

There’s... A LOT going on here, so let me work through this. First, one of the few things Gil says as a bit of establishing his character is that he is impulsive, that he joined the Andromeda Initiative, the journey from the Milky Way galaxy to the Andromeda galaxy without really thinking through what it would mean, that it was a one-way journey with no way to back out once he’d gotten there. So this is already saying to me that this is not a person who really SHOULD be a parent, at least at this point in his life.

We also get a couple of emails from him in-game that paint him as putting in thirty-six hour workdays into the engines on the Tempest, that he cares about and puts a lot of time into those engines. So when I think about him as a father, I see him having to give up something he’s deeply passionate about to do it, because the Tempest is certainly no place to raise a child – they can’t exactly put a playpen in the cargo hold, for example.

This would be one of the first things that I would think of as a discussion element, but... it’s not there. All that we get is a couple of casual comments about how Gil should know that bringing a child into the world is a big thing, something that shouldn’t be done lightly. But this is framed as Ryder questioning Gil’s fitness to be a parent at all, rather than questioning if he’s thinking this through and having considered this enough to be ready to take on this responsibility, or if it’s even something that he even wants.

Because that’s the other big thing here – this is not Gil’s idea. This is not something that he makes clear is his desire. No, it’s Jill who has decided that she wants to get pregnant and use Gil’s sperm. For all that he matters in this whole thing, he might as well be a turkey baster. He’s basically an accessory in his own story, because he goes in to this with all the passion of a math equation: “The Andromeda Initiative is a colonization effort. Therefore, the idea is to have babies. Therefore, I should find some way to reproduce.” This isn’t him having a passion or desire to have kids, just it being “something you do.”

This is, genuinely, a failure to understand the character who was being written. Gil’s writing reeks of having been written by someone who does not know what they are talking about. There is an element to the gay experience that is not innate but learned. When we realize that having children is not a thing that will just happen, that if we want this to happen, it will require a lot of additional steps, there are many who will simply say “this isn’t for me, this is more work than I’m willing to put in to for this.”

Now, Gil could have been someone who had decided it was worth it, but that butts up against the idea of him being impulsive, that he doesn’t think things through. There is no time given to focusing on the reason he decides this is the right choice for him, to the point that many players felt that this was not Gil’s decision but something that Jill was pushing, that she expected him to jump on her command. Because we have so little of Gil, as a character and an individual, but plenty of him talking up her, this “friendship” feels toxic to many.

Just about everyone I have ever spoken with about Gil is deeply uncomfortable that literally, the only way that he will not have a child at this point is if a romanced Ryder stops him – if I am playing a game where I don’t romance him, I actively just stop interacting with him at a certain point so that this never comes up, because this does not come across as happy. It comes across as forcing a gay man into a heteronormative experience to satisfy some traditional idea of “man and woman, raising kids.”

And, as the cherry on top, if you do tell Gil that you’re not comfortable having kids – a very real thing, whether gay or straight – then, unlike other romances, Gil and Ryder do not share a kiss at the finale of the game. And, during the last conversations on Meridian, the only thing Gil even brings up is Jill being pregnant, whether or not it’s his child.

This is what “representation of gay men” amounted to in Mass Effect Andromeda. A homophobic story that was about a gay experience written by someone who is not a part of this community and does not know or understand the experience personally, going through the motions of development when really, all that is cared about is the end result. To say that most of the gay men I know who have played this game find this homophobic is to undersell the point.

It doesn’t help that, of all the Tempest romances, Gil also clocks in with the least amount of romance exclusive material – a few flirts, the romance lock in and scene, and being able to stop Gil from having kids. Other than that, his friendship and his romance are virtually identical.

Speaking of, the romance scene consists of a make out session that fades to black, before coming back in with Ryder and Gil, shot from about shoulders up, briefly wrapping up their conversation that preceded the fade to black. This is noteworthy when the heterosexual romances between Ryder and their human love interests, as well as Peebee and Jaal, the former having a similar body model to naked human women, just blue, and Jaal, who is naked at other points in the game, have much more involved romance scenes – Cora’s in specific received special attention.

All of this, individually, may have just been reflective of time crunch and other external pressures – we all understand the realities of game development, that for all the ambitions that go in, when the deadlines are nearing, something has to give. But taken collectively... The kindest question is to ask why all of the “give” happened in regards to the gay man?

The end result with Gil honestly feels like he was written in response to the bad faith arguments that had come up in the period after the name for the game was revealed and it was made clear that the game would follow a colonization effort. There were a contingent of people who said that “there shouldn’t be gay people coming along, a colonization effort needs to reproduce.” This is a bad faith argument from homophobes, trying to justify why they don’t want gay people in “their” games. In answering their question, the question they only “ask” in order to explain why they don’t want to have gay people in the game without saying that, it comes across as catering the gay content for a heterosexual audience. It should go without saying that this is a bad position to take.

So, that’s Gil. What about Reyes? Well, Reyes himself is bound to a single planet, which, again, points to a minimizing of how much content he will even get, since his content can only be accessed on this single planet. Likewise, Reyes, as a character, is someone who falls in to several old, tired tropes with regards to bisexual men – he is a shady, untrustworthy character, in this instance literally a criminal, meant to be evocative of the “dashing rogue” archetype. This is a characterization that has often been BioWare’s go-to with regards to bisexual men, because we see this archetype drawn on in Jade Empire’s Sky, Dragon Age Origins’ Zevran, Dragon Age 2’s Anders, and even elements exist in Dragon Age Inquisition’s Dorian (even if he is a gay man). It’s a well that BioWare has frequently tapped when it comes to a romance option for queer men, to the point that it starts to feel like BioWare in general believes that this IS what queer men are.

There’s also the questionable portrayal of Reyes that leads to a description of the trope “the depraved bisexual,” an explicitly bisexual character who uses sex and sexuality as a manipulative tool, that they treat others as simply there to be their toys. Over in Dragon Age Inquisition, one of the romance options was specifically NOT made bisexual in order to avoid this trope, but Reyes himself seems to be a candidate for that trope all the same.

All this, and, again, the romance options for gay men were unequal to those for everyone else. This prompted the campaign #MakeJaalBi – Jaal was, notably, the character initially assumed to be the bisexual male companion, and on release, his romance was heterosexual exclusive. But datamining revealed that there was code for him to be romanced by male Ryder. Indeed, on release, it was noteworthy that Jaal could not even be flirted with by male Ryder. Liam had a distinct turndown for male Ryder, a couple of them, depending on when Ryder flirts with him. Jaal had no such turndown.

And this worked. BioWare released the patch for Andromeda that gave Jaal a bisexual romance. However, this was the only change that Mass Effect Andromeda received in regards to the issues of the romances before support for the game ended. While it was seen as an improvement, it was also questioned why this was the only change, when... Well, I spent the better part of two pages outlining the problems of Gil’s portrayal.

(I feel I would be remiss to not mention there was also a character, Hainley Abrams, who would, upon interacting with her, proceed to deadname herself to Ryder, as if that is the only way to establish that a transgender person is trans. This was also changed in a patch after the trans community complained, and, in conjunction with the above, led more than a few people to wonder if the Andromeda script had been looked over by any queer sensitivity readers, given the earlier issues with Gil. This does go out of the scope of everything else in this discussion, but it is worth mentioning.)

When Mac Walters says players will talk about how Shepard is each of theirs, that every individual player approaches Shepard as being “their” Shepard, he isn’t wrong. He says the characters, and the relationships we have with the characters is the heart and soul of the series, he isn’t wrong. And yet... When I play the trilogy, my heart and soul are being torn apart, because I do not get to see myself in the trilogy. I am not there in this story, at least for two thirds of the way. And in that third that I am there, I feel like I am cared about less than my counterparts who are heterosexual.

The idea that “making” characters available for same sex romance changes them is like saying that there is some inherent difference in a person because of their sexualities. While it’s true that the experiences of queer people does offer different perspectives on matters, it does not fundamentally alter the person, the individual that we are. It does not change our heart and soul. Restoring the bisexuality of characters like Jack, Jacob, Ashley, Thane, or Tali is not changing who they are. Making Kaidan bisexual in ME3 did not change who he was, and restoring a romance between him and male Shepard in ME1 would not change him either.

Every game has some cut content surrounding queer content specifically, and a great deal of that content is specifically for gay players like myself. I said at the beginning that I once thought of myself as a BioWare fan for life, but that now comes with caveats. The caveats are pretty simple – while the games produced by BioWare once felt affirming, now they feel like they’re only grudgingly allowing me to be there. That if I must be there, I should just take the scraps I’m given and be content with that, rather than being treated as an equal.

I like to think that this is not the message that the people at BioWare wish to impart to their players. I like to believe BioWare’s statements of wanting to be an inclusive and welcoming environment for their players, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, orientation, whatever identity and label one chooses. But based on the experience of the last four games, of the Legendary Edition perpetuating the homophobia of over a decade ago... I have a hard time believing that.

BioWare games once made me feel like I was equal to the straight heroes across my media. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that way about their games anymore. Not when, after having the opportunity to restore the bisexuality of Kaidan – of multiple characters, really – in the Legendary Edition, I am still being told that offering representation for people like me is something that only comes grudgingly.

And if that’s what I see now... What does it say about what the future of the franchise will offer? If every game in this series involves fighting for content that, in particular, heterosexual players will see offered as the rule, what motivates me to want to continue to be invested and involved in this franchise?

[thecuriousblitz]

Hopes for RWBY Vol. 8: A commitment from RT to do better by their queer mlm fans

I waited until the end of Vol. 7 to put this out there, in case there was a Hail Mary fix-it that, while not able to erase how Fairgame was handled, would at least shed some light on certain narrative decisions.

And so when RT started peddling paired Qrow/Clover pins and a ‘Born Unlucky’ Qrow drinking cup after weeks of radio silence, I said to myself - calmly - well fuck.

Having worked as both a writer and marketer for a games company and several creative agencies, I know it takes gallons of blood, sweat and tears to make a show like RWBY shine. For that, CRWBY has my utmost respect. I also know that the directors, writing, animation and marketing departments of a commercially significant project are typically very connected and cross-communicative - for many reasons, but mainly to avoid preventable shitshows.

That’s why the idea that no one important knew about and therefore can’t be held responsible for the prolonged queerteasing engaged in by several animators and marketing staff is friggin’ bizarre.

In criminal law, the severity of the punishment often hinges on the presence of mens rea, or a ‘guilty mind’. For example, if it’s proven you both intended to and did kill someone, you go down for murder. If you’re drunk and run over someone, it’s manslaughter - a lesser crime, but a crime nonetheless because harm was caused through recklessness or negligence. ie. You should have fucking known.

I don’t think there’s enough to prove intent to harm, but holy shit if it was your run-of-the-mill agency, there would have been someone tripping over their balls to shut down the weeks of ‘we gave you bumbleby, now how bouts some Fairgame wink wink’ marketing and your ‘I ship Qrover hardcore/CLOVER IS A TOP’ animators, knowing where the narrative was going. Either RT operates on some alien plane of existence where common sense/corporate liability isn’t a thing, or some serious soul-searching and a company-wide policy change needs to happen. At the very least, please have the fucking talk with your marketing and animation teams, for their sake and that of your company’s.

Additionally, anytime we were working on something that could even remotely touch on minority or sensitive issues (eg. those concerning people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, LGBTQI, potential trauma triggers), we would hire external subject matter experts to extensively comb through anything that might cause problems. The writing, character design, animation, VOs, marketing, every fucking end-to-end detail.

Once, our design team had to completely re-do the hairstyles of several minor NPCs in a game for kids because they were too ‘phallic-like’. I lead with that example because it’s my favorite ‘wtf’ workplace moment (you really had to squint to see it), but in all seriousness, there have been many times where the input of qualified experts saved our collective blind asses. When it comes to representation, details matter - even if you personally don’t see a problem.

Note the use of ‘external’ experts. We never relied on having minority members on our team to pass muster. One, that puts way too much fucking pressure on the crew member who happens to be part of that minority group to speak up. Two, and this might be shocking for some, not all members of a minority group think and feel the same way about everything.

If you can manage to sweat the details, hire experts, and have (what I thought were normal) cross-department communications, you avoid situations where individuals who are part of an underrepresented group are forced to defend the validity of their pain.

By virtue of queer/mlm being a minority, the majority of the fandom won’t see a problem. Hell, not all queer/mlm will see a problem, and that’s totally fine.

The problem is this: Once your product is out there, and your rogue animators/marketing team have at it with the baiting, you’ve just provided the perfect storm for a barrage of censorious attacks against a vulnerable group, all of varying degrees of fallaciousness, and all of which were completely preventable: ‘You’re just overreacting’, ‘You just hate that your headcanon didn’t work out’, ‘It’s sad, but no one’s to blame’, ‘I’m gay and I thought it was fine’, ‘The show has queer wlw rep, how can you criticize’, ‘I know what queerbaiting is and that wasn’t it’, ‘It’s just a fictional character/SOME BLOODY PINS, get over it’, ‘CRWBY didn’t encourage this ship’ (most people will not make the effort to dig into super shady tweets, comments and fandom interactions from months ago), etc. etc.

And by the immutable laws of internet fuckery, what should have been a beautiful opportunity for representation - whether it would have ended happily or not - gets turned into a convoluted shitstorm where argument from ignorance wins the day.

In short, RT, please, please do better. You have every right to freely create, but with freedom comes responsibility. You have a really good thing going - as a fan, it would be the ultimate tragedy if nothing is acknowledged or changes after all this.

[thecuriousblitz]

I caught your amazing post summarizing the whole Fairgame issue and RT's corporate responsibility but can't find it in the tags anywhere. everyone should read it! particularly because there are so many people who are like 'CRWBY did nothing wrong'

Ah the Tumblr blackhole strikes again? Original post here, and reposting below, just in case. And thanks for reading. Hopefully it injects some much-needed nuance into the mess.

Hopes for RWBY Vol. 8: A commitment from RT to do better by their queer mlm fans

I waited until the end of Vol. 7 to put this out there, in case there was a Hail Mary fix-it that, while not able to erase how Fairgame was handled, would at least shed some light on certain narrative decisions.

And so when RT started peddling paired Qrow/Clover pins and a ‘Born Unlucky’ Qrow drinking cup after weeks of radio silence, I said to myself - calmly - well fuck.

Having worked as both a writer and marketer for a games company and several creative agencies, I know it takes gallons of blood, sweat and tears to make a show like RWBY shine. For that, CRWBY has my utmost respect. I also know that the directors, writing, animation and marketing departments of a commercially significant project are typically very connected and cross-communicative - for many reasons, but mainly to avoid preventable shitshows.

That’s why the idea that no one important knew about and therefore can’t be held responsible for the prolonged queerteasing engaged in by several animators and marketing staff is friggin’ bizarre.

In criminal law, the severity of the punishment often hinges on the presence of mens rea, or a ‘guilty mind’. For example, if it’s proven you both intended to and did kill someone, you go down for murder. If you’re drunk and run over someone, it’s manslaughter - a lesser crime, but a crime nonetheless because harm was caused through recklessness or negligence. ie. You should have fucking known.

I don’t think there’s enough to prove intent to harm, but holy shit if it was your run-of-the-mill agency, there would have been someone tripping over their balls to shut down the weeks of ‘we gave you bumbleby, now how bouts some Fairgame wink wink’ marketing and your ‘I ship Qrover hardcore/CLOVER IS A TOP’ animators, knowing where the narrative was going. Either RT operates on some alien plane of existence where common sense/corporate liability isn’t a thing, or some serious soul-searching and a company-wide policy change needs to happen. At the very least, please have the fucking talk with your marketing and animation teams, for their sake and that of your company’s.

Additionally, anytime we were working on something that could even remotely touch on minority or sensitive issues (eg. those concerning people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, LGBTQI, potential trauma triggers), we would hire external subject matter experts to extensively comb through anything that might cause problems. The writing, character design, animation, VOs, marketing, every fucking end-to-end detail.

Once, our design team had to completely re-do the hairstyles of several minor NPCs in a game for kids because they were too ‘phallic-like’. I lead with that example because it’s my favorite ‘wtf’ workplace moment (you really had to squint to see it), but in all seriousness, there have been many times where the input of qualified experts saved our collective blind asses. When it comes to representation, details matter - even if you personally don’t see a problem.

Note the use of ‘external’ experts. We never relied on having minority members on our team to pass muster. One, that puts way too much fucking pressure on the crew member who happens to be part of that minority group to speak up. Two, and this might be shocking for some, not all members of a minority group think and feel the same way about everything.

If you can manage to sweat the details, hire experts, and have (what I thought were normal) cross-department communications, you avoid situations where individuals who are part of an underrepresented group are forced to defend the validity of their pain.

By virtue of queer/mlm being a minority, the majority of the fandom won’t see a problem. Hell, not all queer/mlm will see a problem, and that’s totally fine.

The problem is this: Once your product is out there, and your rogue animators/marketing team have at it with the baiting, you’ve just provided the perfect storm for a barrage of censorious attacks against a vulnerable group, all of varying degrees of fallaciousness, and all of which were completely preventable: ‘You’re just overreacting’, ‘You just hate that your headcanon didn’t work out’, ‘It’s sad, but no one’s to blame’, ‘I’m gay and I thought it was fine’, ‘The show has queer wlw rep, how can you criticize’, ‘I know what queerbaiting is and that wasn’t it’, ‘It’s just a fictional character/SOME BLOODY PINS, get over it’, ‘CRWBY didn’t encourage this ship’ (most people will not make the effort to dig into super shady tweets, comments and fandom interactions from months ago), etc. etc.

And by the immutable laws of internet fuckery, what should have been a beautiful opportunity for representation - whether it would have ended happily or not - gets turned into a convoluted shitstorm where argument from ignorance wins the day.

In short, RT, please, please do better. You have every right to freely create, but with freedom comes responsibility. You have a really good thing going - as a fan, it would be the ultimate tragedy if nothing is acknowledged or changes after all this.

[scientific-tricorder]

Arrgh, I feel bad for having to squash some of this, and it is admittedly somewhat obscure stuff, but there was more push for gayness behind the scenes than mentioned here. The shows are also just super gay.

It was obviously much harder to do anything regarding queer rep in the 1960's when TOS was being made (and goodness knows it was stepping on enough toes), but author Theodore Sturgeon, who wrote "Shore Leave" and "Amok Time" (AKA The defining Kirk/Spock episode), was known to intentionally put in gay subtext in his work, including specifically "Shore Leave". Writer David Gerrold, who wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" and was one of the writers invited back for TAS and TNG, was also gay. To my knowledge, he never intentionally put in or really pushed for any gay stuff into TOS. Gay actor George Takei also asked Roddenberry to include a gay character, which Roddenberry supported, but was disinclined to do over concerns about the networks (which, given the era, is understandable).

When TNG rolled around, only a month after the show was announced, Gene Roddenberry explicitly promised fans a gay character on the upcoming show, although this never came to fruition. On their list of current topics and issues to address was AIDs. David Gerrold wrote a "Blood and Fire" to address this, including a couple confirmed as gay with the lines "How long have you been together?" "Since the Academy." This became a whole hot mess involving rewrites and ended up never being part of the show (although it has since been made into a fanmade work directed by Gerrold) and the work of two noted homophobes who were quite set against any gay stuff showing up. The first, and thankfully short-lived as working on the show, was Leonard Maizlish, Roddenberry's lawyer and just awful. Along with manipulating an ill Roddenberry and being exceedingly antagonistic towards the writers, he was also known to illegally enter the writers' offices and rewrite their scripts. And, to quote Gerrold, he was a "raging homophobe".

The second is a man we all know well: Rick Berman. His efforts to quash queerness are well known, so I won't elaborate. For those not in the know of why everyone hates Berman, this video does a good job of covering it. "The Outcast" was produced under his watch, and he considered a very explicit gay metaphor to placate queer fans, a one and done. "Rejoined" was also made when Berman was officially in charge of the franchise, but he had significantly less control over DS9 (thank you, Ira Stephen Behr) and the writers there were known to sneak things in, including the whole Dominion War arc. As others have mentioned, DS9 also had actors very explicitly pushing for and shoving in their own queer content.

On another topic, there were various groups and organizations pushing for gay characters on Star Trek, including the Gaylaxians and the Voyager Visibility Project, who produced rather significant letter writing campaigns.

Multiple actors also spoke out for queer representation. I don't have the time to track down all the references and could be misremembering, but as I recall, they included Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, Scott Bakula, Alexander Siddig, Andrew Robinson, and the afore-mentioned George Takei.

I'm guessing that the queer writer in the '90s that you mentioned is Bryan Fuller, who is openly gay. He was a writer on DS9 before moving over to Voyager, where he became co-producer in the seventh season. He's also given credit for Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber. I'm sure that there are other queer writers, but I can't remember others off the top of my head.

The whole franchise is just exceedingly gay though, some of it unintentional (got to love it when they do a no-homo and it only comes out more gay), and some of it very much intentional. All this despite Rick Berman's attempts to keep it super straight.

Sometimes I think about how there was no reason for the Star Trek Franchise to be as gay as it is. Like there was what one queer writer I'm aware of on the team back in the 90s and he wasn't a showrunner or anything. There was not to my knowledge queer people fighting tooth and nail to get their subtext implanted in the show. Gene Roddenberry really wasn't trying to start anything with Kirk and Spock. Rick Berman wanted to squash all gay shit. The franchise didn't have. Representation (TM) until 2017. And yet Spirk was like. A groundbreaking way to consume media. Yet DS9 is inhabited solely by queer people. Yet one show after another is fruity. Like. That was God. That was divine intervention. God said this franchise will be gay whether or not the content creators intend it.

[glittergummicandypeach]

How a Stars and Stripes Hijab on ‘Rupaul’s Drag Race’ Reveals America’s Troubling Relationship to Gender, Ethnicity and ‘That’ Religion | Religion Dispatches

Honestly, we blame ourselves.

We should have known that releasing an episode of Keeping It 101 (A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion Podcast) about religion and RuPaul this past Wednesday meant we were in for some goopery when the next episode of Rupaul’s Drag Race aired two days later.

But how could we have known season 12 contender Jackie Cox would bring a freaking STARS AND STRIPES CAFTAN AND HIJAB to the ball? We. Were. Gagged. 

That said: if we had known Ms. Cox would be featuring this garment on tonight, we could’ve clocked Jeff Goldblum’s Islamophobic response from clear across the club. We would’ve told you that women who dress like Cox to express modesty are immediately racialized as Muslim, forced to defend Islam against accusations that it is uniquely hostile toward women and queer people, and especially vulnerable to violence.

The Persian Princess of Drag

Cox has made much of her Iranian heritage, dubbing herself “the Persian Princess of Drag” and tearfully thanking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her advocacy work on behalf of immigrants like Cox’s mother, an American citizen born in Iran. But so far this season—as we literally just said!—Cox has claimed her Iranian-ness solely in racial and cultural terms. Even when commending AOC for “working in Congress in solidarity with Congresswoman Tlaib and Congresswoman Omar,” the first two Muslim women elected to serve in Congress, Cox never said the words ‘Islam’ or ‘Muslim’.

L to R: Jaida Essence Hall, the now-disgraced Sherry Pie, and Heidi entreat viewers to vote in the November 2020 presidential election while Jackie Cox waves from the top of the runway. See? Subtle. (Screengrab from episode 12)

We assumed that Cox or the producers or both had decided to frame Cox’s story explicitly in terms of racism and immigration, which fit neatly into season 12’s pronounced emphasis on urging viewers toward increased political engagement. (In drag’s grand tradition of understated subtlety, every episode now ends with the remaining queens prancing down the runway waving huge “REGISTER TO VOTE” signs. Image left.)

As religious studies scholars, we were thirsty for more explicit engagement with Cox’s religio-racial heritage. But we allowed that the show’s glossing of anti-Iranian hostility as racism was still important political work: though classified as white, Iranians in the United States (religious or otherwise) often face anti-Muslim hostility, which is related—but not reducible—to American white supremacy.¹ American whiteness is fragile, contested, and—especially for folks associated with Islam—contingent on good behavior. On episode 7, Jackie Cox wept while outing herself as the child of an immigrant from a Muslim-majority country and claiming “this part of [her] heritage that [she] hid for so long.” We were prepared to leave our analysis of Ms. Cox at that: viewers might suspect their Persian Princess had a relationship with Islam, but the show left Jackie’s religious commitments (or lack thereof) safely tucked out of sight.

But then SOMETHING HAPPENED, America. 

Salaam RuPaul Joon

Episode 9, “Choices,” had contestants facing off in a debate to become America’s first drag president.² The pinnacle of every episode is the queen’s final runway looks; this week’s theme was “Stars and Stripes Forever.”³ And heeeeeere’s Jackie:

She’s giving us “a beautiful, [red and white] striped, flowing caftan” and “a midnight blue hijab that is outlined in fifty silver stars.” She’s insisting “you can be Middle Eastern, you can be Muslim, and you can still be American.”

In the immortal words of Latrice Royale: she said THAT.

As Jackie Cox swanned down the runway trailing her patriotic caftan behind her, guest judge, dinosaur Zaddy, and Woody Allen defender Jeff Goldblum let out an “oooooh” or a “nooooo.” Either way, it was clear Cox’s look evoked a strong response from Goldblum. Camera held tight on his face for reactions; Goldblum seemed fixated and (to our trained killjoy eye) bordering on disgust. 

A smiling Cox faced the judges with a cheery “salaam RuPaul joon!” Veteran judge Carson Kressley called her outfit “beautiful and touching” and said it “makes a political statement;”4 guest judge Rachel Bloom celebrated that Cox’s “simple outfit…says so much” about what “America really is.”5 This presentation primes the viewer to see Cox’s eleganza as boundary-pushing and indicative of something essential about Jackie Cox as a performer.

If you watched the show or you study religion or you exist on the internet, you already know what happened next. 

“Are you religious, may I ask?” Goldblum inquired, because OF COURSE HE DID, eyebrows raised above thick black nerd glasses, elbow propped on the judges’ table, supporting a face slouched casually against his hand. Cox replied that she’s not religious and insisted that the importance of her outfit lies in “the visibility religious minorities need to have in this country.” 

“Isn’t this an interesting wrinkle, though,” Goldblum continued, waving his hands around his face with pre-COVID abandon. “Is there something in that religion that is anti-homosexuality and anti-woman? Does that complicate the issue?” (emphasis added, and Reader: feel free to pause and hit the shade rattle button if you need to). “I’m just raising it and thinking out loud and maybe being stupid. What do you think?” he concluded.

We’re so glad you asked us that, Jeff Goldblum. Here’s what we think:

Seeing a hijab-wearing woman and dribbling half-baked, anti-Muslim talking points from out the mouth atop your admittedly striking and grizzled jawline does not make us think you’re interesting, Jeff Goldblum. It makes us think you haven’t done your homework.

Islamophobia is Not an “Interesting Wrinkle”

Here’s the T: religion has always been messy on Drag Race—which makes sense, since religion is messy in general. Keeping It 101, like Marie Kondo, loves mess, so you know we had to get into this gig. Whether it means to or not, Drag Race has always given us characters with complicated relationships to religion: Monique Heart’s devout Christianity despite undergoing conversion therapy; Valentina claiming la Virgen de Guadalupe as her drag mother; debates about whose religiously-inspired garments are culturally appropriate and whose are appropriation. 

Religion should be messy on Drag Race, we’ve argued, because religion is what people do, and people are some messy bitches. Lived religious experience changes as people change; rarely are people just one thing or one thing all the time or one thing throughout their whole lives. Jackie Cox has been bringing the complexity of her Iranian identity to us every week. But despite Cox asserting her Iranian-ness in terms of culture, national origin, and ethnicity, the judges read her “Stars and Stripes Forever” outfit exclusively and explicitly as religious. 

As RuPaul’s longtime co-host Michelle Visage would say: meh.

Look, we’re not surprised. Americans know disturbingly little about pious fashion, which has led to some truly tragic and dehumanizing feature items on nonwestern modesty practices. Most Americans still seem unaware that how people cover their bodies has far more to do with where they are than whether they belong to a particular religious community (though students always nod when we explain that folks going out on the town in New York City dress differently than in, say, Tuscaloosa). Folks who wrinkle their noses at Muslim modest fashion seldom express the same concerns about conservative Christian women in long skirts and long-sleeved blouses. We know how you do, America. We work on racialization and religious intolerance.

As we discussed on our “Religion Is Not Done with You” episode, we also know that Muslim-coded people don’t get to opt out of Islam: “Arab-looking” folks, folks with “Muslim-sounding” names, Sikhs in turbans, folks who dress in “Muslim garb,” all get read as Muslim. Identifying as atheist doesn’t get anyone who can be read as Muslim out of “totally random” TSA pat downs. This is how we racialize Islam, distilling a billion-person millenium-old global religion into one (terrifying, not-American) thing.

So yeah, when Jeff Goldblum looks at Jackie Cox in a hijab and says “that religion,” of course we know what he means. Goldblum doesn’t say “Islam”—in fact, no one says Islam or Muslim for the rest of the episode. No one has to. With this question-cum-critique, Islam became what was happening On Tonight, and Goldblum became every white dude in any audience or classroom who doesn’t think he’s racist, who doesn’t realize he’s part of the problem, and who definitely didn’t do the reading. 

That Religion

Goldblum’s use of that here—making Islam “that religion,” unnamed and unsafe for women and queer people—belies the disgust we clocked on his face as Cox brought modest fashion to the runway. He’s asking (though it’s really more of a comment than a question) whether the religion he projects onto Cox’s queer, feminine-presenting body hates her queer, feminine-presenting self; hates all women and queers. 

Goldblum is asking Cox if Islam hates her, the beautiful queen standing before him, who chose to wear this clothing to represent herself and her communities. Goldblum begs the question of Islam-as-oppressive, as though expecting Cox to thank him for liberating her with his tired, basic question. 

Dinosaur Zaddy, WYD? Why are you proving our point by assuming folks who look like Muslims must be religious—immediately racializing and pigeon-holing literal billions of people? Why would you assume you already know everything you need to know about Islam? 

Oh, right. Because you’re American, and America is that girl. We knew she was. 

Cox, to her credit, ignored the bigotry and argued for complexity: “I’m not [religious],” she told Goldblum. “I have my own misgivings about how LGBT people are treated in the Middle East, and at the same time, I am one. But…when the Muslim ban happened, it really destroyed a lot of my faith in this country, and it really hurt my family.” (Jeff Goldblum, open-mouthed, nodded along as Cox spoke.) “I’m here, and I deserve to be in America as much as anyone else.” 

In a challenge meant to celebrate American inclusivity, Cox had to share her personal trauma and champion religious freedom (very American of her, no?) so as not to have to defend a religion of 1.9 billion people (Islam), a nation-state of 82 million (Iran), and an immigrant community already under siege. 

Goldblum’s comments are dangerous. Characterizing Islam as inherently anti-LGBTQ, anti-women, anti-anything, really, falsely collapses the complexity of Islam and Muslims into a conservative anti-American monolith—while letting America off the hook for the very real damage it’s doing to women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and Muslims every day, and with increased urgency during our nation’s public health crisis. 

We the People

Standing on the stage in front of the judges, Cox—like so many women who cover—found the complexity of her identity reduced to the fabric on her head. Despite not being religious, Drag Race stripped her complicated performance down to its proximity to Islam. It might be too much to expect a campy televised game show to give us realness about religion, except that historically, that’s exactly what Drag Race has done. 

Shepard Fairey’s “We the People Are Greater than Fear.”

RuPaul loves a reference, but no one on that judges panel seemed to get that Cox’s caftan and hijab were inspired by Shepard Fairey’s “WE THE PEOPLE are greater than fear,” part of a poster series created in response to the 2016 election [image left].  

Many people carried this image during nation-wide Women’s Marches in January 2017 to protest the 45th president’s inauguration. The poster inspired praise (for including a modest Muslim woman as a symbol of American patriotism) and criticism (for implying Muslims need to support American militarism and imperialism to be “truly” American). 

Not all Muslim women feel liberated by the image Cox is referencing; as Muslim fashion blogger Hoda Katebi says, “Know that Muslims are tired of having to ‘prove’ they are American [and] know that one does not need to be American to deserve respect, humanity, dignity, equality, rights and freedom from hate and bigotry. An over-emphasis on being American as a prerequisite of deserving respect is harmful for immigrants and refugees.” 

How a woman (or a man dressed as one) engages with religion (or not) is not something you can tell by looking at her. Muslim women are more than what they put (or not) on their heads. Looking at a woman who covers and assuming she’s an observant Muslim contributes to the racialization of Muslims—the fear that Muslims are too different, too dangerous, to be allowed to be fully American. Asking a female-presenting person who covers her head with a hijab whether Islam hates women or queers implies that the woman needs saving, that she hasn’t chosen to dress herself in a way she knows makes her a more likely target for hate speech and violence. Assuming Islam hates Muslim women or queer Muslims is some white nonsense: Islam hates nothing; all religions are made up of people. 

Assuming a Muslim woman or a queer Muslim must be especially at risk because of their religious belonging collapses a long, complex history of gender relations in Islam into a soundbite that makes the internet yell at you, Jeff Goldblum. It ignores that many religions, including Islam, can and do contribute to both the empowerment and the oppression of women. Because religion is what people do, DinoZaddy, and history has shown us that people oppress women. 

When you look at a woman who covers her head and assume you know everything worth knowing about her, Jeff Goldblum, you make an ass out of you. And us, as it turns out, for releasing our hot take on RuPaul and religion too early to yell about this on the air. Better luck next season, we guess. 

In the meantime: salaam, Khanoom Jackie Cox joon. Thank you for not turning your pious fashion runway moment into a reveal. We stan.

1 Check out the Islamophobia Is Racism syllabus and especially Neda Maghbouleh’s excellent Limits of Whiteness (Stanford 2017) for more on this religio-racial tension.

2 Again. Season 4 episode 9, “Frock the Vote,” featured precisely this format — but that was before the show hit basic cable and expanded its mainstream viewership.  This is probably for the best, as Chad Michaels’ “LadyPimp” platform has not aged well. And PhiPhi O’Hara’s calling Black queens “the help” didn’t play well even then.

3 Personally, we would have gone with “Amer-I-Can!” but we’re still waiting for our recruiting call from the show’s producers.

4 Speaking of political statements: don’t even get us started on Carson telling Widow that she came off as an angry Black woman, or on the fact that the lipsync for your life literally pitted a Black queen against a hijabi queen while declaring the white queen in ACTUAL IMPERIAL GARB  safe. We cannot even.

5 Bloom called America “a nation of immigrants,” which obviously obscures the genocidal violence perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples of what is now the United States and against those forcibly removed and enslaved to become the bedrock of this country’s economy.

This content was originally published here.

[wellesleyunderground]

Wellesley Entrepreneurs: Caitlin Graham ‘05 (caitlins_bird), Creator of “The Naturals”

Photo credit: Chad Wagner, The Gingerb3ardmen

CAITLIN GRAHAM (AEA/SAG-Eligible) has been an actor for over a decade, building a prolific career in theatre and the indie film communities in NYC and Boston.  THEATRE: NYC - Fifth of July (Gwen); Women Behind Bars (Gloria); EstroGenius Festival. Regional - Three Sisters (Olga; IRNE nominee-Best Play); The Laramie Project (Reggie Fluty track); The House of Blue Leaves (Second Nun; ArtsImpulse nominee-Best Specialty Ensemble).  FILM: Sundown; Bad Apples; Hell Fire.  TV/WEB: Murder Down the Lane (BIO); 59 Days in NY; No Method; Hubspot comedy shorts. She has also narrated several audiobooks for Audible.com.

Caitlin has an MFA in Film from Boston University and studied acting with The Barrow Group in NYC.  She has written and directed her own work in theatre and film, including the award-winning dark comedy web series No Method.  She'll soon be premiering her next series, Boston crime drama The Naturals, which centers on the daughter of a hitman who follows in his footsteps after he dies.  Caitlin teaches acting and directing and works as a freelance casting director in Boston and NYC. Interview conducted by Wellesley Writes It series editor Camille Bond.

WU: Hi, Caitlin! Can you discuss the various roles that you have played (and are playing) in the development and production of the The Naturals?

Oh boy.  I think the better question is: what roles aren’t I playing in the development and production of this series?  As of now, I’m the sole writer, I serve as producer, I ran our crowdfunding campaign and manage our social media accounts, and I also direct the episodes and play one of the leads.  Oh, and I serve as casting director as well.  How that all looks is likely going to change as we move forward with production on the rest of season one: I’m hoping to put more trust in the other amazing folks on my team in the future.  That said, I am reluctant to give up working with the other actors through rehearsal and on set, or making casting decisions.  Those are really my sweet spots, as far as the whole process is concerned.  I’m still very much learning in my other areas of responsibility.

WU: You used Seed&Spark, an online crowdfunding platform, to finance The Naturals. What is it like to use crowdfunding to raise awareness and funds for a series?

This wasn’t my first time crowdfunding, and S&S isn’t the only platform I’ve ever used, but in my experience, they’re certainly the best choice for filmmakers by far.  The team there is truly invested in every campaign succeeding, so they’ve implemented all these educational tools for filmmakers using the platform.  Plus, there’s a built-in network of filmmakers there from all over the world, so you can connect with other folks and use each other as resources.  It doesn’t hurt that their sociopolitical ideals are in line with my own, and they’re very transparent about that.  I can’t recommend them enough.

As far as what it’s like to use crowdfunding, I’d say more than anything else, it’s unpredictable and anxiety-inducing!  This campaign we just ran was my third or fourth that I’ve ever done (and the only truly successful one by traditional definition), and while I’ve learned a lot along the way, the emotional side of it hasn’t gotten any easier.  It’s an extremely vulnerable thing because it’s so public.  And when you’re running a campaign, you can feel like a bit of an island.  No matter how many friends or folks on your team have agreed to help out, you’re always going to be the one who’s most invested and putting in the most time and energy, by far.  It’s more than a full-time job, and you need a strong stomach to do it.

WU: In the informational video for The Naturals, you discuss your long-standing love of the crime genre, referencing The Godfather, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos. How does The Naturals pay tribute to the legacy of crime media, if at all, and how does it break away from traditions?

The show follows Fallon Esposito, the daughter of a hitman who’s stepping into his professional life after he dies - so there’s a sense of a changing of the guard, moving from one generation to the next.  As a young, gay woman, Fallon is a fish out of water in the hypermasculine world of organized crime, but she’s also already inducted and welcomed because of her father.  So, the tradition of that world is going to work both for and against her.  

What I loved about The Sopranos especially is that it created a world of organized crime that had a real foreboding sense of, “This can’t last,” especially from a gender politics perspective.  Toxic masculinity was eroding Tony’s outfit from the inside by the final season.  You also have Carmela, this seemingly traditional female character in the crime genre, who feels trapped and just can’t stay in her lane, so she begins fighting against the shackles of domestic servitude.  You even have a queer character in Vito, though he ultimately meets his expected demise as punishment for being a gay man in that world.

My goal with the show is to take that one step further by bringing characters you’re totally not used to seeing in this genre to the forefront and making them major players in the action and movement of the plot.

WU: You also mention your intention to broaden the range of roles available to female actresses in the crime genre. How does The Naturals’ portrayal of its female characters differ from portrayals in other crime series? What issues did you consider when you were developing the character of your protagonist, a queer woman?

As a queer woman myself, I think there’s a real appetite for a greater diversity of portrayals of queer characters.  I think we all would like to get to a point where queer characters - and female characters - can be created and exist and evolve without being defined by their gender or sexuality.  We want our queer and female characters to have the space to just be human, and unapologetically so.  

I certainly don’t want to erase the experience of being queer and what that’s like - and that will play a huge role in scenes where Fallon is growing up and discovering who she is - but I don’t want it to be all that’s out there.  We can’t just have coming out stories or closeted character tragedies, though I do think those stories are still worth telling.

One thing I haven’t seen nearly enough are dysfunctional queer relationships on screen.  Fallon and her girlfriend Sasha, whose relationship is on the rocks when the show begins, are super dysfunctional but that’s just because of who they both are as people, not because they’re in a gay relationship.

WU: What are the pros and cons of shooting a series in Boston, as opposed to a more entertainment-geared city such as Los Angeles?

I’ve never shot anything in L.A., just New York, so that’s my point of reference!  I would say the pros are that it tends to be easier financially and logistically in Boston.  There’s a real community feel: folks are way more willing to just lend a hand and help out in a way that they’re not in cities like N.Y. and L.A., where the film industry is more robust.  The biggest downside to Boston is that the talent pool isn’t as vast.  A lot of film people, especially actors of color, often relocate once they’ve gotten some solid experience here because there’s more work to be found elsewhere.  But the talent is definitely here; you just have to know where to look for it.  I’m lucky in that I’ve been an actor for over a decade, so I have an amazing network to pull from.  All but one of our actors so far have been from Boston.  

WU: There are several other Wellesley alumnae involved in The Naturals. Can you describe their roles in the project?

I sure can!  Vicky George, who I first met doing theatre at Wellesley and who’s an incredibly talented actor, is playing Sasha - and it’s actually her first on-camera project ever.  Vicky’s always been a super naturalistic performer, so I knew she’d be great for this.  Michelle Lu, who’s a current student in the CAMS department, served as one of our PAs on the pilot, and I hope the scheduling aligns for her to come back for the rest of the first season.  She’s been so supportive, enthusiastic, and kind.

WU: What did you study at Wellesley? Are there any specific professors or classes that have influenced your career?

I was a CAMS/Spanish double major, CAMS for obvious reasons and Spanish because I was good at it and my mother forced me to double major in something a little more marketable.  (Hilariously enough, I haven’t had the opportunity to use my Spanish for professional reasons at all.)  I suppose you could also say I was an undeclared Theatre Studies triple major, since I spent every non-class moment at Wellesley in the Ruth Nagel Jones.  The theatre department and Nora Hussey were super nurturing to me as an artist - and I actually still work with the professional company there as an actor.  

I would say that simply studying film at Wellesley, where gender politics are so top of mind, was crucial and certainly formed me as a filmmaker and as a human being.  I went on to do a Master’s at Boston University, which was obviously coed, and it showed in the curriculum.  It was a fantastic program, but it was difficult to adjust after Wellesley.  I think we had one “Women & Film” class (which was new when I started in 2005!), and everything else was about male auteurs, for the most part.  That said, those professors were outstanding.  Roy Grundmann is my hero.  I took a class with him where I wrote a paper on Bound about how it takes the masculine tropes of the noir genre and makes them feminine, not just through its characters but also visually.  Come to think of it, that was probably where the seed for The Naturals was first planted!

WU: Which roles have been your favorites, and why?

I got to play Olga in Wellesley Rep’s production of Three Sisters in 2015, and that was one of the most fulfilling and emotionally terrifying experiences of my life.  I had never done Chekhov before, and I remember telling Marta Rainer, the director, that I’ve never bought myself as a character in any period but the present, so it was incredibly challenging from a stylistic perspective.  But Marta and the rest of the cast approached it in a way that was extremely personal and naturalistic, which made the character and that world so accessible.  Playing that part really shook me.  It was probably the first time I took real liberties and got creative with a character’s backstory, and it was thrilling to do that with a character who’s been played so many times before by so many different women.

This may come as a surprise, but I learned so much from getting to play myself in my last series, No Method.  It truly taught me the value of doing less on screen, and it’s enabled me to bring more of that to the characters I’ve played since.

I have yet to truly sink into Fallon - we barely scratched the surface of her in the pilot - but I’m already seeing how beautifully challenging it is to play someone who is not very emotionally available.  I’m emotionally available to a fault (it comes with the territory!), and that’s an adjustment I’m constantly having to make when I’m playing her.

WU: You also offer casting services on a freelance basis. How and when did you start casting? Where do casting agents fit in in the process of producing a film/series/etc., and how much of a role do they have in the creative direction of a given project?

I’ve done casting for my own projects over the years, but I think I avoided doing casting for other people for a long time because I had this silly idea that people would interpret it as me stepping away from acting, but that’s not at all the case.  At some point last year, a friend of mine approached me to do casting for some spec ads he was shooting, I said great, let’s do it, and it’s just sort of become a thing!  

The extent of the role that I play in any given production really depends on the production.  I’ve been in complete control of casting, where I’m selecting the material actors are presenting, giving them direction in the room, and making my recommendations.  I’ve just started casting on a feature film shooting this winter, and that promises to be a more collaborative experience with the director, who also happens to be my DP on The Naturals.  I do think anyone who’s hiring a casting director for principal roles is implicitly putting their trust in that person, so there is an inherent level of creative direction there, which is great.  It feels powerful to be the person in the room who’s in a position to say to the director, “What about diversity?  How about we set out to cast an actor of color in this role?”  Frankly, I think more film directors should use casting directors, especially if they don’t have experience or training as an actor, and I’m not just saying that for selfish reasons.

WU: What is your approach to self-care?

Thank you for that question!  It’s well timed; I’ve gotten deeply into self-care over the last couple of years (in fact, most of my “extracurricular” reading is in the self-development aisle).  For me, the biggest key to self-care is in practicing saying no, especially to professional opportunities.  I just turned thirty-four, and I’m still learning how to honor myself when an opportunity comes up that looks great on paper but that I genuinely don’t want to do.  Part of it is the work ethic my parents instilled in me (thanks, Mom & Dad!) and part of it is being an actor.  All actors are encouraged to be as accommodating as possible and to be “yes men,” which makes sense when you’re just starting out and building credits.  But even then, I’m not sure that serves any of us well.  Taking a role for the sake of working just doesn’t work for me anymore, particularly since I’m also a writer.  If I look at a project and think to myself, “I can write something for myself way better than this,” then it’s an easy no.  That’s the power and privilege of being able to create your own work.

In terms of day-to-day self-care: the most important thing for me is to connect with my favorite people.  My friends are my family, and adulthood can be really lonely because we’re all scattered across the country, so taking the time and energy to talk to one of them every single day is incredibly restorative for me.  And on the flip side of that, choosing to disconnect from people who sap my energy.

Massages are great, especially in the winter when everything is clenched all the time.  I also like epsom salt baths and have an insane tea collection.  I’ve seriously cut myself off from buying any more tea until it’s depleted.  I have a problem.

WU: What are the pros and cons of working on an indie series versus a network series? After The Naturals, do you plan to continue working on indie projects?

I think the biggest con to doing an indie series is lack of support!  I wish I had the means to have way more people on my team, both because the show is a beast and we could use more help, and because I’m passionate about developing more talent.  And the big pro is obviously freedom.  You can tell the stories you want to tell the way you want to tell them.  

I do plan on continuing to do indie projects, though I’d like to do bigger projects where I have more support.  I’m not sure if I’d crowdfund ever again, though (though I’ve said that before!).

WU: What are your hopes for the future of the entertainment industry?

I can talk about this at the micro level, from my own experience.  I want to see way more female-identified directors and well-rounded characters played by actors of color.  I want to see way less of the “Caucasian female, 18-25, thin, attractive, supports the male lead and his journey” descriptor in casting calls, and way, way less “Nudity required” for female roles where it clearly shouldn’t be.  When you’re an actor who isn’t a white male, you’re really seeing it all for what it is, and it’s demoralizing.  But I do think it’s changing.  At the very least, more and more people have the appetite for a big change, and we’re all starting to be more vocal about it.  

WU: Do you have any advice for students and alumnae who are interested in working in the entertainment industry, especially for those who are interested in producing their own scripts?

Invest in your relationships - but in a genuine way.  Don’t connect with someone just because you think they can help you out in your career; connect with someone because their values align with your own and you’re truly excited to potentially work with them.  And this extends to Ws who want to produce their own stuff.  Find people you trust, and put your trust in them.  Film is collaborative by nature, so have the courage to be flexible in your vision and invite the input of the people on your team.  They’re your family, and each one of them is an expert in what they’re doing.

Check out The Naturals’ Seed&Spark page here, watch the trailer here, and follow their Facebook page here!