Who am I?

When I was a child, I was surrounded by heteronormativity. It wasn’t until I went to college when I finally accepted myself for my sexuality. In the last few years of high school, I gradually came out of my shell that society has constructed around me and feel confident in myself. My entire life, ‘gay’ was a slang that was degrading. No one wanted to be called ‘gay’. It was weird. It was taboo. I never called myself gay because it was derogatory. I just liked boys and I didn’t label it as being gay because ‘being gay’ was wrong.

The moment I accepted that I liked men, everything changed. Once I confidently called myself gay. The word lost its derogatory meaning. I was gay and no one could call me that mockingly. The mystery went away and it was just a part of who I am. Leaving home allowed me to fully accept myself. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to not be allowed to openly love who I love. The freedom I have had with my sexuality since I accepted who I am has been liberating. Knowing that there are others in the world how are in the same shoes I was in when I was younger gives me even more motivation to express who I am and show that I love my true self.

As a filmmaker, I want to create characters that I wish I saw when I was younger. I never knew what a gay person looked like growing up. Actually, I didn’t even know what gay was until third grade when a girl called me a faggot.

I wish I saw someone in films overcome this name-calling. I wish my elementary school self could watch a so-called faggot on screen and relate to him. When I was young, I had my mom put red glitter on slippers and I would skip around the house pretending to be Dorothy. My heroes when I was younger were almost all females. It would have been incredible to have an LGBT role model I could look up to at such a young age.

Creating LGBT characters would take away all the sigma for homosexuality. I want to be the one that lends a hand in a child watching someone on screen and relating to them. That’s what I want. I want gay children to have characters they can relate to. You think it’s a simple goal but it is rare for films to show homosexuality in mainstream media. I genuinely cannot think of one openly gay character in a mainstream Hollywood movie except for my favorite movie, The Birdcage.

I want to normalize LGBT characters in entertainment. If we want to see change, we have to be the ones to do so. I am ready to progress the LGBT community more into the mainstream. Entertainment is moving in that directing and I want to be a part of it. I’m taking this class to learn how I can build off of the shoulders of those before me. We must learn from the past before we create the future. I want to learn about the people who came before me and paved the way for me to be able to create the LGBT content that I wish to create. With the help of them, I will be able to forge a path that progresses our joined goals.