Queer media has come a long way in the last few years, with the likes of Call Me By Your Name and Moonlight filtering into the mainstream and picking up their well-deserved Oscars on the way.
And despite the sheer success of their releases, they remain very much an anomaly: like a lonely turtle amongst a school of fish. They stand out because they’re different, but make only a small impression in the vast ocean of films focused on heterosexuality.
We talk about how groundbreaking these films are because they offer something we have yet to see. Moonlight was the first time we saw the complexity of being gay in the black community. Love, Simon, was celebrated for being the first major film production company to invest in a gay coming of age storyline.
But what happens next? Where is the next all-black cast in a queer film? When will we see another highschool protagonist struggling with his sexuality? And what actually happens to these relationships after highschool ends?
Falling complacent to the small selection of queer films we have available means we become more focused on the idea of a queer film being ‘the first of its kind’ – rather than their success pioneering the way to similar films being created. What’s the point in being groundbreaking if the reverberations don’t encourage more queer media?
Because we simply do not have enough gay films. We don’t have enough gay books. We don’t have enough gay art. We don’t even have enough gay music. If you’ve ever scrolled through Netflix’s ‘LGBTQ’ section, you’ll understand the disappointment of only having a handful of films that you can potentially relate to or be represented in. Yet, even if you watched one every day, you’d never run out of films centred around straight people.
That’s why I made my own representation and wrote a gay novel – waiting for six months to see the next queer film, only to sit through some sanitised portrayal of a gay icon (yes I’m talking about Bohemian Rhapsody), leaves you feeling invisible and unwanted.
I wrote We’re Worried About Him in retaliation to the heterocentric media we currently have. Because telling my own story seemed to be the only way I could actually relate to characters and their experiences. I quickly realised the best way to see or read about queer storylines were to create them myself. So that’s exactly what I did.
People are desperate to connect with the books they read, or the films they watch, on a deeper level. So please share your own story; be the next black guy who falls in love with another man, and shows it to the world.
My story is just one more example of gay literature out there – it’s still not enough. I can’t promise to provide you with the representation you’re looking for, but if I don’t, I hope it will inspire you to create your own representation.