Peter Knegt remembers sneaking into video stores as a teenager looking for movies to connect with.
Sometimes he couldn’t find anything.
“The accessibility that queer young people now have to this content is very new,” Knegt said. “It’s remarkable … and it will go a long way to help them get through tough times if they have them.”
The abundance of LGBTQ streaming film and television programs now provides audiences – both inside and outside the community – with a wide variety of content to choose from.
All of this is part of the shift from one-dimensional storytelling to meeting the search for stories that demonstrate the joy of LGBTQ life, industry figures told the CBC. Films that once focused on traumatic stories of family members leaving or rejecting are being replaced by original stories.
This is also due to the rise of LGBTQ directors, many of whom are inspired by authentic personal experiences.
Knegt, who is also a CBC Arts columnist, says he is excited about this nascent diversity – and to see where things are going.
“I think people are curious about the cultures they don’t belong to, because that’s not their daily life. “We all watch The Crown, but none of us know what it is,” Knegt said.
What was missing
Curated by the recent Toronto Inside Out Film Festival, Andrew Murphy and Eli Chivi sought to highlight films that depict heartbreaking, fun and joyful stories, something they felt was lacking in LGBTQ cinema.
“We deserve happy stories … it’s time for happy stories,” said Chivi, who is development director and co-director of the festival.
Eli Chivi and Andrew Murphy, curator of the LGBTQ film festival Inside Out in Toronto, pose in front of the TIFF Lightbox Theater. They say audience demand for a wider variety of LGBTQ films has grown. (Esteban Eduardo Cuevas Gonzalez / CBC)
Growing up in the Middle East, Chivi had trouble finding films that portrayed something outside of heteronormative culture. If he had access to LGBTQ content, he said it was inherently negative or very dark.
But stories that tell the truth about LGBTQ life are essential, he said.
“It’s like a snapshot of what life might be like for someone on the other side of the world,” he said.
As the audience for these stories grows, so does the demand for movies that show the full breadth of what LGBTQ life can be.
“Our stories matter, and weird stories matter,” said Murphy, co-director and director of programming at Inside Out. “We have to keep working to make more of them.”
With Wonder celebrates the strange release
One of the release films highlighted at this year’s festival was Canadian director Sharon Lewis’s documentary With Wonder.
The film highlights the multifaceted relationship between LGBTQ individuals and Christian communities – and how for some it can be a positive relationship rather than one marked by rejection.
In making the film, Lewis said she did not want to present a “one-dimensional story” of LGBTQ life, acknowledging that many programs seem to define strange people through trauma and otherness.
A scene from Sharon Lewis’s film With Wonder, a piece that explores the multifaceted connection between Christianity and the LGBTQ community. (inside out)
“The reason the films are about … our difficulties and our suffering is because these films are funded by the mass flow,” [for] a non-queer audience that wants to know about us, ”she said.
But when she tells the story herself, Lewis says, she doesn’t teach. Instead, she shares, discovers and explores.
Former LGBTQ films are paving the way
Industry observers say the mid-1990s marked the beginning of LGBTQ romantic comedies reaching mass audiences; movies like The Birdcage and In & Out were big hits.
However, some films include characters who are part of the community, but mostly in the form of tropes such as “gay best friend.”
“Sometimes we’ve seen stories told and they insert a strange character, but there’s nothing strange about them,” Lewis said. “It’s just a symbol.”
Then movies like Brokeback Mountain, Call Me by Your Name and Imagine Me and You began paving the way for movies that brought LGBTQ storylines to the fore.
In 2016, Moonlight broke down as the first LGBTQ film to win an Oscar for Best Picture.
“I keep seeing me move in that direction and I will never give up,” Lewis said.
Fire Island has an exciting future
Joel Kim Booster, in the center, is seen in a frame from the movie Fire Island, who is also a screenwriter. The film was created by and features people from the LGBTQ community. (Disney)
While earlier films included stories about the LGBTQ community, the new comedy Fire Island is the first major romantic comedy released in a studio created by and involved strange creators.
The film was written by Joel Kim Booster and directed by Andrew Ann as a free adaptation of Jane Austen’s popular novel Pride and Prejudice. He explores strange connections as he follows a group of friends on their annual trip to Fire Island Pines.
“I think with The Birdcage and In & Out, for example, there are a lot of people involved,” Booster said in an interview with CBC Arts.
Just in time for Pride Month, viewers can connect with the unique personalities in the film, which began airing on June 3 at Disney +.
Noah (Joel Kim Booster) is a passionate and confident pack leader who wants to find Howie (Bowen Young) for inspiring confidence after a longtime friend admits he feels lonely.
The main members of the Fire Island cast can be seen outside on a sunny day in a frame from the film. This is the first big LGBTQ romantic comedy released in a studio. (Disney)
Along with these two is their lesbian mother Erin (Margaret Cho) and their friends Luke (Matt Rodgers), Max (Torian Miller) and Keegan (Thomas Matos) – each of whom brings a certain flair to the film.
“I’m excited to move into this space with a movie like Fire Island, and I hope it inspires more movies like this,” said Anne.
And with the upcoming issue of Bros., written by Nicholas Stroller and Billy Eichner, marking the next big studio-released gay romantic comedy, weird content is something Hollywood is investing in now.
For Knegt, this new wave of films makes him excited about the future.
“We’re getting a lot more variety now, and that’s really encouraging,” Knegt said. “I grew up looking at images of a certain kind of gay man I thought I should be.”
Knegt is standing in front of a movie theater in Toronto. He said he was optimistic that LGBTQ films would continue to have wider stories. (Evan Mitsui / CBC)
He said he was “really messing with people” and giving them “confused views” on who they should be and how they should act.
“So to have that diversity there, I think it’s really important,” he said. “That makes me optimistic, at least about where things are going.
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