Film and shows are created by whoever owns a camera, an imagination and a motivation to create. The difference between a student project and a high-grade professional production is the talent involved and, most importantly, the budget. 

Not every film that is pitched in Hollywood is created, obviously. There are countless screenwriters and aspiring filmmakers who have ideas to be created to film. The people who live in the LA area for film are diverse. However, a disturbing amount of films pumped out by Hollywood are lacking in diversity. This is not for a lack of trying, either. What big producers are looking for are films that are sellable. 

With “Avengers: Endgame” destroying the box office this past week, that is more than enough evidence to show that films the world wants are action films and superhero films. The American public love horror films and cheesy, predictable romance films. That is not to say these films are not impressive and beautiful in their own right, but this leaves for less films of more diverse ideas or cast to get made. 

The issue is that a lot of films produced through Hollywood are more concerned with being accessible to the majority and marketable to those who are hateful than giving those who are not in the majority to feel included. This, from a business standpoint, makes sense. If someone who is violently homophobic finds out that a major film that they would have seen has LGBTQ representation, they may rethink seeing the films. I have a simple solution to this problem: stop censoring media to pander to people who are hateful. 

Enough people would see the movie for the LGBTQ representation that would counterbalance any people that chose to pass on this film for the same reason. All Hollywood executives are doing by not including this representation is further proving that most mainstream art is censored in diversity based on who will consume the media. They need to stop pandering to people and censoring what might upset them, even though it is appropriate for screen. Losing potential hateful viewers is much less damaging than not allowing for diversity in the same formulaic films that Disney cranks out every few months. 

In a lot of films and television, creators try to implement “queerbaiting.” Essentially, the writers and actors plant hints toward LGBTQ representation between two characters and then either have no actual establishment of the relationship or have one of the two characters get into a heterosexual relationship. Some of the time when this happens, the creators might not realize the chemistry that so many see between two characters on screen. A majority of the time, however, they do understand this. Almost everything done in film is intentional, whether it be choice of color or the placement of a cup. Each line is carefully crafted by the screenwriter, and each delivery of that line is rehearsed countless times by the actors. The creators who queerbait know exactly what they are doing. 

Why is queerbaiting harmful? It gives some LGBTQ people false hope that favorite characters could be like them. They gain the trust and hope of fans for the attention of potential representation and then yank it away so that the non-LGBTQ fans do not feel uncomfortable that their favorite characters are unlike them. There are infinite non-LGBTQ people in film and television. Using queerbaiting to gain views or popularity is cheap and disrespectful to fans. 

Filmmakers lately have been more concerned with the potential profits from films than the actual quality of the film. Obviously, bills have to be paid and films cost money to make, but sacrificing quality writing for the viewers is incredibly cheap. 

Photo from Free-Photos via Pixabay