'queer joy'

Here's another crackpot rant that's likely to offend or annoy many LGBTQ+ people: I think that queer joy as a concept is actually another prong in the commodification of diverse sexualities and gender identities for the sake of leveraging the pink dollar. Like, think about that Tweek and Craig episode of South Park: who is it that's benefitting from those images? It's Asian girls (who are probably cis and straight), straight, cis white people and people in positions of power who like to ogle us. 🤣 - I feel that way about NZ queer cinema too: like, it's the Film Commission or TVNZ or RNZ or whoever who gets the kudos for allowing someone to make a queer film, yet it's not like those films escape that ghetto and cross over. My own feeling was that the feedback regarding my script pissed me off, and that was a script that was designed to pull punches rather than to provoke. - Trey and Matt's entire aesthetic is based on queer cinema, and that's something that people tend to downplay re: South Park. I think they're very genuine about those things, and that their sense of irony is similar to an Almodovar or Todd Haynes. Those are all formative influences for me, plus all that Broadway stuff that Trey is also really into. - If I was able to have functioning relationships that weren't tainted by people expecting me to be the chick from Sense8 or Transparent or [insert show here] that people who like to think of themselves as heteroflexible binge, then I might feel differently. However, as I've carefully explained using statistical analysis, there are serious problems related to intimate partner violence in our real communities of sexual and gender minorities. That's not just straight people beating on us: that's actually real people who are in queer relationships abusing each other. I'd love it if someone made a film which tackled that, and I'm hoping to delve into that with my book. Here are the stats: 'LGB adults are more than twice as likely to experience intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or sexual violence (68% of bisexual adults and 57% of lesbian or gay adults have experienced IPV and/or sexual violence) compared to the NZ average (29%) based on the NZCVS.' 'Almost a third of participants (32%) reported someone had had sex with them against their will since they were 13. This is a much higher rate of sexual violence than for women or for men in the general population.' - this is re: gender minorities. Two to three times higher than for women, and seven to 12 times higher than for men. '6% had become homeless because of violence from a partner or family member and people who left their homes struggled to find other housing options that welcomed trans or non-binary people' - my instance wasn't IPV: it was a flattie assaulting me.🤬 - Here's a solution that the new Government could enact for an easy win: "There is no rainbow specific violence prevention programme that is culturally relevant to all parts of our community - these need to be developed and funded. If we want to end violence in our communities, we need to have autonomy and resources to do it" [...] "Rainbow community organisations do not receive MSD or other sexual violence funding, but they are supporting survivors of sexual violence." - This isn't pinkwashing: this is hard data that makes people feel bad. This is why I'm not keen to be a token for straights that feel bad that I've made good films without getting paid fairly for those. I consider Shipwrecked 2030 to be an expression of queer joy (by my definition). That dark, satiric, violent film reflects the way that I've been made to feel during this kafkaesque journey of coming out. 🏳️‍⚧️👍