thinks such films won’t reach mass audiences, the industry’s whiteness problem will never be fixed. While that’s evidence of Barry Jenkins’ artistry and ingenuity, it’s also indicative of a larger problem: As long as limited resources are directed toward black films, as long as Hollywood.
Moonlight was the lowest-budget film to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture. Filmmakers can only create more works, however, if they have the financial resources and industry support to do so. There are a plethora of films centered on the lives of black people who love and fuck people of the same sex, but we absolutely deserve more.
New gay movies 2017 series#
And the web series No Shade (2015), is a tear-dripping comedy about black LGBT life in New York from creative and romantic partners Sean Anthony and Terry Torrington. Patrik Ian Polks’ Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom (2008), The Skinny (2012) and Blackbird (2014) offer contemporary takes on black gay love and friendships, while Darius Clark Monroe’s short “Slow” (2011) addresses the intersectionality of disability, queerness, and black love. And even if the film industry and public refuse to offer praise, the work of these filmmakers is no less brave and necessary.īlack filmmakers have always known this to be true and have sought to “create dangerously,” as Haitian-American storyteller Edwidge Danticat encourages, despite the ways the American filmmaking industry has long resisted stories centered on blackness and black LGBT experiences. characters among all mainstream releases in 2018, up from 28 in 2017. An Elton John biopic was never going to be understated, but. Gay men appear in 55 percent (11) of inclusive films, a drop from last years 64. 49 Rocketman courtesy Amazon Hulu A gay fantasia on Elton themes. Black filmmakers whose works visualize the worlds and lived experiences of black people-sometimes through characters who identify as LGBT-on the big screen or the Internet are overdue for public praise. The queer kids of the future need their wholesome entertainment too. Moonlight is but one example of the type of beautiful and transformative work black filmmakers have always created, and not just this year.
It is also a reminder black men who fall in love with other black men, like the two main characters in Moonlight, are not necessarily best identified as “gay.” Yes, the film depicts two black boys-becoming-men discovering their love, but their expressions of intimacy are no queerer, no more profoundly liberating, than their blackness. It is an example of what is possible when black filmmakers specifically create art focused not on the Hollywood gaze, but on the worlds from which black people come. In the aftermath of the surprise Oscar win, LGBTQ stories became more complex, and representation more. Moonlight’s well-deserved success is cause for collective celebration. When Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar in 2017, it signaled a new age for LGBTQ movies.