The Symbiotic Relationship between Researchers, Storytellers, and Gen Z in Authentically Representing LGBTQ+ Youth
Media has the power to shape our communities, and that is especially important when we look at the representation of historically marginalized groups like the LGBTQ+ community. The ideas and beliefs contained in media content, both positive and negative, directly impact audience attitudes about the world around them. When featuring queer adolescent characters, it’s essential to listen to the perspectives of today’s teens and young adults and create stories that implement the real change and representation they want to see in their communities. In a cycle of listening, creating, and learning, storytellers, adolescents, and researchers can and should collaborate to create authentic depictions of LGBTQ+ adolescents that inspire and positively impact audiences.
Sheena Brevig, a filmmaker and the Workshop Director for the Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS), draws from her own experiences as a queer person to foster more accurate representation of LGBTQ+ communities in film and television. Whether it be through facilitating workshops for large entertainment companies or working on smaller film projects, often in collaboration with other queer creators, she “really believes in the power of storytelling to break down walls and foster conversations that might be hard to have.”
For Brevig, the most beautiful part of this is creating projects that others can watch and relate to, find bits of themselves in, and serve as parallel experiences for the queer community.
“It’s about increasing visibility for the queer community as well as breaking down stigma. Particularly in queer communities of color and in my case, Asian and Japanese queer communities.”
For instance, Brevig’s LGBTQ+ Identities workshops have created vulnerable moments of sharing and healing between strangers.
“People end up sharing really vulnerable things and it seems to be somewhat cathartic, or it seems to start a conversation for the company on their end. We have played the role of this unique kind of start-the-conversation-space.”
Brevig and her team have even worked to tackle areas often not addressed when considering diversifying media landscapes, like the gaming industry. In collaboration with Activision Blizzard King Gaming, Brevig ran one of the most interactive workshops to support the breaking of old patterns and toxic representations of gender. The Body Diversity Workshop, which ran in collaboration with Warner Media explored “body-type diversity, representation, and character creation. It was something every single person in the audience could relate to, it doesn’t matter what gender you are or how old you are.”
Many industries and companies stick to stale tactics of performative LGBTQ+ representation – like adding rainbow colors to their company’s logo for Pride Month – and think it achieves the impact queer youth are asking for. In actuality, these are tiny changes that check a box but do not appease the greater audience who want more acknowledgment and action. These audience demands are long overdue and Brevig encourages the calling out of companies that have not completely embraced this wave of much-needed change.
“The queer community is critical of what they’re seeing and they want to feel represented, they will call out things that are through a heteronormative lens. ”
It is not just about quantity but quality of representation, for example expanding past just the gay white male lens and including all queer communities. This pursuit for intentional content that creates a genuinely positive impact is one of the best outcomes of Brevig’s workshops. They unify and inspire others to learn from her team’s guidance and plant seeds of change wherever they go.
Clearly, the impact is evident, with people who participated in CSS’ workshops applying learned empathy to shows and movies they create. After attending the workshops, Tim Federle, the showrunner for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, a show that ran on Disney Channel starting in 2019, was able to bring a fresh awareness and perspective to the writers' room when developing his diverse cast of queer characters. “It was a really full circle moment where I saw how the workshops we put on were applied. As a viewer, I saw how much I could reap the benefits of seeing this more inclusive and more accurately, authentically representative content,” said Brevig.
For Nare Aghadjanian, a rising sophomore at UCLA, who identifies as queer and fights for queer rights every day, seeing shows like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and other recently diversified shows is something she has a personal stake in. For Aghadjanian, feeling safe and represented is equally about a physical and digital environment.
At UCLA she says that at first she “wasn’t expecting to feel as safe being out as queer at [school] as [much as she] ended up being.” But Aghadjanian found a community.
“There was a Pride Admit Weekend that I attended online that made me feel really glad about going to LA for school, I knew that no matter what I would always have a community, and after being surrounded by a lot of homophobia that led to major mental health issues, it was a breath of fresh air to see the resource center and queer groups at UCLA. ”
Digital and intangible representation is just as important and impactful and Aghadjanian fiercely highlighted all the negativity and misrepresentation that is not being addressed. “I see so much racism, misogyny, transphobia, sexualization, and ableism.” She echoes the need to break free of the heteronormative patterns industries have fallen into, saying how mainstream movies and novels only focus on what makes them comfortable rather than what actually incites change. “When aiming for representations of marginalized groups it’s important actually to have it represent the general public - these movies shouldn’t be focused on the sexual aspect or just be one big coming out story.”
Nuanced storytelling is what Aghadjian is fighting for and she encourages every young, eager queer person to fight for it too. “I hope one day queer representation will turn towards actual representation and not just be a glorification of a white gay man, even if that representation is critical as well,” she said. The amplification of voices like hers is another step industries, researchers and creators alike should take, expanding their hearts to listen and implement what the youth actually feel.
“Queer people are not just a coming out story or solely experience violence, there should be an incorporation of all love.”
The benefit is nothing if not a win-win, allowing audiences to feel more seen, reflecting the world as it really is, and allowing studios to find more success and respect in the industry.
Research is the root of all this change and communication between researchers and creators is the conduit to representation that reflects the truth of queer stories and real-lived experiences. Adriana Manago, Ph.D., a cultural development psychologist, has been researching LGBTQ+ adolescents and the power of social media. She’s found that social media was not an obstacle but a tool for LGBTQ+ kids to explore themselves and use the language of the Internet to develop their queer identities in a place full of community and validation.
“There are three key navigational strategies on social media for engaging with cultural narratives for gender and sexuality on social media platforms: seeking and sharing information, creating queer community, and making choices about visibility and permanence.”
By engaging in all of these activities, LGBTQ+ teens can branch past the restrictive definitions of gender that Manago said are part of the hard-to-break rigidity of youth identity development. More than anything, a supportive environment whether digital or family-based is key to offering the honest and authentic space LGBTQ+ teens need to feel understood and represented in the media they are consuming.
“LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith. My students and I have examined variations in social media use and consequences depending on family contexts and intersections between gender, sexual, and ethnic identities. In these studies, we are finding that LGBTQ+ youth who have more supportive families and who provide resources for exploration and validation are less likely to rely on social media to understand and construct the self.”
Being proactive and utilizing the various intersecting identities of individuals to initiate change is one of the most important and beautiful tools of research. LGBTQ+ teens are using social media to find a safe space and to understand themselves, and so perhaps if creators understand this intimate need for a space to grow, this quest will be satiated much sooner. If Brevig’s comments and Aghadjian’s input are taken to heart, compounded with the robust research of psychologists like Manago, real change is on the horizon and this Pride Month brings us one step closer to it.