Monday, January 15, 2018
Dear NBC: Straightwashing is Not OK
The Mary Sue: There are so many important, interesting, inspiring stories within the LGBTQIA community. If only the producers and television executives telling those stories actually acknowledged where they came from. In the case of the upcoming NBC drama Rise, its protagonist, based on a real person, will be missing a key element of his identity. The person is gay, but the character will be straight.
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When I first saw that RISE based on the novel Drama High by Lou Volpe was going to straight wash the main character, I was in school. Some of the most emotional parts of Volpe’s story is when he writes about how he came to terms with being gay and having to leave his wife. RISE will lose a lot of the character development that it would have had if it stuck more closely to Lou Volpe’s story. When the showrunner, Jason Katims, is quoted from his interview with the Hollywood Reporter as saying “ It was important to honor the source material but to also make it my own so we’d be able to lean into it” and earlier saying that he hopes to keep up the spirit of Volpe, I am confused. Changing a person’s major life struggle directly impedes with Katims goal. Katims is being contradictory in this interview.
I love when the interviewer brings up the point about Katim straight washing the story makes it more relatable to his personal life when most producers relate directly to the show without major changes. This is definitely a point where Katims is shown to be contradictory again. I also agree greatly with when Teresa Jusino says that by straight washing the show, it is made into “ just a rehash of every other “inspiring mentor” story about a straight, white dude.” This point is so true and when the producers of this show asked why to produce this now, I wonder what they asked because this show will sadly be nothing different from what has been playing for decades.
I had never heard of Lou Volpe or his story before this article, but after reading it the controversy seems too familiar. It’s disheartening how frequently it seems that LGBTQIA characters are pushed away to the supporting role, and leading protagonists and antagonists are molded and shaped to fit a “standard” or something. Lou Volpe’s story is extremely inspiring to me. His work and internal conflicts could be applied to any situation—external conflict affecting the protagonist’s internal conflict. It’s a universal message, and yet this inspiring and relatable story is missing pieces. We see this problem everywhere, with movies from Disney and Pixar that lack queer heroes, to crazy post-apocalyptic movies with stereotypes and stigmas. As a person who identifies with this community and who is extremely proud of the strength LGBTQIA people have, it is frustrating to see the entertainment industry, and industry I love, not feel the same pride I do. I really hope we start to see true inclusiveness and diversity in our heroes and stories.
It is beyond frustrating to looking at the amount of whitewashing the entertainment community does, and now seeing this straight-washing it is simply adding to the domination of cis white males that is very apparent in the entertainment industry. While I had not heard about Rise before reading this article, I’ve seen other films be straight-washing in similar ways. Elle Fanning playing a female that is transitioning in About Ray is a very similar example. Why didn’t they just pick someone transgender to play the main character in About Ray and not Elle Fanning? People who are not straight cis males can be heroes too. Lou Volpe’s story could help so many kids who are struggling in the closet see that being gay is something that people deal with at many different stages in life. Not only that but it would be one of the only shows that I would know that has a main character that is gay. We live in 2018, it’s time for LGBTQ to be represented as heroes just like straight people. We are all equal and this straight-washing is just another poor choice by the entertainment industry.
The idea here is that LGBT characters are displayed in a straight fashion. Jason Katims has a weird history of loving the classic nuclear family and straight culture in general. In his previous show, Parenthood, there is only one character who is gayer lesbian to come through the whole thing and its one of the most glazed over parts of the entire show. She comes out and also leaves for school all in one episode. In "Rise" and many other shows where characters are straight washed, the excuse is that the character doesn't need to be gay or that it isn't an essential to the plot line or the character arc. These are just the most politically correct answers, when usually the underlying meaning is that they simply don't think that gay sells. Something sort of similar happened with an advertisement for "Call Me By Your Name" where a poster for the movie displayed a picture of Elio and the straight girl he sleeps with that has about four lines in the entire movie. Straight washing is pathetic, its obvious, and its time that Katims and other so called "progressive" companies and show runners stop hiding behind a nuclear facade.
I am torn between how I feel about this story. I want to say that I really do believe this is entirely up to the writer and how he wants to portray the story "based" on real events. It is his artistic license and does not mean that his story is maliciously intended by any means. However, the more I think about this the more I want to say that this guy sounds kind of homophobic by doing this. If what the author of this article has to say is relatively appropriate given my limited scope on the subject, then yes, I think I would agree that there was an obviously correct way to do this story with and he just simply did not do it, and that I can not understand. Struggling with sexuality makes for good drama anyways! It would be a story people could really get invested in.
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