Right away, I knew I wanted to make something that involves something from one of these topics. This is why I figured drama would be the best fit genre to depict the life of a character who belongs to one of these communities, and not only preface the struggles that they have to face because of said community (or potential intersections of any three of those communities) but show the beauty of diversity and the good things in life that they deserve. These communities unfortunately face awful hardships in life, ableism, homophobia and transphobia, racism, and xenophobia, but a goal of mine I want to pursue within my opening scene is to bring awareness to these struggles and their voices, the human behind them, but to also show that despite anything horrible that life throws their way that they do belong here, they do have a reason to stay in this world, and that they do have a purpose they need and deserve to live out.
To begin with my outlining process, I knew that depending on the topic I want to focus on, I would have to plan on getting the stories of people who belong to these groups. Though I deal with mental health issues, I am very high functioning. If I were to go this route, I would want to research and hear the stories of people who are lower functioning, or who suffer more debilitating disorders than my own. Though I am an immigrant, I am a white European immigrant. If I were to take this route, I would want to make sure I am depicting the stories of people who suffer at the hands of racism and xenophobia who are also immigrants, because that is not something I face. Finally, if I were to go with the LGBTQ+ route, I immediately saw two possible ideas. Here, I could either intersect the topic of mental health and this particular community, given that statistics show that LGB adults are more than twice as likely to experience a mental health condition than their heterosexual counterparts, LGBTQ people in general are at higher risk than the general population for suicidal thoughts and attempts, high school LGB people are almost five times as likely to attempt suicide to their heterosexual peers, and 48% of all transgender adults report that they have considered suicide within the past 12 months, compared to 4% of the entire US population. ( https://www.nami.org/find-support/lgbtq )
The second possible idea was to focus on the topic of the most targeted group in the LGBTQ+ community; transgender women of color, more specifically black transgender women. With the age expectancy for transgender women being 35, and 26 transgender people (again primarily black transgender women) brutally murdered in 2019 alone, this is an appalling statistic that has yet to be addressed by anybody outside of the community, often times fully ignored. It should've never been ignored to begin with, they were people too: Dana Martin (31), Ellie Marie Washtock (38), Jazzaline Ware (34), Ashanti Carmon (27), Claire Legato (21), Muhlaysia Booker (23), Michelle Tamika Washington (40), Paris Cameron (20), Chynal Lindsey (26), Chanel Scurlock (23), Zoe Spears (23), Brooklyn Lindsey (32), Denali Berries Stucky (29), Tracy Single (22), Bubba Walker (55), Kiki Fantroy (21), Jordan Cofer (22), Pebble LaDime Doe (24), Bailey Reeves (17), Bee Love Slater (23), Jamagio Jamar Berryman (30), Itali Marlowe (29), Brianna "BB" Hill (30), Nikki Kuhnhausen (17), Yahira Nesby (33) Johana "Joa" Medina (25), Layleen Polanco (25).
( https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2019)
The ways I plan to hear these stories and experiences are through heavy research. I plan to continue with the research I presented here, listen to the stories of my peers and others, listen to the people within my intersectionalities that are more marginalized than me, read books, watch documentaries, read articles, interviews, ask questions to the people I want to involve, and get as heavily informed as possible. I plan to cast potential actors for the film by announcing a request for people around the area who fit the description of the main role(s) on Twitter and Instagram. These are fantastic tools to reach diverse audiences, I have personally seen the reaching success of production companies such as Blumhouse, using Twitter to call on a very specific person for a film plot which gained a lot of attention on the app, calling for a transgender Latina woman who was also a bruja as there main character to a film which follows a transgender Latina teenage girl who is kicked out of her home for coming out, and goes to live with her bruja grandmother. Another great example I have seen where social media has been used to hire actors, is that of the highly successful A24 production, The Florida Project. Bria Vinaite was hired through instagram to play the role of Halley, the main character six year old Moonee's struggling mother. This was her very first acting experience, and it still ended up making the film a truly authentic piece. With this idea in mind, I also plan to work with the actors rather than tell them every little thing that needs to be said or done. I want my direction to be a guideline, not the rules because I want the person's experience being who they are in this world to shine through the most of all.
In my next blog post, I will be discussing the finalized option for the subject of my film opening production, and how I plan to go about it. In the mean time, keep an eye out for more of my progress!
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