‘Diversity’ in media takes many forms, but a more visible effort at intersectionality (the idea that different oppressed social and group identities combine in important ways) has been made recently. When it comes to queer representation in film and television, the numbers can be discouraging; according to the GLAAD 2017 overview, there has been a notable drop in portrayals of queer people of colour in mainstream media. This lack of representation is one of the ways that QPoC (Queer People of Colour) experience alienation; too often, QPoC feel the need to ‘choose’ between queerness and their ethnicity. Ferguson (2003) describes some of the intersecting identities of QPoC as being those of “racial difference … gender eccentricity… class marginality,” as well as noting the fact that “[e]ach estrangement [secures] another” (p. 1.)
The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) started as a small event among friends in 1988, and since then has undergone growth and change in order to offer a more diverse selection of films. The organizers of the 29th Vancouver Queer Film Festival (2017) state one of their mandates as being the curation of films by and for QPoC, saying that “if ever there was a time to be together in love and resistance, it is now. It is dangerous to be a person of colour. It is dangerous to be queer. To be trans. To be poor. To be an immigrant. To be marginalized. It is dangerous because we are dangerous. Especially when we resist together” (p. 7.)
By acknowledging not only the current difficulties for people who fall under one or more marginalized identities, but also the fact that the stories of such people are often told by others, the Festival performs an important task. It creates a space specifically for queer writers and directors of colour; in an artistic medium that can seem dominated by those with privilege and power, “knowing that there is no one better equipped to tell our stories than ourselves” (p. 28) is more important now than ever. The 2017 VQFF lineup featured almost half of the films having been written and/or directed by queer people of colour. In 2018, its 30th anniversary, it is hopeful that the Festival continues to promote the voices of those that are silenced the most, even within the already marginalized queer community.
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Works cited:
Ferguson, R. A. (2003). Queer of Color Critique, Historical Materialism, and Canonical Sociology. Aberrations in black: toward a queer of color critique (pp. 1-29). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
GLAAD. Overview of Findings. Retrieved from https://www.glaad.org/sri/2017/overview
Vancouver Queer Film Festival. (2017.) 29th Vancouver Queer Film Festival [Program]. Vancouver: Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Retrieved from http://queerfilmfestival.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/VQFFGUIDE_2017_Digital.pdf