Screenwriting Representation: Teaching Approaches to Writing Queer Characters

Recently a student in my screenwriting adaptation workshop came to me with the issue of how she should handle the sexuality of her main character. The heroine of the novel she was adapting is a lesbian, but my student was worried that writing a lesbian protagonist might reduce her chances of selling the screenplay. She was struggling over whether she should subtly infer the lesbianism, rather than show it outright, or maybe not represent it at all. Changing the character's sexuality—or not representing it—would alter the conflict and theme as it was presented in the novel, but the screen story as a whole would more or less work either way, and so my student was torn.

In this case, I said, she had better first query the novel's author, with whom she had already been in contact regarding rights issues. Even though I teach my students that they owe nothing to the source material they are adapting (because movies and books are different animals), this was a special case because the author might not be willing to grant the rights to the book if such a change was made. I also mentioned that an adaptation of a small literary novel (which this was) was more likely to find independent production than Hollywood production and that independent cinema depicts more queer characters and themes and more frequently courts queer audiences. While working out this issue, the student also struggled over how much physical affection, if any, to represent and how she could avoid stereotypes—she was worried that the protagonist, a high school athlete, might be too "butch." We also talked about the underrepresentation of queer characters in movies and whether a desire to be progressive or socially 'just' should inform her choices. The fact that a novelist had already created the character did not make the struggle over representing the character's lesbianism any less challenging. However, working through all these issues with me made my student feel more comfortable and confident as she wrote. Ultimately, she decided to represent the character's lesbianism overtly and even included a physical coming-out scene.

This is one of many occasions in my screen-writing courses in which the representation of sexuality, race, ethnicity, gender, or class has been an issue in a student script. Often the specific concern is that a student is perpetuating a harmful stereotype—gangsters in these scripts are invariably still Italian, for example. Fortunately, I also teach a critical studies course called Race and Gender in American Film and have taught a great deal of cultural studies courses generally, so I have the background and the training to help my students navigate the treacherous terrain of representation. Obviously, I do not have all the answers, and I am struggling myself to avoid the minefield of interracial buddy movie clichés, as well as what Shohat and Stam have defined as the "Imperial Imaginary" (100-36), in a script I am currently writing that is set in Africa. But I have found that educating screenwriting students in the history and cultural/political implications of representation—and critiquing their scripts with this in mind—leads to more thoughtful characterization and less rote stereotyping, as well as more originality.

Unfortunately, screenwriting curricula typically do not mandate that cultural studies and representation be taught within them. Granted, these crucial topics are often a part of a film student's larger film studies or liberal arts program, but because they are taught as "theory," film students and professors alike often see the topics as unrelated to practice, not to mention dry and boring. Regarding critical film studies, I frequently hear from students some variation of "Why do I need this stuff? I don't want to be a film critic. I want to be a filmmaker." This is the failing of screen-writing courses and curricula, which—apart from story construction—tend to focus on the minutia of formatting, the arcana of craft, and industry buying and selling trends, while neglecting how cultural theory can be made into creative practice. Formatting and industry trends...