I am sitting in the foyer of London’s BFI Southbank during Flare Festival as I begin to type, surrounded by the radiant faces of hundreds who have battled tube strikes and miserable weather to bask in the warmth of queer cinema. Many of the programmed films are unfamiliar prospects to those intending to see them, yet they’ve still journeyed in search for authentic representation from across the UK and Europe to see these films. LGBTQ+ people may be in a minority in most spaces, but draw together this global community and you’ll find we are Legion.
Shows with LGBTQ+ characters at their heart have been some of the biggest British successes of the past few years - from Heartstopper and Sex Education, to It’s a Sin, Vigil, and Gentleman Jack. Additionally, making a splash in unscripted formats with RuPaul’s Drag Race UK birthing super-stars and Strictly Come Dancing welcoming same sex couples. Yet despite these successes, I believe that there continues to be an underestimation of audiences’ appetite for LGBTQ+ characters and content.
Last year at the Edinburgh TV Festival, the Heartstopper team gave a masterclass on the secrets behind its phenomenal success. Heartstopper was a hit with audiences and critics alike: with nearly one-million Twitter engagements in the week of its launch,1 “#Heartstopper” amassing over 4.3 billion TikTok views in its first month; and winning an array of accolades including Emmy, RTS and TV Choice Awards. It made the Netflix Top 10 in in 54 countries, including three where same-sex relationship are illegal. Unsurprisingly, a third season was commissioned before the second went out.
Nearly a year on from its release, I asked Executive Producer Patrick Walters what he felt lay behind its success. He explained that “because Alice [Oseman] had had the freedom to create these characters in the graphic novel, her writing and characterization was really specific and not shaped by ideas of what commissioners want from gay stories. Where some creators try to embrace diversity to get a slice of the queer audience, that’s not how we went about it. People responded so well to Heartstopper because it’s not just a gay relationship, they’re fully fleshed characters - their ‘trans-ness’ or ‘gay-ness’ or ‘bi-ness’ was never their defining characteristics. Audiences feel represented by their personalities not just their sexualities, and that’s where I think it cuts through.”
This was also something noteworthy about Vigil, and why it struck such a chord with some viewers. Isabelle Sieb, who directed three episodes of the first series, remarked that “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the overwhelming reaction we got from the LGBTQ+ community and the outpouring of love we received on social media. It was evident that the portrayal of this relationship was a game-changer to an audience that had never seen themselves reflected at the centre of a big blockbuster primetime BBC thriller before. I was incredibly moved by the personal stories that were shared with me and learned that it was seeing a sapphic couple do the ‘normal things’ together on screen, like simply having a cuddle on the sofa whilst reading, as well as the fact that we gave them a happy ending, that was most meaningful to this audience.”
Representation allows us to feel seen, and to know that our lives matter. Tricia Tuttle, who spent four years as Director of BFI Festivals (including the aforementioned Flare Festival) has witnessed firsthand how representation can drive audiences: “Stories help us understand ourselves and others, and it’s one of the great immersive pleasures of film and television that we can project our-selves into these stories. But if you are not white, not heterosexual, and not male, until recently, you have usually only been able to see yourself as a character lurking the margins. There is a validating pleasure to seeing ourselves reflected: ‘I am here. My life matters.’”
Anyone questioning the importance of representation will struggle to find a better expression of this than in Netflix’s Disclosure, which goes some way to illustrating how the current vilification of trans people has been fuelled in part by the common tropes historically portrayed on our screens. Authentic representation could not feel more urgent in a cultural and political landscape that’s increasingly hostile to certain parts of the community. “If you go about trying to make a show with box ticking in mind, you get something inauthentic. There’s such a tradition in TV of ‘the gay best friend’ or ‘the love affair with a closeted person’. The onus is on commissioners now to make queer work from queer creators and authentic viewpoints” says Patrick Walters.
It was a frustration at the lack of authentic queer female content that led to my founding Teen Club with fellow producers and friends Loran Dunn, and Sorcha Bacon. We were fed up with the tropes - too often portrayed as dangerous women, monsters, victims, soon-to-be-dead, or wearing bonnets and glancing longingly at one another from afar. Social media has helped make audiences more alive than ever to these cliches and more alert to who is authoring diverse stories, with Killing Eve recently disappointing its many sapphic viewers by deviating from the novels in favour of an overworn “bury-your-gays” finale. With Teen Club, we wanted to take ownership of our own stories and open doors for other queer people to tell theirs.
There has been a boom in queer user-generated content across platforms like TikTok and YouTube, with authenticity of voice being part of the appeal, alongside the direct connection between creator and consumer. Teen Club’s mission is to bring this ethos into a long-form space. As many channels fight to win young audiences, they must recognize that seeing LGBTQ+ stories as mainstream is essential to staying relevant to these viewers.
We all have a moral duty to ensure our work doesn’t perpetuate harmful stereotypes, but there is also commercial value in authentic representation. With relatively empty back catalogues of content reflecting LGBTQ+ stories, there is huge capacity to provide for these audiences across territories and inspire fandoms around underserved shared interests. “The LGBTQIA+ community’s reaction to Vigil could not have made it any clearer that there is a huge demand and appreciation for complex and positive representation, and I hope British broadcasters recognize this and will continue and expand upon telling these stories,” says Isabelle Sieb.
Speaking to fellow producers and creators there is an anxiety that this boom in queer content won’t be seen as an indication of demand and a reason to make more, but as having already met a need. Patrick Walters shares this concern: “I feel really conscious that because Heartstopper was the first of its kind, that there’s a risk that people feel it’s a box that’s been ticked, and we won’t get the second and third and fourth.” This is supported by GLAAD’s 2022-2023 “Where We Are On TV” report, which indicates there has been a trend of cancellations of LGBTQIA+ inclusive content in the USA in the past year, with 54 cancellations axing 24% of queer characters from screens, as well as an overall reduction of 6% from the previous year.2
With a wave of exciting LGBTQ+ writers and directors making impact in the industry, hopefully those fears will prove to be unfounded in the long term. Tricia Tuttle believes “what is exciting for queer audiences is that there has been such an explosion of new filmmaking voices in the last five to ten years that we are beginning to move away from simple tokenism. We are representing ourselves which brings more truthfulness and authenticity.”
There are so many more stories to share.
Whilst we’ve seen increasing representation of gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters, it’s still a rarity to see trans, non-binary, asexual and intersex characters in lead roles, particularly characters who aren’t white, middle class and non-disabled. Our hope is that the market continues to see the value in diversity and allows these new voices to take some of the burden of authentic representation off Russell T Davies’ mighty shoulders.
About the Author
Savannah James-Bayly is a co-founder of Teen Club, a production company with an expressed mission to create commercial, positive, queer content for young adult audiences. Teen Club produced Life in Love, the innovative short form series and inaugural programme of ITV backed service, Woo, which launched in June 2022, and has multiple features and TV shows in funded development. They are a Pact Future 30 company, and recipient of BBC Small Indie funding in 2023. Individually she is a producer of Emmy nominated Queens of Mystery for Acorn TV, and Layla, the debut feature of writer-director-drag performer Amrou Al-Kadhi with BFI, Film4 and Significant Productions.
From Reflections: A Television Digest
We were thrilled to be able to share articles from our archive, Queer Identities in the Industry, On and Off Screen and Here, Queer & Desperate for Content, this Pride Month. As an organisation with ties to Edinburgh and London, we hope everyone has an incredible time in the celebrations to come this weekend and next. Happy Pride!
Amber Dowling. “Heartstopper tops Twitter chart after Netflix debut.” Variety. April 25, 2022. variety.com/2022/tv/news/heartstopper-netflix-twitter-1235240080
Glaad Media Institute. “Where are we on TV report 2022-23.” Glaad. glaad.org/whereweareontv22