"The Glass Ceiling of Gay Success (A Discussion)" Transcript

You can view the archive of this video on the Internet Archive or on the Internet Archive

Video transcript is on the left. Misinformation is highlighted For more info, see how to read this site

Source (Author, 2000)

Fact-checking commentary is on the right for comparison.

Auto-text is cleaned up somewhat to remove excessive "um"s and vocal tics.

Note: there tends to be a lot of cross-talk in these podcasts. I'll attempt to fill in where possible, but I make no promises. There's a reason I didn't listen to these podcast episodes in the first place...

Apr 26, 2023 First published.

Dec 07, 2023 Privated post-callout.

May 8, 2024Channel deleted

[sponsor plug]

[patreon link] [website link]

this video is brought to you by Squarespace hello everyone and welcome to gays Behaving Badly the podcast YouTube show that Neil Patrick Harris will absolutely never come on my name is James you okay over there hi I'm Nick I'm I'm Nick that's Nick um yeah welcome to the show um today we are talking about what are we talking about today today we are talking about the gay glass ceiling and the pressure that a lot of queer creators are under to produce excellent media will continue to being invisible while continuing to be invisible um which is it's something that's been coming closer and closer to mind for me um because you know I'm seeing a lot of uh a lot of shows coming out that have queer creators like like Heart Stopper for instance Alice oseman is an executive producer on that as well as the author of The the books on which it's based um and I'm seeing like a lot of queer creators getting one really big hit but basically being ignored like they're not being kind of like head hunted as like oh we want you to do a show for us next and there's really only like a couple that get that treatment whereas you find you know straight white show runners or straight white writers in Hollywood who just get handed million dollar gig after million dollar gig and this is something that has been kind of on my mind for some time ever since especially since before I published my book gentlemen's club available on Amazon and it and and at nthurgot.com um so uh like I've kind of really felt that crunch too like you know how much more meticulous I need to be about the media that I create which has actually affected the media that I output yeah I just don't put out as much because I I I'm so terrified that it's not up to a standard that is going to uh need to be what it needs to be in order to be noticed we are going to talk about that today and how that how and our observation with how we're looking at that in the culture yeah okay so is that the is that is that the introduction is that um segment one uh like and we do want to specify that naturally We There are queer we're not saying that there aren't any queer creators out there or is that there aren't any Stellar queer creators we're outlining that they're in spite of some very talented creators in all Fields queer people um there there's this kind of uh what's the metaphor I can use like an iron curtain like something like that like a lavender curtain the lavender curtain uh title for the video um it's like even if they're popular and even in queer spaces like these these people are kind of held up for like kind of a one once and done yeah because like I was I actually looked up a list earlier today um basically it was like the 50 most influential gays in Hollywood and other than six of them and I wrote the six of them down and we're actually going to talk about them in this video um most of them are basically just actors who produce stuff for themselves to be in because they're not being cast because they're out yeah and so it's like okay if 40 of them on the list are just actors who are trying to make sure that they have jobs yeah how are they actually powerful and how do how does that compare to the power of like the one or two that we'll get into who actually have pull in Hollywood yeah and yeah and just like how what they have to be to get that pull yeah um and like like I said like how why is it that you know a straight white screenwriter can get you know million dollar job after million dollar job writing these gigantic movies that may or may not make any money and they constantly get forgiven if they're complete bombs but if a great Creator makes something like you know I'm not a fan of bros but Billy Eichner for instance you know is Billy Eichner gonna get given another 30 million dollar movie going on and like just touching on that like we give them a hard time however one of the arguments I saw around the time of the movie being realized oh this is a flop um was the discussion like okay gay people straight people get their bad rom-coms all the time yeah it's fair that we have one or two also um yeah so like there are some straight rom-coms that are a hell of a lot worse than Bros and I don't think we've ever said Billy arkner should just not get work because like we said like there are straight creators who continue like they're they're constantly on the grind oh yeah um it takes a if you get that if you're a straight crater and you get that straight man specifically a straight white man and you get that one good movie The amount of free passes you get Matthew McConaughey has made some horrible movies and he still gets gigantic paychecks yeah and like quite frankly I think that you know even though he has an Oscar I find that his Oscar acting is very interchangeable I think most of his acting you know no Tino shade but yeah yeah Matthew McConaughey is very good at one thing yeah and that said like it's it's not like we're saying these people should not Nicholas Cage another good example so yeah we're going to get into the actual meat of the video now but before we do that we're going to have a little ad read because this video is in fact sponsored which a lot of our videos have been recently thank you this video is brought to you by Squarespace building a site with Squarespace is a great way to build your brand and reach a wider audience I know a lot of amazing artists watch our videos and squarespace's members areas and high quality desktop and mobile photo galleries are a great way to Showcase your art and their monetization services offer a safe and trackable way to get paid for your commissions Nick and I have had a presence on social media for a while now and obviously this channel but the channel itself hasn't had a website before until today using squarespace's incredibly intuitive and easy to use tools we've built the James Summerton Channel website featuring a Blog where Nick and I write about topics that probably wouldn't make for a full video a special section where you can check out preview chapters of my upcoming novel as well as check out Nick's novel gentlemen's club and using squarespace's video hosting feature we're even able to give you access to videos that YouTube made us remove head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com James S that's j-a-m-e-s-s to save ten percent off of your first purchase of a website or domain start showing the world how amazing you are today with Squarespace and you guys can check out the Channel's website at www.jamesummerton.com the first thing we want to talk about is like who qualifies as a successful Creator um in the world uh and this is kind of where the list comes in like we wanted to talk about that like yeah so I have a list of six people here who are well seven people six entries yes sorry about that seven people six entries among the gays he's considered very successful because for a gay producer in Hollywood he is very successful and that's Greg berlante uh if you don't know who Greg berlanti is he is the Mind behind all of the cwdc stuff the arrowverse um the flash all of that as well as Riverdale and the movie love Simon and so he is as far as the CW goes he is King of the CW like he's like the Kevin foggy of the CW yeah like he has control over that with an iron grip and you know it helps that it's the shows are really popular like you can argue the quality of them but most of them are really popular so he knows how to hit the pulse yeah which is a rare Talent actually like it's a very rare Talent like whether you're making art media or pop media knowing how to not Pander but just service your audience is something that is that's one of the rarest artistic skills you have that are out there yeah and he has dozens of shows going at any given time like it's not just like oh he works on Arrow and then next year he works on the flash he has dozens of shows going uh all at once on the CW and movies and like he's a very very busy fella and I would be curious let me know in the comments below did you know he existed before that like I I've heard before before like us letting you know I have heard of him I've heard him talked about because like I I'm me probably mostly like we were roommates for a very long time I heard bleed over from your living space um for podcasts and YouTube and stuff and you kind of come over and talk to me like hey you want to hear what happened today in Hollywood yeah um and the answer was always generally yes because that drama like lots of drama uh the drama is like electric electrolytes for the gays um so the next one that I I have listed here is Russell T Davies who a lot of nerds will obviously know of because he is the showrunner for Doctor Who Um he is the one who brought Doctor Who back from a long Hiatus it stopped in the 80s I think and he brought it back um in 2005. starting with the ninth for the movie and then the Ninth Doctor yeah and then it was the Ninth Doctor Who the War Doctor was the movie I think and then uhuvian's in the in chat in comments will correct me yeah I I haven't watched Good Doctor Who before but I'm going to check out the new season um and it's been staggering like successful since he hugely successful huge and he also created Queer as Folk and he has done any number of British person right and and a executive produced the American version too okay um and he's done any number of queer related shows in England it's a sin probably being the most um revered of them but you know talk to someone outside of queer or nerd spaces they don't know who the hell Russell T Davies is yeah another one is Cindy Holland who's an executive at Netflix she is the executive that made Orange is the New Black Hat this is a name I have not heard yeah I didn't hear it either she made sex education happen which is another huge hit or just the New Black I've never even heard of her before Orange is the New Black is basically what put Netflix on the map like Netflix Netflix creative products Orange is the New Black and house of cards came out like very similar but I think I heard about Orange is the New Black before House of Cards um and people just died for that like yeah Orange is the New Black is one of those rare Netflix shows that lasted for like seven or eight seasons yeah yeah and then we have the Wachowski sisters who have done a lot of stuff you know sense8 is the most popular among the queer audience but Sensei never found an audience big enough to justify it being renewed for a full third season um and really although they are known by the the wider audience they're really only known for the Matrix even though they have done other stuff they've done Cloud Atlas they've done Speed Racers everybody rips apart Speed Racer it's a fun movie it also just looks gorgeous oh it's an amazing movie like if they could re-release Speed Racer and HDR in 3D I'd go see that uh you did Jupiter Ascending they did one other one they were director they were producers on V for Vendetta yeah they produced V for Vendetta uh which you know I definitely got a lot SM Wachowski feels off of that and the thing about the wachowskis is I don't think they're bad directors I think they're quite good as directors um it's just for some reason their movies aren't don't do and the thing is like when you watch the wachowski's movies none of them are any weirder than the Matrix yeah it's just for some reason the Matrix happened at just the right moment I also think like Cloud Atlas is no weirder than the Matrix but it was considered a much more like artsy movie I actually really like Cloud Atlas I I read the book I thought the book is phenomenal I let I heard that the book uh was more sequential it had more of a structure whereas in the the movie was more parallel I should watch the movie to kind of compare it to the book it has your guy in there the one the gay actor you really like he was cute oh oh Ben winshaw yeah he actually played a gay character but uh next person on the list uh yeah the next person on the list is Victoria Alonso who was Kevin feige's number two at Marvel Studios for since the beginning of Marvel Studios yes and she was an incredibly powerful gay woman of color like she was a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood yeah and she just got fired and the excuse is that she was uh the basically uh it was that she was in control of the special effects and and the special effects have been suffering and it's all her fault and so she got fired she was basically the scapegoat for the Marvel movies having not done well recently but they didn't but people don't seem to take into account that she was also in charge of the special effects for end game and uh Captain America the Winter Soldier specifically yeah and like all of that the one that she should get credit for is um Thanos yeah the the first endgame movie Infinity War yeah because Thanos was that that was schmiegel quality um just for how you you saw pores on his face yeah like it was it was phenomenally well done and like she's not a visual effects artist but she is a she was the producer in charge of that and she obviously had many more roles within the MCU um but Disney fired her she was the scapegoat for basically why Marvel movies aren't doing well right now and you know she she got the blame for it and a lot of people were like oh she's she's she's mean but now a lot of people are coming around and kind of seeing wait a minute yeah because if you fired Kevin feige because [ __ ] was messing up then you know then everyone sees oh we have a problem here but if you fire Victoria Alonso who most people don't know who she is then it makes it seem like you're correcting something you're correcting a mistake that's that isn't like that big of a mistake yeah and okay yeah yeah and so apparently she was also very vocal about Disney's silence on the downstairs and it is very vocal about them erasing gay characters and uh even like Pride Flags out of Marvel movies and it has come out that she that that's actually a component for why they wanted to get rid of her because she was very quote annoying yeah so this is all just to sort of highlight the kind of positions of authority that queer creatives need to have to be recognized even on a yeah like subdermal level the second in command of the MCU even at that phase of your career you're Expendable yeah you yeah and that's the thing like we look at um Victoria Alonso Ryan Murphy specifically is the biggest yeah I was leaving Ryan Murphy for last because Ryan Murphy is the the the the the the outlier for all of these like Greg brilanti is very well known you know because as within geek circles and some gay circles because he is a gay executive basically running the DC Universe at CW at the CW but Ryan Murphy you know he got a billion dollar deal with Netflix and they have already made that money back because of Dahmer but like you look at Ryan Murphy's work and you have Glee American Horror Story American Crime Story pose um and some of his shows flop horrendously and he does get the sort of um the golden teeth the oopsie Daisy you can come back and try again but like it's the fact that like for the number of whites for the we'll just say privilege for the number of privileged producers and creatives who get that golden parachute who get the oopsie Daisy card yeah um and Greg berlenty like he hasn't kind of made anything really particularly floppish um I mean there's been stuff in the DC the the CW stuff that like Batgirl or Batwoman I think it's just the fact that you know what he what does succeed succeed so hard that they're afraid to get rid of him because like when he hits he hits well yeah like okay yeah he you know messed up and you know Batwoman wasn't a huge success but then there's Riverdale yeah then there's Riverdale and Riverdale prints money for them um and you know the flash was printing money for them I think the flash is over now but um era was for the first half of it printed money yeah a lot of the fandom apparently fell off and so you know that's that's why he was given love Simon because he they were like yeah you're a TV guy but we'll let you do this because your your TV stuff is so successful a very different Beast than Ryan Murphy whereas Ryan Murphy kind of used Glee and kind of to springboard himself into much more prestigious media like well that's that's Ryan Murphy kind of worked on a lot of stuff Ryan Murphy really kind of Hit the scene with nip talk yeah um which kind of that's where producers found out who he was yeah and then he paired up with Brad falchuk to make uh Glee and then Glee took off into the stratosphere well that's what I mean like basically flea was kind of very TV it was very pop and like he kind of used that to make American Horror Story and the other things which did have a much more level of prestige whereas Greg Burr uh yeah like American Horror Story was like oh you want to win an Emmy like go to American Horse whereas Greg brilliant he's much more pop he's much more fluff and that's not saying derogatory no it's not saying like you know he's good at what he does like I gave him a glowing compliment earlier like but um so there's these two kind of uh homos and Hollywood homos um and like there are so many other creative queer people in Hollywood like why is it just kind of coalesce around them and uh and Billy Porter that's another one I want to talk about when we're talking about like queers that are struggling like yeah like Billy Porter is someone who even the Straits know who Billy Porter is like Billy Porter shows up at every red carpet and is fabulous beyond belief yeah so even the Straits know who he is like he said in interviews he can't get cast as straight characters but he also kick a cast as gay character and like that's really interesting to me because it kind of feeds into my idea that um Hollywood sees queerness as a role it sees it as an act and if you are queer then you're not acting yeah the thing that I've noticed quite a bit is that Hollywood isn't totally against pushing gay actors but they do seem to have a problem with gay actors of color yeah uh like Billy Porter for instance and you know like the cast of Fire Island Fire Island was supposed to be a theatrical release and then it got shunted over to Hulu and I think if that had been a movie starring a bunch of white gay actors yeah I part of me thinks it wouldn't have gotten shunted over to Hulu I will also and it was also much better than Bros and it should have gone to theaters because it would have made money and then we would have had a gay success story thank you I also would like to elaborate on that and say I don't think that Hollywood has much of a memory or ability to remember more than one or two gay actors whatsoever and that includes lesbians um so it's kind of one for him one for her um and everyone else can kind of just find their own kind of like Niche project projects and you know queer Independent films and um but it's definitely a job being a judge on drag race you know Hollywood you know is pressured to put diversity in their movies so they find one or two uh uh actors of these diverse categories they're willing to play by the rules and everyone else is like okay we filled our spot yeah we filled our position yeah and it's less it's not as dire when it comes to writers and directors yeah because you know they're behind the camera their personal lives aren't kind of scrutinized the way they act they're not the stars or the cameras aren't pointed to that thing exactly um but then at the same time name a gay director that is a Spielberg or a Tarantino yeah or a Scorsese or uh Christopher Nolan or like name a gay director who is in that League I feel like even though it is easier to sort of get by and there are plenty of gay directors who are very successful none of them have reached that kind of high iconic Echelon iconic is a good way to put it yeah and what this is a bit of a difficult thing for and this is where it's kind of factoring into where it's on your mind because you are starting to trying to get into directing you do want to reach that level of prestige in terms of your visuals and you know putting together a story yeah like I would like like I don't ever expect any movies I make to be like considered in the league with you know Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese or anything like that but I would like to be able to make movies that look like they could um and the the thing that worries me there is there is not really a gay template for the gay director to follow whereas you know you do have the Scorsese the spielbergs the Christopher Nolans the the tarantinos um that you can kind of look at and be like or even either there are even a handful of women uh directors you can if you're a young lady kind of going into film you'll be like I can do I can do it because she can because she's yeah like I could I could try and be Chloe Zhao or Catherine Bigelow or if you're like a creator of color there's Ava Duvernay there's um yeah Ryan coogler there's Jordan peel uh but even then there's less of those than there are straight white men absolutely but I think there's I I think people like um Jordan peel and Ryan coogler are far more household names than name any gay director and with that let's move to our next segment now the break is over because some of you are watching on patreon or your YouTube members and you don't have to watch ads so what's the what's our next segment next uh our next segment is our personal experience with this and how this how we're staring there in the barrel of this uh the lavender curtain uh yeah I am calling it that now I I dubbed it um on the record claiming it I I think I think I I think I have much less anxiety about it than you do so I'll if you don't mind I'll kind of get my piece out of the way um because like I said at the end of the last segment I do want to be able to make movies that are considered good that aren't just gay movies like good for a gay movie kind of thing that's something I wanted to talk about earlier kind of just the idea that you know like when it comes to queer creators there's that element of we need to be the best or we're just gonna be good with the asterisks of for a queer Creator yeah we have to if we're not Ryan Murphy we're nothing yes um and because I like I said before I can't think of a gay director that has reached that kind of top-tier echelon not for some not for some time and you know there are amazing gay directors out there right now who are doing amazing movies but they are like they're not consider they're not spoken of in the same words as even B tier straight white dudes yeah yeah like uh I can never pronounce his name I can never pronounce his name so I'm not going to because I'm just going to offend people um but he's uh directing a short film about uh gay cowboys with um yeah he's a movie about gay cowboys with Pedro Pascal yeah people in gay media are talking about it nobody else is and he is I think one of the best directors of his generation Pedro Ahmad davar oh I can't say his last name I'm so sorry but he's not even spoken of in this with the same reverence as JJ Abrams yeah but when I go to like a serviceable mid-tier director I always go to guy Richie Guy Ritchie yeah just because I like he's done some good movies I guess so but earlier in his career like some of his movies were like actually legitimately good okay but I like it's been a while was um uh Aladdin right the live action yeah um like that just so mid especially when there were so many opportunities inviting a directory live action remake yeah like there are invitations to be cartoonish in the in these sections because they're based on cartoons yeah but like like you said there isn't any kind of road map for how to get that sort of top tier like uh prestigious like yeah like what kind of movie do you need to make to be considered in that same tier yeah because there are gay directors who do make movies that are just as good and just as good as far as like production quality and everything as Martin scorsese's early movies as Spielberg's early movies yeah the difference is that even though someone is making movies just as good as Raging Bull or just as good as Mean Streets they're not being given the money to do Goodfellas they're not being the money to do the The Departed they're not getting the money to do Jurassic Park or you know Schindler's List or something that opportunity to you know rise to the challenge when it comes to uh writing books like of being being an author like there is a little it is what you are yeah it's a little bit of a different beast and even like uh with me kind of branching into writing screenplays like that's also a bit of a different piece where there are kind of um uh gorvadol uh very famous screenwriter um uh maybe yes he wrote Ben Hur maybe he didn't write Spartacus he did write Ben Hur and if you watch Ben Hur there's a lot of clear coding in Ben Hur and he put that in there on purpose to bug Charlton Heston uh so um fabulous Queen um oh just and a great novelist too one of the greatest um uh orators I was going to say just greatest uh like deathlines of all time was the best thing that ever happened to Truman capote's career was his death or dying was the best thing that ever happened to Truman capote's career um I wish when you could be like before Joan Crawford is dead good my mother said that when someone dies you should never say anything bad only good Joan Crawford is dead good that's what Betty Davis said when she found out Joan Crawford had died uh um you're not allowed to be [ __ ] like that anymore no it's heartbreaking only drag queens are allowed to be that [ __ ] now um and only on YouTube so yeah like it's daunting for me because there are phenomenal queer our uh authors out there uh what quarrels like of all genders and all sexuality do I say no I was just I was making fun of people who do but like um and this I think this is a problem with the publishing industry uh gay men kind of get swept under the rug um yeah like there's a shelf over here that is filled with books by that are just it's like half of the wall is books about gay people um the books that you have heard of are written by women yeah uh women straight women get bisexual women gay women but they're written by women other than Adam Silvera I can't really think of any gay male author who writes gay male Centric books where their publisher really pushed them and with even with Adam I think I think a lot of that was Tick Tock like I think like it wasn't so much the publisher pushing it as Tick-Tock so like yeah again like I mentioned part of the thing like I I because I want to kind of I naturally as someone have Ambitions of kind of imagine having Ambitions you know being the greatest ever um whether I will or will is another question but like because I feel like I have this curtain I have to cross the lavender curtain yeah uh my coin term my term coined uh didn't I say lavender curtain but no what are you talking about changing history that's the lavender curtain changing history they were roommates so um because I have that Crossing like I hold myself to such an immeasurably high standard of kind of like making sure that the media I create is like the best it can possibly be and it's crippling and because of that I've had to really begin I really psychologically reassessed what my career should be um so I'm now kind of like moving away from like being like high selling to I want to have books that are being remembered yeah which means I need to put more thought into them which means I can't write them as fast which means I can't put them put them out as much yeah so like and that's kind of that's the publishing model these days is volume especially with self-published authors it's like you the the the the expectation is you're going to put like three or four books out a year minimum um instead of you know traditionally published authors or Chad published authors um who you know every two or three years the book comes out or if you're someone like George R Martin maybe once a decade me having this channel is probably better than the overwhelming majority of a lot of other queer authors out even traditionally published authors yeah uh so I'm really grateful for that and I'm hoping that I can continue to use that as like a platform and that's something me asking that's me telling um that's the condition for my employment um the question that comes back too and it's about like especially because we meant I want to reiterate that this isn't something that's unique to queer people no um and I mentioned David Duvernay before like she had Wrinkle in Time that was a flop why hasn't she worked again since yeah and she has not been given a movie since yeah like she's whereas this is It's a Salma was like a phenomenally well-regarded movie like she should have gotten a free pass from that she should have been she's gotten the best director Oscar nomination for that but like yeah she did Wrinkle in Time did not do well at all and basically has been blacklisted yeah and um and it's but it's an open joke right now at Marvel among people who cover my Marvel that the people writing Marvel movies right now keep getting rehired even though universally it's agreed that phase four has been a written [ __ ] show which is unfortunate because you know like there there must be more Talent well I mean there's also um uh oh I just was just talking about it Jordan there's also Jordan Peele who a lot of people but Jordan Peele has said and here's here's a thing that a lot of Hollywood doesn't like about Jordan Peele they've asked him when are you going to make a white movie and he said I'm not I believe Toni Morrison got asked the same question and by Barbara Walters I think um average um I was asked like when are you going to write a white book and she said like the question is inherently racist because like I'm writing books yeah like there's no white book there's no black book I'm writing books that speak to my experiences and books that I think that we need in the world yeah um Jordan peeler said he's not going to make a white movie yeah um even though he's including White characters uh like in um in nope I loved that character the the the editor oh yeah yeah I can't remember his name but he just showed up the skirt he showed up to film jean jacket in a skirt and nobody had questions like that's Hollywood um I just love that movie so I love both of his I've only seen you haven't seen us because yeah you're scared I have been told that it's scarier it's not I didn't find us scary but it's like one of those kind of like make you think he movies I didn't find nope to be like that kind of long-term scary no um I mean some of the visuals still are staying staying with me like just the inside jean jacket uh people being eaten yeah um then it's just the crunch yeah but um again like that there's that idea like he makes things that stick in your head that aren't necessarily scary when you're watching but it's just like I can't get this out now yeah uh just ideas like I I just loved um get out so much yeah I love both of the ones that I've seen and it's amazing we deserve that Oscar like that that was phenomenally written yeah um it makes me want to see us but I am a scaredy cat so there's a thing that's kind of Bot and maybe he got offered it maybe he didn't but why was he not direct why is he not directing blade oh he'd be really good for that I think maybe it's because um he is fairly artistic and Marvel oh no no not an artistic Marvel doesn't seem to like that especially after Chloe's out well yeah they were very excited about Chloe Zhao and then she made an artistic movie and they realized oh artistic movies aren't mainstream movies oh damn it who's who's um guy who makes me doing media movies Tyler Perry Tyler Perry like he you know he's another one like Ryan coogler who's kind of really broke he had to make his own yeah but here's the thing with Tyler Perry is that Hollywood considers him a joke yes but he has basically created his own Hollywood yeah and that's the thing why do you have built his own stuff that's what you kind of have to be in order to succeed as a Creator outside the hegemony yeah and that's what we're going to be trying to do with Telos pictures like we're going to try and create you know the gay version of what Tyler Perry has done yeah so like and that's kind of my solution to uh James's Quinn term lavender curtain is like you know like bias for us like you know if they're gonna keep you out make your own moon landing base with Blackjack and hookers make them like make them sad like it like the BL industry in Asia like Hollywood wishes they could like well that's the thing like and that's going to be a video that we get into but like the BL industry is you know it's mostly written by women but it is an industry an industry that is about pretty boys kissing each other and it is hugely popular even like in China where it's like the the Chinese communist government is so homophone they've started to buckle because it's just they haven't started to buckle but they've started they they they let some you know there's Coatings that's what I said started to buckle on it yeah and like in Korea and Taiwan and Thailand Japan BL is hugely popular yeah and makes a fortune and Hollywood is like it's like the comic books industry ignoring the fact that manga has been outselling American comic books for the last decade not just I was telling but take any one like successful manga it's outselling every Marvel's profits yeah like Marvel Comics prophets DC Comics because you know if you start reading a comic book it might get canceled in four issues but if you start reading a manga you're probably gonna have you're set like volumes upon volume you're probably going to get at least like eight volumes into that um so like and that's the solution is kind of when you you feel like like I like I feel like I don't really have a road map to the kind of success I want to reach yeah um you don't really have a roadmap for the kind of success you want no like with Telos I'm kind of like there are gay movies Studios out there that do do like gay movies um but you know they are they're they're higher budget than what Telos has to work with unfortunately but um they feel they don't I don't want to say they feel cheap they feel low budget yeah and my hope is to be able to make movies that look like they weren't shot looked like they took six months to shoot yeah instead of you know shot in three weeks yeah and that's the hope and trying to you know Elevate things not that there's anything wrong with what we have but also kind of just break that the glass ceiling yeah um and so that's kind of my optimistic ending to that yeah and and hopefully there is you know optimism out there that you know there although the Our Generation and the generation coming up and everything we don't really have the the the the um the road map set out like a lot of CIS hat people do yeah but maybe we'll not necessarily us but hopefully us but you know people of our generation will make that road map yeah like in place the Trailblazers basically yeah and it's I mean like there's a lot of I find people a privilege would put a lot of pressure in me like oh I want to be a Trailblazer disrupter it's hard it is hard work to kind of think of yourself as like oh I'm kind of doing something that you know I don't really have a guide for yeah um and honestly I would rather not be a Trailblazer I would rather just make good [ __ ] art like yeah straights we're coming for your jobs uh so I just want to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video You're going to hear a lot about Squarespace in the coming months because they've been very generous with us and uh yeah so that's the end of the video leave your comments down below like subscribe comment uh ring that Bell so that YouTube might do what it's supposed to do and actually let you know when new videos come out just maybe maybe uh and check out our website jamesumberton.com for blogs and videos that YouTube doesn't want you to watch my name is James I'm Nick thank you so much for watching we'll be back in a couple of days with another video [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] okay I'm okay [Music] [Music] cause I'll see you again [Music] cause I'll see you again

🔙 Back to index