Meet the filmmaker on a mission to #makeBseen
Growing up, I had many sleepless nights wondering if I was gay or straight before discovering I was bisexual.
Even after learning about the identity, I always came up against the questions and opinions of others which made me think I was simply in sex purgatory (for lack of a better phrase), waiting to transition over to the L.
I was under the impression I had to choose.
If there hadn’t have been such a severe lack of bisexual representation in the media and within society, I may have spent my teens and early 20s less tormented. Stick with me. It gets positive and uplifting, I promise.
Yes, 2018 really has felt like a shifting year for bisexuality, especially with the likes of Desiree Akahvan’s The Bisexual on Channel 4 and Bi Life, a new dating show presented by Courtney Act.
This is super exciting. More of our stories need to be told and we’re slowly starting to hear a louder voice for the B.
However, more often than not, I watch something which appears to be bisexual only for the writing to then become lazy. It manifests itself as only a phase or an experiment, probably due to the fact that the writer isn't bisexual and doesn’t know how to conclude the story. I still find myself explaining what bisexuality “is” on regular occasions, effectively defending my sexuality.
I’ve heard all the classics. “What’s your percentage split of gender preference?”, “Which gender do you think you’ll end up marrying?” (thanks for assuming I would like to get married) and my personal favourite: “Which are you going after at the moment?”.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in one of those situations and declared exactly what I wanted to say or even knew how to respond. But over the years, the more comfortable I became with myself, the more I now know how I should have dealt with those situations.
So, when you consider that lack of representation combined with someone like myself becoming more comfortable with their own sexuality, I thought, I’d kill two birds with one stone with this new “passion” project: a film giving a voice to the silent B in LGBT.
Treacle follows best friends Jessie and Belle who go away for the weekend and drunkenly “hook up” in what seems like an embarrassing slip up to committed heterosexual Jessie, but is in fact an incredible act of betrayal to bisexual Belle.
I’m in the film, and Ariana Anderson, a queer actor, played the heterosexual lead opposite me, which opens another can of worms. We’ve seen how many LGBTQ+ performers can be pigeonholed once they come out, but not in our film!
Did you know that 1% of LGBT funding goes into bisexual projects worldwide? I couldn’t believe it, especially when one considers that the B represents over 50% of the LGBT community. We need your help to raise that. That’s why we’ve teamed up with DIVA!
In support of the Bi Resource Center & LA LGBT Center, our film shines a light on one of the least represented groups within the community and supports the notion that bisexuality isn’t just a phase or an experiment, nor is the B there simply to help the acronym roll off the tongue.
We hear you and we see you, and this is one story which explores this idea. So help us get it made.
If you miss the campaign and would still like to get involved and contribute please reach out to us at [email protected]. Even if you can’t contribute, if you could shout about it, spread the love and our message – we’d be truly grateful!
#makeBseen #BiVisibility
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