As Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal play gay lovers in History of Sound, this is why we should be safeguarding queer roles for queer actors
However speaking recently to Max Harwood, the all-singing, all-dancing star of Amazon Prime's movie adaption of the musical, Everybody is Talking About Jamie, about the debate, he said something which really stuck with me:“We need to get to a place where queer actors can play queer roles for sure but I don't want to be cast solely based on what my sexuality is and I wasn't vetted to get this role,” he said. “No one asked me what my sexuality was before I got the role. I think it would be quite invasive and intrusive for a casting director or a director to go, ‘well, hang on, Max, let me just check you are gay.’”Are we limiting the opportunities for our own community by taking the stance that only queer actors should play queer roles? And in our contemporary society should we even be labelling actors based on their sexuality? The truth is that labels ‘matter’ when it comes to marketing a movie – and the world still takes a moment when an actor comes out as LGBTQIA+.But should heterosexual actors be ‘allowed’ to play queer roles, as long as the performance is nuanced and respectful of the community? Take for instance, Josh O’Connor’s role in God’s Own Country, where he played a young farmer, Johnny who falls for a worker, Gheorghe on his family farm. The performance was heartbreaking and nuanced as Josh expertly conveyed Johnny’s struggle with his sexuality – it was a perfect portrayal.But then, on the other end of the scale you have James Corden in Netflix's film, The Prom, a performance that was so insensitive, so overtly a pastiche ‘straight man’s take on camp', that it was branded as ‘offensive’.I have no doubt that Josh and Paul, being the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning talents they are, will sensitively approach these characters and deliver incredible performances. But given that the film also follows two queer individuals in World War One who are exploring the “the lives, voices, and music of their countrymen,” during wartime, these are very real people who have had their lives and experiences straight-washed out of history. And if we are finally looking into our past to shed a light on the LGBTQIA+ community long overlooked by history books, shouldn’t our community be portraying our community?Read More“We worship money as a society.”Why is The History of Sound even labelled as a ‘gay’ love story – haven’t we moved passed labelling content as such?You don’t see rom-coms billed as ‘straight love stories’ and that’s because queer love stories are still rarely shown on screen and there is still a limited amount of queer material that gets the green light from TV and movie studios.Until we readdress the balance and have an equal number of movies and TV shows about the queer experience and we have an equal number of queer actors being cast across all genres of entertainment, shouldn't we be safeguarding queer roles for queer actors? I think so.
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