WHAT WENT WRONG - Raina Deerwater of GLAAD

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Join Chris & Lizzie for a conversation with Raina Deerwater, GLAAD’s Associate Director, Entertainment Research & Analysis covering GLAAD's recently published Where We Are in Film Study. They'll cover the findings of GLAAD's research, the future of film for the LGBTQ community, and how an increasingly consolidated Hollywood can benefit from a diverse ecosystem of stories and storytellers.To connect with GLAAD, please use this contact form: https://glaad.org/contact Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a good one that accurately represents an entire, at least 10th of the population. I may have that number wrong, and we're going to talk a lot about numbers today because we have a special guest. I'm Lizzie Bassett, one of your hosts here, as always, with Chris Winterbauer. And Chris, what are we talking about today and who do we have with us? Well, today we are talking about LGBTQ inclusion in film, specifically from the top film distributors, and we are joined by an expert. We are joined by Raina Deerwater, who's the associate director of entertainment research and analysis at Glad, the world's largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization. Raina's been with Glad for 10 years and works as the lead researcher and author of their annual award-winning where we are on TV studio Responsibility Index Studies. These studies measure LGBTQ inclusivity and diversity in film and television, respectively. And she's here to talk about their recently published report, freshly published report, on LGBTQ representation and film in 2025 and representation more broadly. Raina, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure.

Thanks for having me. I love talking about movies. We just renamed. So I realized in my bio it says Studio Responsibility Index, which this year got a brand new name, where we are in film, which is, what we're yapping about today. Yeah, this is an absolutely fascinating. You know, Chris and I got a chance to read, I believe, an early copy of the report, and boy, is it eye-opening. I love seeing the stories that data can tell, and you've done such a fantastic job here, so I can't wait to get granular and get into it. Thank you. It means a lot, especially in like, when someone has read all,

like, 50-plus pages of it, I'm like, we did it. It was riveting. It was good. And well-paced, many good graphs and charts to get us through it? Come on. A lot of good graphics, very colorful. Like any good movie. Get us, gets us through it. Stop. So, Rana, maybe pulling back a little bit, just to give our audience some context, what's the scope of this report? What studios are we talking about? There's so much film and television and, you know, released every single year. Let's narrow things down, you know, briefly. So what's the scope of this report in our conversation today? So this report looks at 10 big distributors in the film industry. And we're looking at scripted feature

films. So it has to be over 65 minutes in length. It has to be scripted. And it has to be released either theatrically or directly on streaming, which a few years ago we added streaming in big news in the reporting industry.

And so it looks at all the releases from those 10 studios. And some similar studies look at like top 100 box office hits or like just streaming, just theatrical. We do both, and we do it by studio. So the 10 studios that we cover here are alphabetically 824, Amazon, Apple TV, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. So those 10, and that includes, like, their streaming divisions and they're, like,

indie labels. So for a distributor like NBC Universal, it's Universal Pictures and theaters, also focus features in theaters, also Peacock Direct to Streaming. So it's kind of like the big umbrella, right? With some studios like an Apple, it's like, this is just your streaming releases, or with some studios like A24, this is just your theatrical releases. But with big ones like Paramount, NBC, Warner Brothers Disney, like those, we sort of look at the entire umbrella of all the films and like sort of also getting granular again, like what it says when a studio, will release more LGBTQ content on their more indie quote unquote indie labels versus like their bigger labels what that means. So there's there's a lot going on. But those are the big the big 10 if you

will that we look at. I also have to say one thing I kept thinking about as I was reading through the report and maybe we can talk about this a little bit later once we've gotten through some of the basics. But you know like what what does this data tell us about the implications of some of these massive mergers and purchases that are being, you know, discussed right now. So just I'll throw that out there because I definitely feel like I was reading it going, uh-oh. Yeah, I gave a presentation on this data and I was like, we look at 10 studios next year, it'll be nine.

Yeah. It definitely does not bode well in terms of inclusion, in terms of like the less content that's being made, the less inclusivity there will be. Like the percentage is going down and the number is going down. But like if the overall number goes down and the percentage stays the same, that's still less overall LGBTQ inclusion. Also, you know, if you look at like, I'll say at the Ellison's,

that is not voting well for the future of inclusion. But it's a very interesting conversation that I'm sure we'll get into more on the non-big studio side. There is a lot of really great content that is being made by, like, independent filmmakers that are either being purchased by these studios or are getting a different release. So it's super interesting to see, like, how the big studio system is operating. contrasted with more independent studios and labels.

So there's a lot going on right now in this moment. So really quickly, because I think this can help us kind of sandbox this conversation a little bit, when I started reading this report, the thing that it jumped out at me that I had thought about before I even picked it up was when I really thought to myself, and I, by the way, went back through our whole catalog of the movies was covered and tried to figure out how many gay characters or LGBTQ characters are in these movies? Not very many.

And so when I was going through this, and we can talk about how many films you've covered, I want to highlight something, which is television has seen, it seems, a lot of success in being inclusive and having a lot of success with those shows that are inclusive. The most obvious example that's pointed out in the report, which our audience will be well aware of, is heated rivalry, which Lizzie is recommended to our audience many a time. Stranger Things, you point out, has multiple canonically gay characters, but Robin in particular, played by Maya Hawk. You mentioned Malcolm in the middle.

I was also going to mention Hacks as another very queer-friendly show, obviously. So it seems like there's a lot going on in TV. But this conversation is not going to be about TV. We're focusing on film. And so in this report, there are basically 225 films that were, you know, categorized and broken down by, I don't know if it's just you or you and your team. There's a very small team. It's a lot of movies. A lot of movies.

A lot of movies. I did personally watch a lot of these movies, though. There are movies he did not. not know existed and exists. It was a wild time. And those filmmakers are grateful you watched them. Speaking from someone who's made a couple movies who, you know, maybe not a ton of people have seen. But so 225 films, can you just, again, to like table set, what qualifies a movie from the perspective of this report and from Glad as being inclusive versus not inclusive?

So we're in like a tricky business, if you will, because the, idea of, you know, zooming out on it. Identity, gender, and sexuality is all fluid and there's no one objective truth. And so putting that information into data, which is all about objective truths, can be a little tricky. Like, we say a character is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and or queer. What that means for us and for our research team is if something is either visually confirmed or spoken aloud, I think there is a rich history and a very valid history of queer coding and film.

And one of Glad's co-founders back in the 80s, Vito Russo made his whole career. Like, he wrote the celluloid closet, made the film out of that about sort of like this queer coding in film. And that's not what this report is looking at. This report is looking at explicitly confirmed LGBTQ characters. And that can mean anything from someone saying,

like a male character is like my boyfriend and we're like, great, check. It can also mean someone explicitly talking about their identity. It can also mean something like two characters are holding hands. There are a couple, even if they have two lines of dialogue holding hands in the background of a scene, that counts. So like we have background characters. So that number that we have of the 46 films this year that had LGBTQ characters, a lot of those are just like super small background characters.

Some of them are leads. But yeah, so it's faced on a screen. screening process and based on like what is shown or said on screen. It's not based off of vibes. And there are some characters that are very, very coded as queer in terms of like the way they talk and mannerisms and things like that. And that character is not necessarily counted unless they explicitly say like, oh, my boyfriend or girlfriend sometimes will be like, I'm going to queer bowling night. I think there was a character in a film a couple years ago who said like, I'm going to queer bowling night. We're like, great. But it.

can't be based off of how they're visually presenting or speaking. It's based on what is said and or what actions are seen. Well, there's a couple of really important qualifiers there in what you said just for anybody who does go out and read this report or even look at, you know, the overview of it, which is that when we're talking about these big numbers, we're talking about quantity, not necessarily quality at this level. So, you know, keep that in mind when you see these numbers and you're going, oh, look at that percentage. You have to also. You have to also so keep in mind that that does not include what we may get to later in terms of the sort of test or litmus test for what the actual quality of the representation is. So just putting that out

there. Right. So, Raina, reading this report, I could see someone being tempted to say, oh, 46 out of the 225 films passed Glad's inclusivity test. One out of every five films. well, only 10% of Americans identify as LGBTQ. Shouldn't we consider this a win? How would I be misinterpreting the data if I were to take that approach, you know, to looking at these numbers? Thanks for bringing that up because a lot of people do that. So it's great to actually get to talk about it. But so those percentages, which are sort of the general polls from Gallup or other places that have the LGBTQ approximation at about like 10%.

first of all, it's like a very conservative estimate as these are only people who are, A, adults, and B will answer a survey about their identity right now. Right. But even if we did take that about 10% number at face value, I think it's like 11.9 now. I should fact check this. But even if we look at that number at face value, that's number of people. So if you're watching a movie and this movie has about, I don't know, 50 characters and two of those, characters are queer, that is still under that bar, right, of population. And that's a movie that

we count as inclusive. So within those films, we do not currently look at number of characters because that would a little bit be impossible, but we do a little bit of that on the TV side. But like, when a film is inclusive, it's not saying every single person in that movie is queer. I wish. But mostly it's one or two characters. And so that is less than 20% of the characters in that film more often than not. So the world we live in today has LGBTQ people everywhere, even if we're not seeing them. And only 20% of films this year even have a world that has queer people in them, even if they're in the background, even if they are a gay best friend or whatever. If I may, just because I think this is a really important point, and I want to

explain it as, because there are dumb people like me out there. What your point is, in our world, even if you just take Gallup, 11% of our community is LGBTQ. In the world of film, LGBTQ people do not exist in 80% of the movies released. And so the disparity is

we should be seeing, in theory, if you wanted to be representative, 10% in any given movie with an understanding that some movies have very small cast or something like that. And instead, it's, well, no, and the vast, vast, vast majority, the number is zero.

And one level beyond that, the number is zero, but then also I think the important qualifier here is that when we're talking about this larger picture number before we get more granular, even the 20% or whatever it is that does have some inclusivity, is a low bar. Right. Because of the way that you are qualifying the characters.

You know, you keep saying, oh, it could be two people holding hands. Like, it could be very minor characters. I think often it is very minor characters that are qualifying in this way. So that's really important to remember that it's sort of a waterfall as you're looking at this data. You can't sit there and look at that data and say, well, this is fantastic representation. What you have to do is sit down and read your wonderful, I believe, 70-page report because there's a lot in there. So Raina, on that point, if I can ask you a follow-up question.

Please. I went back through our catalog of films that we've covered on this podcast, and I tried to figure out which ones would pass your inclusivity tests. And if we don't count vibes alone, that number is vanishingly small very quickly. So that could suggest two things. Number one, we have some biases on the show that should probably be explored. Also, though, I could suggest, well, perhaps we've gotten better over time as an industry. Things have improved. Maybe you can talk to us about the trends that your report is identifying because I might look at this report and be tempted to say, hey, look, 20% now.

I bet you that number was a lot lower in 1982, you know, what's the problem? Yeah, a couple things. First of all, if you guys want a list of gay movies to cover, I'll send it over. Yes. We will take it at the end of this. Yeah, so it is interesting because in the long term, there has been a lot of significant change. So this study has only been going on since 2013, but like in that time, there's been a lot of growth and those early percentages were much lower. when we first started this, I believe it was seven studios. We've moved up to 10. We've added streaming. There are a couple of things that have changed in the film climate. But overall, those numbers have gone up. Even in the time I've been working at Glad, I interned at Glad, 10 years ago. In my final semester of college, I had an internship at Glad. And my role as an intern was screening these films for this report. So it's kind of a full circle moment. But in that time, there were a lot of films that almost

entire premises were based on making fun of gay people or making a lot of these jokes. And like even just like 2016, which is like, okay, we think of that as like a pretty, for lack of a better word, woke time, if you will. But like there were a lot of trends in these like big budget bro comedies. They had a lot of anti-LGBQ sentiment. There was a movie called Get Hard that I had to watch when I was an intern that I remember. The whole joke was like, you can't go to prison because you will get raped in prison by other men. And it was really awful. Like, it was a lot of, like, really awful anti-queer humor.

And that, in, like, the comedy space, like, there's a lot of, like, awful sentiment in certain sectors of the comedy space. Don't get me wrong. But in terms of these comedy films, now they do have a different perspective. Not in this report, but in the previous report, there was a bro comedy that was, like, a had John seen. It was called Ricky Stenicki. It was like, we're guys who are lying to our wives.

and one of the guys lying to their wives, he was like, he's a guy lying to his husband. I'm not saying it's a great movie. But it's like that evolution in the past decade has been exciting to see that, like, in this sort of genre, there's less of a punching down and more of a, like, even playing field,

and even looking at, like, there's a little bit of a tangent, but looking at, like, again, that movie, get hard that was really bad, starred Will Ferrell. And then last year, the documentary, Will and Harper came out that was Will and Harper Steele taking a road trip

after she'd just disclosed that she was trans. And it was a really wholesome movie about a friend learning new things about his friend, but also just like two old friends. And it's like, I think that's a great encapsulation about the progress we've made, especially in like these sort of like bigger comedy spaces. Like Will Farrell might be like the biggest comedy star

of the 21st century. And this is him listening and learning with a trans woman. So a lot of the findings of this report are bleak, But there are examples like that of evolutions and progress that are being made within certain genres. And that's been super exciting to see. So if the macro trend has been, look, there's been some good progress made. We can look at Will Ferrell, for example. And look, I've changed a lot.

You know what I mean? As a cis white guy over the last 10 years, I like to think, especially now with a, I have a trans family member who's since come out. out, et cetera. That's not something I knew. I knew nothing about the trans community prior to a few years ago at all. It's been an education for me. And I'm glad to hear you embrace. You know what I mean? Like I think we should all celebrate Will Ferrell, for example, like moving on from Gethard, which I never saw. But, and, you know, obviously like something like Ricky Siniki. Yeah, the whole point is we can all, look, we're men. We can be shitty to our spouses no matter what their gender is. That's kind of the The whole point. So there's been a macro trend and maybe a great positive direction of growth,

but perhaps there's been a bit of a micro trend that shows maybe some erosion or concern in this report that you can speak to. Yeah. Something that's actually been constant is the lack of trans representation or when there is trans representation. Like it's bad. Yeah. TV's done better, but there's still the same erosion for many reasons, but like culturally right now in the United States and also in the UK, there's just like this insane transphobic movement from the highest levels of government. So we see that reflected in our culture. But that has been a constant in this report a lot of the time if there is trans representation, it's either played by a cisgender actor or it falls into like really awful tropes of someone transitioning to hide from the law. Like last

year, one of the biggest titles was Amelia Perez, which we did not have kind things to say. about because it sort of led to a lot of really awful stereotypes at a time when it could not be more important to have authentic trans representation on screen reaching people who, like you were saying, like, maybe didn't know a trans person or didn't know anything about the community. And we have research that's obviously the best way to learn about the community is to know someone firsthand. But if you don't know someone firsthand, media is the second best tool. And media includes everything. So like right now, people are inundated with media. often from the news.

That is sort of spreading a lot of untruths and biases and really awful things specifically about the trans community. So what TV and movies and, like, social media can do is create these narratives from the source and show them to people who might not know a trans person, which is why Will & Harper was a great documentary, and we're seeing all these great things. But in terms of major studio film, there's void.

There's nothing. So I think that is like less of a trend and just sort of an unfortunate consistency in this report is the lack of trans representation. But it hits harder now because of what's going on, you know, at a government level. And we see a lot of great work in the indie space. There's like really great trans filmmakers. There are films being made. Also like a lot of really wonderful international films. But big studio American films are giving nothing.

There's a phrase that you use in the report that really stood out to me, and I found very eye-opening, especially when paired with some examples, which was casual queer inclusion, which could also be applied to, I think, casual trans inclusion. And could you maybe explain what that means, especially in terms of, like, how people are exposed to queer or trans characters. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of... historically stories where when they're about a gay character, it's their coming out story. When it's about a trans character, it's their transition narrative. And what we talk about when it comes to casual inclusion is just like,

let's say you're watching a movie about a heist and, you know, Ocean's 11, and one of the 11 guys is a trans guy. That would be casual inclusion. And this isn't about this character struggling with being trans. This isn't about like identity crisis. This is about robbing a casino. you know, in my fake movie that I'm making up right now.

But it's like this character, it's like, oh, I don't know, they're really good with numbers. And that's their thing. And also they happen to be trans. But the point, their character arc isn't about their identity. And this is true with anyone in the community is like there are some really wonderful films where like someone's identity is the plot. But like any genre of film can include characters and it doesn't have to be like, I'm now

realizing it's, I'm gay. whoa, it can just be about they're doing something and they also happen to have this identity. It's sort of a balancing line of like their identity isn't a secret, their identity isn't not discussed at all, it's just a facet of their lives, but it's not the only thing about their lives

because it would be like, if there's a movie where someone's like every other second, they're like, I just need you to know I'm straight and I've struggled with being straight and I'm straight and it's like, that's not a whole movie. I have to express that pretty constantly in my life, but yeah. The reason that it stood out to me was because it really got me thinking about what you're talking about, and I think how rare that type of inclusion is in particular, and also how effective that type of inclusion can be,

especially for people who may not be, you know, as you put it, this is a way to expose people who don't know LGBTQ individuals. And in the report, it mentioned the old guard too, as well as the old guard for having, an example of this. I thought a pretty good example of it. I don't know what you feel. I actually really enjoyed those movies, particularly the first one. But my dad, I remember when the old guard came out, he actually like made specific comments about how much he enjoyed the gay couple that's in that movie. And I think for this reason. And it just got me thinking about sort of the different types of inclusion and the different sort of qualities of inclusion too. And I'm wondering if maybe you could talk a little bit about the Vito Russo test, who you mentioned earlier in the episode.

Yeah. Just a quick note on the old guard is like, yeah, that's a great example of like, we're immortals who do and or fight crime. I know, and they're so good at it. They're so good at it, and they're all hot. And they're so hot. Yeah. But it's two of them are like two guys who have been together for like centuries. It's like they met on opposite sides of the Crusades. Fun. But yeah, that's something like that where it's like, fun for probably not them but like i think that's a great example of casual inclusion because a like the plot isn't about them being gay they're just like two of a group that does their immortal thing

but it is like actually pretty powerful when you think about it because these people are like thousands of years old and so it's also sort of an antidote to that thing of like being gay is new which is very much not true look at ancient greece um but like having these these two guys being like an immortal story was like a great way to do that. But yeah, let's talk about the Vito Russo test. So this was sort of invented by us at Glad. I wasn't there at this time, but one of my teammates, Megan Townsend, who helped start this report and is still working on it today. It's one of the people who came up with this. That's sort of like the Bechdel test, but for LGBTQ folks. And so it's sort of like what I was talking about of the baseline level of inclusion, but like leveled up a

little. So the first point is like someone has to be identifiably LGBTQ. And then the second point is sort of what I mentioned about the casual inclusion is like they have to have another character trait. Like they're identifiably queer, but they have to have something else. And that can be something as simple as a job or family or something like that. And you'll be kind of surprised by like a little less so now, but still, especially in the like if there is a rom-com and the gay best friend has like been a trope that pervades. And it's like, I love all my gay best friends. But this is a character who like doesn't have any character traits besides like being gay. Right outside of being the gay best friend.

Yeah. And it's like, what do they do? And it's like it doesn't matter. They actually just support their straight girl bestie. And then the third point is they have to be tied to a plot in a way that if they were removed, the plot would have a significant difference. So basically just they have to be important. Like going back to a hypothetical gay best friend,

if that character was removed, would the movie be any different? And sometimes the answer is, yes, the movie would be different because the gay guy is the one who said, girl, go get his number or whatever. But sometimes it's like, no, the movie wouldn't change without it. And then there's a fourth point that was added more recently that was like, this film cannot fall into like any known offensive tropes and stereotypes that often involve.

Like, they're bisexual and they only, exists to manipulate people or they are like a trans character who's like deceiving people, but like sort of these like known tropes that can be super harmful. So that's the Vito Rousseau test. And it sort of exists as an overall like quality filter to view all of this stuff. So it's like how many films are inclusive, but then how many films pass the Vito Rousseau test. So let's talk about that. 20% this year, roughly, of films were inclusive by the S glad report's standards. What percentage of those films passed the Vito Rousseau test? So it's actually like has been a pretty consistently high percentage over the last few years, which is great. 78% of those films. So that was

36, which is 16% of the overall total film. So most of them did, which is great. That's also a nice improvement we've seen over the last few years. Those numbers have been higher, which has been lovely to see. So let me ask you off the top of your head. I don't think this is in the report, but I'm a screenwriter. I know a lot of screenwriters. A lot of them are straight cis white guys like me. As we write movies, which point of those four points tends to be failed, anecdotally speaking, most often, would you say? I think it's mostly the is significant to the plot one. I think sometimes they even like have a scene at a gay bar. And it's like, okay, great, but that means that all the LGBTQ characters are just sort of like background noise. They're like, ooh, look at how it's. exciting this character is they're going to a gay bar. But if that scene was at any other bar, the plot would stay exactly the same. And a point we make is that like this report is very much looking at big picture, big distributors once a film has reached its final stage. It's in the world,

etc. But I think there's a lot of folks who might not include a character because they're like afraid of getting it wrong. So we want to make sure that there are resources and like we do a lot of work with filmmakers and with studios about reviewing content, reviewing scripts. and helping folks out on the ground level. So we don't just want to be like, hey, this end product didn't pass or it wasn't great. We want to ideally be in earlier with folks if they have a question about, you know, how to convey a community that they're not a part of. And so the goal is to be not punitive, but informative with these reports.

Exactly. Which is great. And I saw that you also changed away from a grading system with the studios towards just a more reporting system. We just talked about Gina Davis. and she's very focused on, you know, women in film, et cetera, with her Media Institute. If I could just take a step back really quickly, because I don't know if we made this point explicitly. I'm just an average news consumer. I feel like I see stories every day about trans issues.

I'm going to use that umbrella term very broadly, everything, including The Odyssey somehow, right, recently. Surely, it's Woe Collywood. There must be so many movies with. trans characters in them, right, last year? So how many movies had a trans character in them last year per your report? Oh, that would be none. Okay. I just want to make sure we hit, because I was surprised.

I assumed there would be some, and I was just shocked to see that the answer was zero. And of course, I couldn't think of a single one myself. I want to emphasize one other thing that is sometimes overlooked, and I'm glad you guys shout it out in your report, because one out of every four Americans, according to CDC lives with a disability that's American adults, something, again, a couple family members of mine that I've had some experience with now. Do you see a very high percentage of characters with disabilities in movies in your reporting? No, we do not. That percentage is super low, and it also dropped again this year. But it was, I believe... I think it was like 4% of the LGQ characters, yeah.

Yeah, so only 4% of people had a disability that is a decrease. from the previous year. And again, like, a lot of these numbers are, like, decreases from numbers that weren't that high to begin with. So it's very telling. And there's also been a huge drop in LGBTQ folks of color. And it's sort of one of those things where it's like, when it's overall marginalized people, if you look at, like, the more marginalized people within those communities, that is where the more significant decreases are. You know, we're talking across this whole episode. You've done this amazing report about inclusion and about representation. What is the importance of people and not just LGBTQ people, but everyone, seeing a

representation of LGBTIQI plus individuals on screen and particularly quality representations of them? I think there's like two sides of the coin, like you mentioned. It's very important for LGBTQ folks to see themselves, especially young people and especially with quote unquote, like trans issues, taking over the airwaves and things like that, just to be like, oh, there's a person living their lives that could be me, especially if they're in a community where they're isolated or where they're

getting fed a lot of either misinformation or like, there's no future for you type rhetoric to see that and to see characters thriving and living their best lives and getting to be in the kinds of stories that people want to see is very exciting. And then there's the other end that's like people

who aren't in the community. And I think there's a couple things here. One, it is just a way to get to know people who are different than yourself. And as we become like more siloed as a society and like we're being fed stories of people who are just like us through a lot of like algorithmic programming, I think it's so important to be able to go sit down at a movie theater with strangers and to see a story that is different from your own life and have that open your eyes a little. And in terms of representation, like that opening your eyes can lead to changing your mind just a little bit. There's a quote that I'm going to kind of butcher that was

from Norman Lear about media that like change lives. One TV show, one movie isn't going to like change anyone lives. But if there's like a pond of progress and like a little pebble is being thrown in it with each of these stories, the water level will rise. So it might just be someone who's a grandparent and if their grandkid comes out to them, they will have like a material to reference because they've seen it on TV, they've seen it in the movies, and that will lead to more connection. Ultimately, what we want from this art is to connect to people who aren't like yourselves and to have more empathy and more understanding.

Politics and art are always in conversation with each other right now, and in this moment, what we need is for art to be a louder voice than a lot of what's happening in the political realm. And also, like, overall, people are tired of seeing the same story over and over again. a trans oceans 11 movie this is now my new pitch i've come up with it on this podcast right it's 14 i mean now's the time make your plea exactly having variety and having it's being exposed to different folks is like so important when it comes to consuming this kind of stuff i think that's a great opportunity to pivot to some of the business of this

100 years, has always perceived a sort of Damocles above its head, and it's taken many forms. But it does, it has felt like things have been particularly dicey since COVID, the writer's strike, the actor strike, AI, etc. There's a great point, and it's just one sentence early in this presentation that I really appreciated because it's something I wrote about recently, and I have a big enough ego to want to say, I thought of this too. So let me play the devil's advocate position. As you mentioned, we have a fractured media landscape. It seems like, you know, if you seek it out, you can find a story that includes gay characters or queer characters. There's a, as you mentioned, there's a lot of LGBTQ inclusive TV. We're all just looking for

something that speaks to us. Why should I be concerned about this? And also, hasn't this been solved by the fact that we are no longer a monoculture? Why does this problem persist if we're no longer a monoculture. A big point we make in this is like if you want young people to go and watch your movies, you need to speak to them. I'm like, we're else they're just going to watch YouTube while day or whatever. But I think there is a very important point to make that's like if you look at Gen Z right now for the last few years, again, with this like population report, I think 23% of Gen Z adult self-report as LGBTQ, which is more than like any other generation, all the other generations combined. And then you're seeing all these headlines. That's like, Gen Z's saving the

movies. Gen Z loves to go to movie theaters. You think they're on your phones? No, Gen Z's going to the movies. Looking at that, it's like, well, if you want film to be a resonant voice and culture, talk to these young people who, again, are queerer than before. So that's a big point we make in this. People are going to get their representation elsewhere. And it's not a situation of like, if they can get it elsewhere, why do it? It's like, if they can get it elsewhere, your industry, is going to become a lot less relevant, which we're kind of seeing already, and that's for a variety of reasons. But one of them, I think, is due to this lack of inclusion and this lack of diverse stories and not even just like diverse in its buzzwordy way about identity, but diverse in a way

that's like different types of stories and making sure they are being told when it comes to both who we're seeing on screen and also like what we're seeing on screen. One line I wanted to read out, I think this is from your president and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, efforts to make a character more universal and for everyone do the exact opposite, meaning they exclude. These characters become so diluted and watered down that no character or story becomes specific or resonant enough with audiences to break through. And I think that's an important point, which is, I think it can, from a studio perspective, right, they think, well, we need to make something that's so universal that it will appeal to all four quadrants of the audience. And the

classic expression is you make a movie for everyone, you make a movie for no one. And I think that's an important point, because again, to your point, that's not good advice just for representation of specific underrepresented characters on screen. That's just good advice for storytelling in general, which is it should be specific. Specificity is what makes something feel universal, not milk toast qualities at the end of the day. So I just wanted to highlight. I thought there was a great line from the report. I mentioned before we started recording that I just listen to your guys' episode on My Big Fat Greek Wedding and like that I was thinking about this while I was listening to that because I'm like, that's the exact same thing of like no one wanted to make that movie because it was too specific and then it was a huge hit because of that specificity of like if there's a story that hasn't been told before there's actually a huge group of people who are so eager to buy it and also people who aren't in that community who are like whoa I've never seen this before this is just like my family or this is just like my life or whatever so it's It's just such an untapped market that is rich and it's for the taking.

Yeah. Maybe we can pivot to conclude here, Raina, and you can add anything at the end to consolidation because that's what this industry is dealing with right now. Obviously, Disney bought 20th Century Fox a few years ago, and now unless these 12 attorneys general are able to delay long enough. I think this merger will go through eventually. Now how expensive it becomes for the Ellison's will be fun to watch. Sorry, can you clarify which merger you're talking about there?

Right. So Paramount is attempting to hungry, hungry snake swallow the very much larger Warner Brothers Discovery. Yeah. Now, I want to just emphasize, there are a number of studios who had more success within your report than others. Warner Brothers Discovery was actually one of the more inclusive this past year in your report. And I want to put a pin on this, but also horror was an area where LGBTQ representation remains relatively strong. on the opposite end of the spectrum, Disney and family films,

very noticeably, not the case. Paramount, though, has seemed to have a bit of a dearth of representative material, and maybe you could speak a little bit about, if I'm a consumer, why should I be worried? Let's say I'm a hetero consumer. Why should I be worried about Paramount merging

with Warner Brothers' discovery? Why should this concern me? I think there's just a concern of, like, there will be less films and they will be more generic. How many Yellowstone spinoffs can one studio make? So many, right. So many, which is also paramount. But I think it's, yeah, I think it should be concerning

because I think looking at Warner Brothers last year, their films that were like resonant with audiences the most were ones that were deemed like risky, right? Sinners was probably the biggest movie of last year. and that was deemed a risk and then it was like box office hit and Oscars hit which is so rare and I think that kind of film will not be

I mean I can't speak the future I hope I'm wrong but like signs are pointing that that type of film will not be made anymore under the Paramount banner because if you look at what Paramount put out last year there isn't that kind of you know more interesting and specific films like again and probably Warner Brothers too big. Oh, no, I'll say it.

So Paramount has made some very good movies. Don't get me wrong. And there are some wonderfully talented people there. But Skydance has made a particular brand of extremely generic. And I don't care that it's, I'm not talking about that it's just, you know, white people or whatever. There might, the cast may even be diverse from a just like token diversity perspective. The point is the movies are really bland. Like, they're just, you see them come on your streaming service and you say, that, this is a movie?

I didn't know this. I'm sure when you were doing the screenings. You know what I mean? You kind of felt the same way. And then you look at some of the Warner Brothers stuff. Sinners, weapons, one battle after another. Whoa, these are, you know, unique, interesting, big swing kind of movies. Yeah, exactly.

And there's such a, like, cognitive dissonance. But, yeah, probably the only hit from Warner that would maybe continue under Paramount is, like, Superman. But, like, there's such a disconnect there. And, yeah, like, a movie, like, weapons that outfeworthy. performed its budget by like 10 zillion percent. Listen, from a glad perspective, great that they were gay characters. Not so great. They were brutally killed, but like, what can you do?

Interestingly, not a gay character in the script. Oh. If you read the original script, Marcus, the principal, played by Benedict Wong, is straight. His wife's name was Ginny. And so I don't know at what point that changed. But anyway, it was just interesting. You mentioned the screenwriter versus execution. Clearly, you know, a change happened at that point.

And that's also to go on a little bit of a tangent. That's also a really interesting thing to look at with. a film like weapons where, like, a lot of people died. And it just happened to be that the gay characters were killed a little more brutally than the other characters. And I think that was an innocent mistake of just like, oh, let's make this character gay or whenever that happened in the process, I can't say. But it's just so funny that it's like, if there was just one queer person, it's like, hey, maybe let's just not have this be the most brutal murder. I think that would have helped a lot. But, again, like, we're not scolding where we want to educate.

But even broader, a film like weapons, and I think horror is having, has been having a huge moment at the box office, that is, again, an original idea that sounds pretty silly on paper, but like it was a huge success and it had a diverse cast in terms of different characters we see. Like, again, diversity in its many colors, if you will. And then there's pivoting into like horror in general was much more inclusive last year than a lot of other genres. It is just so interesting that that is right now one of the few genres of film where there's actually a lot of original content being made. And when more original content is being made, it's A, more inclusive and B, more successful. Yeah, I mean, look at something like Companion, which was also Warner Brothers, which was I loved. But that is another example of something that I don't think anybody expected to get the kind of traction and word of mouth that it did. and it obviously does feature gay characters very prominently in the plot and everything else.

And it's another horror movie. And it was interesting to see that on there and interesting to see it on Warner Brothers Slate. Because again, I don't know if I can imagine Paramount producing that movie, especially given the AI of it all. Yeah, it's super interesting. Also, Companion was, I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was made for like so little money. Yeah, yeah.

And then it made way more. But yeah, films like that that also like resonate because they're timely. Like that companion had gay characters, but it was also like a little, it was like kind of like an anti-in-cell movie, if you will. Oh, yeah. Had a lot to say about artificial intelligence and like unethical artificial intelligence. And it was also just fun. And so I think it is so frustrating that a film like that that is a entertaining and B has something to say underneath the entertainment just might not go through. and financially viable.

It's so interesting because a lot of times what they're telling folks like us is like, oh, we don't know because it won't be financially successful. And you see a movie like companion or weapons that is a huge financial success and it's inclusive. And then like that they're like, oh, we're not talking about those ones. And it's like you're the ones who are potentially taking a huge risk by not telling these stories. I think to bring it all home, because I want to end on a optimistic note, what I loved about the tone of your report and having you on the show, is that this is not to scold people or yell at them or try to goad them into changing from that sort of perspective.

The point is, hey, let's look at where we're at, honestly. Let's look at what movies are working and let's see what we can learn from them. Like, we all want better movies. And we all want a wide variety of movies to go watch and see. Tell folks in the industry who are listening to this, how they can connect with you guys. if they're interested in trying to make some more money. Let's just put it that way. Because as you mentioned in your post,

Gen Z is driving a little bit of a box office revival. It looks like we're going to hit $10 billion at the box office for the first time in a few years. And Gen Z is showing up for movies. Good for Gen Z. They're doing the work. They're putting away their phones. Us millennials are failing.

And I don't know how old are you or random, but Lizzie and I are millennials. Okay. So, but Gen Z thank you for showing up to the movies. for anybody out there who works at a studio who produces movies, makes movies, writes movies, and is interested in making more money

or being a little more inclusive, you can go to glad.org slash contact. That's g-l-a-a-a-d-org slash contact to get in touch with Rana's team. We will put that link in the show notes as well for you guys. And Rana, is there anybody else, shout out anywhere else,

plug anything else, any other ways that folks should be reaching out getting in contact with the fine folks at Glad. So Glad's on almost all socials at GLAAD. Glad you can connect with us there. And yeah, we're open to talking with folks. Like this report is just a little bit of our entertainment work. We use it sort of as a guiding post for the rest of our work.

So we have this. We have a report about TV. We see where the issues are and where we need to do more work. And that informs our year-round work, which is consulting in the industry. We have a lot of connections at these studios already. They come to us with projects or an individual filmmaker comes to us and we put eyes on it. And we also train writers' rooms.

We train folks in the industry. We go to festivals. We do the whole entertainment festival tour. There's a lot of ways to work with Glad, and we want to be a resource, like most of all. Ideally, what we want to do is have these reports be a little less depressing and a little more, like, look at what we can do. And another thing, just to, again, end it on a more positive note,

is that what we're seeing in this report is 20, 25 films from major studios, like outside of that limited bucket, there is a lot of really wonderful stuff happening in LGBTQ film. If you look at the big festivals this year, the biggest purchases out of Cannes, for example, were all queer movies. Like, Club Kid, La Bola Negra, which Netflix bought. I'm almost excited for next year's report,

because I'm like, I know there's going to be some good titles that were bought this year on the festival circuit. So, like, there's a lot of wonderful stuff coming out. I know that you guys are talking, about teenage sex and death at Camp Myasma, which is another big festival title that's not from like a big studio, but from an up-and-comer. And that's like a trans filmmaker and a queer film. There's a lot of great stuff happening and you can find it. And if the studios don't make it, they will get left behind. So that's the uplifting and ominous ending from me.

All right. You heard it here first. Thank you so much for being here, Raina. Is there anything else you'd like to plug before we'll let you go? Just follow at Glad, G-L-A-A-D. on all socials. And we highlight a lot of work from LGBTQ filmmakers. And we just did a series that is with bigger known filmmakers and the people they are most excited to see. So that includes people like Lily Wachowski, Cheryl Dunier, people who are bigger names and have a lot of work under the belt. And they talk about three filmmakers that they're excited to see more of. So there's a lot of stuff coming from Gladt Channel's about up-and-coming people who are doing this work every day and we want to make sure to highlight them. Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate you

taking the time today. This was a fascinating interview, a fascinating report. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. It was truly a joy to talk about this. Thank you so much right now. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post production and music by David Bowman.