Raina Deerwater of GLAAD

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 Go to surfshark.com/wrong http://surfshark.com/wrong or use code WRONG at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lizzie Bassett?

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• 0:45Lizzie Bassett?

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• 1:04Chris Winterbauer?

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• 1:58Lizzie Bassett?

  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?

• 2:27Chris Winterbauer?

  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 in film in 2025 and representation more broadly.

• 3:11Chris Winterbauer?

  Raina, thank you so much for being here.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. I love talking about movies. We just renamed, so I realize I'm like, 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.

• 3:28Lizzie Bassett?

  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.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  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.

• 3:52Lizzie Bassett?

  It was riveting. It was good.

• 3:54Chris Winterbauer?

  And well-paced, many good graphs and charts to get us through.

• 3:56Lizzie Bassett?

  A lot of good graphics, right? Colorful.

• 3:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Like any good movie. Get us, get us, gets us through it.

• 4:01Lizzie Bassett?

  Stop.

• 4:02Chris Winterbauer?

  So Raina, 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?

• 4:22Speaker 02

  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 on, directly on streaming, which a few years ago, we added streaming in. Big, 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.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  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 Brothers. So those 10, and that includes like their streaming divisions and their like indie labels. So for a distributor like NBC Universal, it's Universal Pictures in theaters, also Focus Features in theaters, also Peacock direct 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 824, it's just your theatrical releases.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  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.

• 6:08Lizzie Bassett?

  I also, I 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.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I gave a presentation on this data, and I was like, we look at 10 studios, next year it'll be nine.

• 6:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  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 Elsens, that is not boding 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

• 7:24Speaker 02

  with more independent studios and labels. So there's a lot going on right now in this moment.

• 7:30Chris Winterbauer?

  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 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 we've 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.

• 8:13Lizzie Bassett?

  Right.

• 8:14Chris Winterbauer?

  Which Lizzie has recommended to our audience many a time. Stranger Things, you point out, the, has multiple canonically gay characters, but Robin in particular, played by Maya Hawke. You mentioned Malcolm in the Middle. I was also going to mention Hacks as another like, very queer-friendly show, obviously. So it seems like there's a lot going on in TV, but this conversation's 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.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  There's, there's a very small team.

• 8:46Chris Winterbauer?

  It's a lot of movies.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Lot of movie. I did personally watch a lot of these movies, though. They're movies you did not know existed and exist. It was a wild time.

• 8:55Chris Winterbauer?

  And those filmmakers are grateful you watched them, speaking from someone who's made a couple of movies who, you know, maybe not a ton of people have seen. But, so 225 films, can you, just again, to like, table set?

• 9:08Chris Winterbauer?

  What qualifies a movie from the perspective of this report and from GLAD as being inclusive versus not inclusive?

• 9:17Speaker 02

  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 in film. And one of GLAD's co-founders back in the 80s, Vito

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Russo, like, 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, they're 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

• 10:41Speaker 02

  like, super small background characters. Some of them are leads. But yeah, so it's based on a 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 of years ago who said like, I'm going to queer bowling night. We're like, great. Um, 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.

• 11:24Lizzie Bassett?

  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 and/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 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.

• 11:58Chris Winterbauer?

  Right. So, Raina, reading these, 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?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  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, that's like a very conservative estimate, as these are only people who are A, adults, and B, will answer a survey about their identity, um, right now. Um,

• 12:52Lizzie Bassett?

  Right.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  But even if we did take that about 10% number at face value, I think it's like 11.9 now, I should, 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 character, 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.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Um, but, um, 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.

• 13:59Chris Winterbauer?

  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.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:21Chris Winterbauer?

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

• 14:38Lizzie Bassett?

  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,

• 14:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Is a low bar.

• 14:54Lizzie Bassett?

  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, 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.

• 15:23Chris Winterbauer?

  So, Raina, on that point, if I can ask you a follow-up question?

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Please.

• 15:27Chris Winterbauer?

  I went back through our catalog of films and that we've covered on this podcast, and I tried to figure out which ones would pass your inclusivity test. 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?

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, a couple things. Um, first of all, if you guys want a list of gay movies to cover, uh, I'll send it over.

• 16:15Lizzie Bassett?

  Yes.

• 16:16Chris Winterbauer?

  We will, we will take it at the end of this.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  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 have been 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 did 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 their

• 17:03Speaker 02

  like, 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-LGBTQ sentiment. There was a movie called Get Hard that I had to watch when I was an intern, that

• 17:29Lizzie Bassett?

  I remember.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  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. Uh, like, it was, 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, had John seen, it was called Ricky Stidnicky. 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 is a guy lying to his husband. I'm not saying it was a great movie. It was, but it's like, that evolution in the past

• 18:12Speaker 02

  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, this is 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 Ferrell and Harper Steele taking a road trip after she'd just disclosed that she was trans. And it was a really wholesome movie about like, 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 Ferrell might be like,

• 18:53Speaker 02

  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.

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• 22:33Chris Winterbauer?

  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, over, as a cis white guy, over the last 10 years, I like to think, especially now with the, I have a trans family member who's since come 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 Get Hard, which I never saw, but, and, you know, obviously, like, something like Ricky Sinicki, 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

• 23:18Chris Winterbauer?

  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.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, something that's actually been constant is the lack of trans representation, or when there is trans representation, like, it's bad.

• 23:39Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  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

• 24:21Speaker 02

  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, 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

• 25:06Speaker 02

  and 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.

• 25:43Lizzie Bassett?

  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?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  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 like, casual inclusion is just like, let's say you're watching a movie about a heist, and, you know, Ocean's Eleven, 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 in my, my fake movie that I'm making up right now. But like, 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

• 26:53Speaker 02

  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 like, 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, just, 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.

• 27:37Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, I do, I have to express that pretty constantly in my life, but yeah.

• 27:41Lizzie Bassett?

  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 2, 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, my dad, I remember when The Old Guard came out, he actually like, made specific comments about

• 28:23Lizzie Bassett?

  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?

• 28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, just a quick note on The Old Guard. It's like, yeah, that was, that's a great example of like, we're immortals who do and/or fight crime.

• 28:53Lizzie Bassett?

  I know, and they're so good at it.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  They're so good at it, and they're all hot.

• 28:56Lizzie Bassett?

  And they're so hot, yeah.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  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. Um, but yeah, that's something like that where it's like fun for probably not them. Um, 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.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  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 rapport and is still working on it today. Was 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, they're identifiably queer, but they have to have something else. And that can be something as simple as a job or a family or something like that.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  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, the gay best friend has like been a trope that pervades. And it's like, I love, I love all my gay best friends, but this is a character who like, doesn't have any character traits besides like

• 30:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Right, outside of being the gay best friend.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, 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. Um, 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 exist to manipulate people.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  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 Russo 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 Russo test?

• 31:50Chris Winterbauer?

  So let's talk about that. 20% this year roughly of films were inclusive by this GLAD report's standards. What percentage of those films passed the Vito Russo test?

• 32:02Speaker 02

  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 films. So most of them did, which is great. That's also a nice improvement we've seen over the last few years that those numbers have been higher, uh, which has been lovely to see.

• 32:23Chris Winterbauer?

  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?

• 32:43Speaker 02

  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 or like, ooh, look at how 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, et cetera. 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

• 33:25Speaker 02

  about reviewing content, reviewing scripts and like 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.

• 33:42Chris Winterbauer?

  And so the goal is to be not punitive, but informative with these reports.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 33:48Chris Winterbauer?

  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, 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, um, right? Recently, surely it's woke Hollywood. 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?

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Oh, uh, that would be none.

• 34:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay. Just want to, I just want to make sure we hit, uh, because I was very, I was surprised. I didn't, I assumed there would be some and I, 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 shouted out in your report. Because one out of every four Americans, according to the CDC, lives with a disability. That's American adults, um, something, again, a couple of 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?

• 35:10Speaker 02

  No, we do not. Uh, that percentage is super low and it also dropped again this year. Um, but it was, I believe.

• 35:18Chris Winterbauer?

  I think it was like 4% of LGBTQ characters. Yeah.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  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.

• 35:50Lizzie Bassett?

  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 LGBTQI plus individuals on screen and particularly quality representations of them?

• 36:15Speaker 02

  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, 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 of things here.

• 36:55Speaker 02

  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's lives.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  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 like 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.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  A trans Ocean's Eleven movie. This is now my new pitch. I've come up with it on this podcast.

• 38:26Chris Winterbauer?

  Do an Ocean's 14. I mean, now's the time. Make your plea.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 38:38Chris Winterbauer?

  I think that's a great opportunity to pivot to some of the business of this.

• 38:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Today's episode is sponsored by Mars. You might not realize it, but Mars is behind so many of your favorite Halloween treats. And I'm not just talking about your candy bowl. Yes, Mars makes iconic candies like M and M's, Snickers, Starburst, my personal favorite, and Skittles. But they also have salty snacks, easy to make meal options and even treats for your pets. There's something for everyone to enjoy this spooky season. David and I are too old to trick or treat, so we've been getting creative with our Halloween movie night spreads for our friends. I put together a char bootery board with some classic sweets like Rice Krispie treats and peanut butter M and M's. And because I'm a salty girl, I added some Pringles and my all time favorite snack, Cheez-It crackers. Scary delicious. For Halloween night, I'm making a spooky seven layer dip using Ben's Original Ready Rice because there is nothing that my kid loves more than a rice and bean dip. And don't think I forgot about our dog Q. Mars knows he needs a celebration too.

• 39:28Lizzie Bassett?

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• 39:53Chris Winterbauer?

  Hollywood, well, I would say for 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's strike, AI, et cetera. There's a great point, and it's just one sentence early in this presentation that I really appreciate it 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,

• 40:36Chris Winterbauer?

  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?

• 40:53Speaker 02

  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, girls are just gonna watch YouTube all 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 adults 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 is saving the movies. Gen Z loves to go to movie theaters. You think they're on your phones? No, Gen Z is going to the movies. Looking at that, it's like, well, if you want film to be a resonant voice in culture, talk to these young people who,

• 41:36Speaker 02

  again, are queerer than before. So that's a big point we make in this. People are gonna 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 gonna 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.

• 42:16Chris Winterbauer?

  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, 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

• 42:58Chris Winterbauer?

  just for representation of, you know, 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 milquetoast qualities, at the end of the day. So I just wanted to highlight, I thought that was a great line from the report.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  I mentioned before we started recording that I just listened 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 just, it's such an untapped market that is rich and it's for the taking.

• 43:53Chris Winterbauer?

  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 Ellisans will be fun to watch.

• 44:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Sorry, can you clarify which merger you're talking about there?

• 44:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Right. So Paramount is attempting to, Hungry Hungry Snake swallowed the very much larger Warner Brothers Discovery. 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

• 45:02Chris Winterbauer?

  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, why should this concern me?

• 45:14Speaker 02

  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?

• 45:24Lizzie Bassett?

  So many, Raina.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  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, you know, and that was deemed a risk. And then it was like, box office hit and Oscars hit, like, which is so rare. And I think that kind of film will not be, I mean, I can't, 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

• 46:07Speaker 02

  out last year, there isn't that kind of, you know, more interesting and specific films. Like, again, probably Warner Brothers too big.

• 46:17Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, no, I'll say it. So Paramount has made some very good movies. Don't get me wrong. And there's 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.

• 46:57Speaker 02

  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, there's such a disconnect there. And yeah, like, a movie like Weapons that outperformed 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?

• 47:22Chris Winterbauer?

  Interestingly, not a gay character in the script.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 47:26Chris Winterbauer?

  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, it's just interesting. You mentioned the screenwriter versus execution. Clearly, you know, a change happened at that point.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  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 who'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, 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,

• 48:24Speaker 02

  it was a huge success. And it had a diverse cast in terms of different characters we see. Like, again, diversity and 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.

• 48:56Lizzie Bassett?

  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.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's super interesting. Also, Companion was, I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was made for like, so little money. 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 incel movie, if you will. And it 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.

• 50:08Lizzie Bassett?

  And financially viable.

• 50:10Speaker 02

  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.

• 50:31Chris Winterbauer?

  I think to bring it all home, because I want to end on an 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.

• 51:13Chris Winterbauer?

  If they're interested, 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 you are, Raina, but Lizzie and I are millennials.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  I'm a millennial, too. Don't worry.

• 51:34Chris Winterbauer?

  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 glaad.org/contact. That's G-L-A-A-D dot org slash contact to get in touch with Raina's team. We will put that link in the show notes as well for you guys. And Raina, 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?

• 52:08Speaker 02

  So GLAD's on almost all socials at G-L-A-A-D. 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.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Like, 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 2025 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. And like, 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.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  So like, there is a lot of wonderful stuff coming out. I know that you guys are talking about Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, 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 in 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.

• 54:00Chris Winterbauer?

  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 let you go?

• 54:05Speaker 02

  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 Duney, people who are bigger names and have a lot of work under their belt. And they talk about three filmmakers that they're excited to see more of. So there's a lot of stuff coming from GLAD channels about up-and-coming people who are doing this work every day, and we want to make sure to highlight them.

• 54:38Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate you taking the time today. This was a fascinating interview, a fascinating report.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 54:46Chris Winterbauer?

  Of course.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  It was truly a joy to talk about this.

• 54:48Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you so much, Raina.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Host production and music by David Bowman.

• 55:20Speaker 04

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