“Queers, testimonials and media representation – things newspapers don’t say about us”
What images of ourselves do we want to project? What messages do we want to bring to public debate? These questions and others were examined during a workshop held by PolitiQ during Radical Queer Semaine on April 26 2014 at l’Asterisk* in Montreal.
Sexual minorities are now often seen to have moved beyond media invisibility to hypervisibility. Every television series now seems to have a gay, lesbians or trans character. The Olympics became a platform for a number of athletes and performers such as Ellen Page to come out. These would seem to be enviable days, but is this really the case? Do all our experiences have equal place in the media? Are some messages are counterproductive when it comes to improving our lives? In reality, what is being said about us?
The workshop started with a discussion of participants’ perceptions of how LGBTQ* experiences are represented in the media and continued with a reflection on using testimonials as way to make our voices heard. The discussion was followed by a production workshop on giving testmonials in front of a camera, inspired by the movie What I love about being queer.