JR
Let’s talk about your latest film. What were the biggest challenges that you faced as queer and trans filmmakers?

BB
You know, I ended up doing fieldwork with a group of trans people who were making a documentary in central Appalachia on trans health care. And I would say one of the biggest problems we had was money. I was along for the ride and then all the sudden I was a part of it. Because I can't divorce those things in my life. God, there's so much that you do within your life as a trans or queer person to divorce yourself from the world around you. All of a sudden I'm setting up the equipment and then I'm doing the interviews. It just happened very naturally, and we're still in touch and talking about “Well, what if we get some more funding.” It would be fantastic. That's why I brought the project to Miche so we would try to co-produce and rework some of that film for release. I think everybody can say their project needs funding.

Another obstacle would be Covid. It really derailed a lot of plans right now. I can't justify getting on a plane. I can't justify interviewing people about health care during this period. That's just not going to happen.

And I understand a lot of people need to protect themselves. For that particular documentary, we put out a lot of calls for participants and I started noticing that most of the people who volunteered to be interviewed were white. That really limits the stories that we are able to tell, but I also understand why so many of those who stepped up are white. Rural trans people are facing a lot but there is another layer of issues for trans people of color in that area if they are visible or allow for the documentation of their lives. Telling stories of all the people is difficult for us because of access but also because of the need to make sure that people are safe. It is a risk to have a documentary about a trans person in a rural area at all. That could apply to urban areas as well...but it is different.

JR
There's transphobia, racism and homophobia everywhere, but I understand what you mean. Also, I guess in urban settings we have a feeling that we're close to other people, we are close to services, whereas in rural environments, it feels remote. It feels far away, feels like there's nobody out there.

BB
And when I met that documentary crew—they live in a rural area—I realized I was one of the few new people they would be meeting that year. I understood how special that is as a trans person, too. So traveling together for 15 days for the doc, even though it was on a very serious subject, I felt a sense of joy that I really hope that everybody who is trans gets to experience. Just being with a group of people who share a similar identity, even though they may have wildly different politics and viewpoints, has something incredibly comforting about it. It’s transformative and … I think that film making and other creative collaborations are one more way to be in community.

JR
On a more personal level, are you from a rural background?

BB
Actually both of us are from rural backgrounds … I'm from East Tennessee, a small town, so I am originally from Appalachia.

MD
I grew up on a farm in rural Kansas so I’m really cognizant of the ways that people get out of those sorts of lives; I think for me, knowledge and creativity were the ways out. I definitely feel that sense of rural isolation that you are talking about.

BB
I think that isolation makes representation and its surrounding issues all the more important for me. It made the screen a lifeline. I imagine you all may have had the same experience if you're doing this kind of work; you start to understand how valuable media representation is when you are young. For example, when the Celluloid Closet came out, which is dating myself a little, I may have watched it 20 times within a couple of weeks. (laughs)

MD
Those queer readings come early! I think innately when we see stories that are similar in some way to the way that we feel, we gravitate toward that.

JR
Talking about representations being a lifeline: we're hungry for them. We need them. But paradoxically they are limiting, dangerous. It's a very tricky to find a balance within representation. How do you, from a filmmaking perspective, engage with that difficult question? You said, earlier Miche, you are trying to include showing the film being made but is that the only technique? Are there any other ways to do this?

MD
It isn't necessarily a technique but more of an approach. I think media that unapologetically allows queer and trans folks to just be is important. They should not have to be ‘the trans person’ or ‘the queer person’ in the story and that be their whole identity. I am also a parent and the media that my son consumes is markedly different from what we’re used to. What I'm seeing is that there's media available to him that shows non-binary gender examples in a way that was never possible when I was his age. I think that the most successful stories allow people to be just themselves first, and then tell stories of them as holistic characters operating in situations.

JR
As a parent, as an audience member and as a filmmaker, how would you describe differences between media? Because this special issue focuses on queer television, but it actually opens up to queer media because, what is television nowadays? It’s a very interesting broad conversation, but would you say there's a difference between queer television and film? You said there's a difference between what your son watches and what you had access to at his age. Is it the same for everything?

MD
That's a really good question. I think that the distinction is becoming more blurred. I mean, I think there's a class distinction at work between film and TV. Television has historically been the “every person's” media and film is something that is associated with high cinema, high art. It's elevated as, you know, highbrow—in the same way that literature and journalism are distinct from one another. And that distinction is becoming lessened by streaming media. As an example, I actually am not sure that my son really sees a difference between movies and TV. For him, TV is like a bite-size pieces of a longer story. For documentary storytelling, which is what I do most of the time, there's a sweet spot in there where we have these docu-series that are an hour each and you've got seven of them that tell a bigger story through many small lenses. We need to question some of these format distinctions in the current moment, especially those rooted in class.

JR
Let's go on about that. I think that the key difference that existed between film and TV before still exists, but now between “complex TV” like Game of Thrones and more soapy TV, perhaps like This Is Us. There is a world of differences between those two types of television shows and they are class-related and they are related to funding. Would that distinction affect your practice? Is that change in media and film taken into account when you're filming?

BB
Mostly I consider streaming when I think TV, movies. It's all falling together especially for younger generations, but nobody ever talks about “independent” television. I guess that makes me a film person with my media making and more of a researcher interested television. TV is so rich as I watch to see what happens when people go back to it time and time again, what compels them, the giant story arcs that happen on TV.

MD
I think media makers’ approach changes in a really practical way. How long do I have to tell the story? How long do I have to grab people's attention to get them invested, and then tell a story that's going to shift their perspective in some way? I have a communication background and see projects as an opportunity to persuade in a certain way, right? All communication aims at persuading us in some way or another. And so, I think when you're talking about this distinction in format between television and film, as a creator I sort of see a benefit in having 10 hours to tell a story, ten hours to sit with my audience and really give rich details and examples. Over that space of time, I could let folks tell their story in a way that could connect with the audience rather than try to tell a big story in an hour or two hours, which is usually the big challenge of filmmaking.

JR
This brings us back to the limits of representation: having time makes it possible to communicate more complex trans identity, trans realities. It makes you go beyond “passing or not” and viewers’ basic problematic curiosity. This is the classic first stop of trans representation. I have a feeling that having time might lead to more complex storytelling. But Beck, you still go for film. So, in your practice what can film offer?

BB
I want to make something that could stand on its own instead of having to go through the massive process that it takes to do things for television. But that process might be breaking down as well. For example, on the Amazon channel, when they show an episode or two or YouTube series. We might be getting into seeing strong, independent television as a byproduct of streaming. We're even seeing changes in formats as U.S. television replicates the format of British mini-series—using film length in the TV format. So there seems to be a crumbling of barriers. Similarly, HBO has 20-minute documentaries. So maybe I can't say I’m solidly creating films. But for now, that's my instrument. Might be due to self-imposed limitations...

MD
I think Beck, you and I are on the same page more than it may appear.

BB
No, I think we should fight.  (laughs)

MD
I have spent a lot of time thinking about availability of resources when it comes to media creation because the documentary is part of my dissertation. And so, I'm interviewing folks in Oregon, where I’m living. These were going to be in-person interviews, but now they're going to be conducted over Zoom. In practical terms, that means that the individuals have full autonomy over the framing of their shots, the equipment that they use, the way that they sort of represent themselves and how they create themselves and frame themselves in this film. I'm taking that as a really innovative, great thing. It may have come about due to Covid but I support handing over autonomy—sharing the privilege we have to make films and tell stories this way, and making that accessible to others. I'm really excited to talk with people about the way that they tell their stories through visual media. They have this rectangle and they can basically do whatever they want with it

Basically, as a filmmaker, I like handing over that power of framing to the people whose stories I want to get out into the world. Because I don't like feeling like I have too much power as researcher/filmmaker. I understand the power inherent in those relationships and the nuances around that, but I like facilitating folks telling their own stories in the way that they want to both visually and verbally.

JR
Thanks for that, it really makes sense with our goal of queering film practice. Would you have anything to add as a takeaway about queer and trans research and film practice?

BB
I'm glad that I got so much into production. I think that that was a gift that I got through the School of Journalism and Communication at University of Oregon through our Gateway to the Media class with Lisa Heyamoto, Lori Shontz, and Dan Morrison and by supporting Creative Strategies classes with Deb Morrison. In fact, I was teaching production before I started in a doctoral program, and I had some background in creating, too. But now, teaching labs where I am coaching people or critiquing productions has leveled me up. And, then I matched up with Miche, which is fantastic.

I wish that everybody got the opportunity to teach production-oriented courses, especially graduate students in media and communication studies or other social science and humanities programs. It’s satisfying and just mentally comforting. I am able to move my work outside the academy by making something and actually use what I have been studying for so long. I will take it with me through my career so there’s no way that I’ll stop being a creator now.

Going back to our conversation earlier, it seems that there’s a trope that queer people are only queer— all they are is queer. For example, I wrote an article, collaborating with a trans activist about a queer organization. We were invited by a journal to do this piece. After we turned it over to the journal, the feedback that we got from one reviewer was, “You didn't mention anything about being queer.” Everything we were writing about was inherently queer. We didn't discuss being queer/trans and what that meant. Having to always spell it out is an odd thing, an objectification of sorts, a move toward totalizing. I think that social problem is one we see reflected in our media. These things play together, off of each other.

JR
It's true. And I think it’s a limitation also to label something as queer or trans or to always have to go through this. It's another complicated relation because everything I do as a researcher is fueled by my experience. My experience is as a queer person. The separation between my public life and my personal life is quite blurred, but it isn’t anyone else's business other than mine to decide where that border is, and in fact that border can move. Sometimes my professional life can be much more personal, like today for example when I've contacted you specifically to discuss queer and trans filmmaking. It's a personal choice, but it's also weird to have to push it on every front at all times. And it's frustrating sometimes too—that blurred line between personal and political.

MD
I think that, as a goal, I like to break down those distinctions because they don't seem to apply equally to folks who occupy that invisible norm, right? Straight people never have to talk about their experience as a straight filmmaker and white people never have to talk about their experience as a white filmmaker. I think that the distinctions between our personal and our private lives should be self-directed, but also they are maybe not as important as they're made out to be by folks who never have to talk about their personal lives.

Our personal life factors so much into the way that we approach our research as well as the way that we approach our creative practice that separating the two just seems unnatural to me. And it represents yet another barrier for folks who can't separate or have a more difficult time separating their personal and private lives because of their personality, because of the way that they present to the world, because of a million other factors. I think that for me, a queer person who came from a rural background, the academy was my way out of that. College represented knowledge and it was a funnel for my creativity too, but then I had the experience of realizing that the academy was this exclusionary institution. So I sort of leaned back on my personal drive toward creativity. It has shown me that some of these distinctions themselves are driving some of the inequity that we see in institutions.

Personally, I would like to hear what drives people, I want to hear that personal side of things. That's what makes life interesting, right? Nobody wants to watch a movie about a person completely conforming to societal norms and not living their truth; nobody wants to watch a movie about that, it would be terrible. Basically, I think that the best stories come from folks who have interesting and different and queer things happen to them and are themselves interesting and different and queer and exist in the world. It's about more than representation; it's about telling stories that resonate with people.

JR
Your intervention makes me think about something and I’m testing, okay, the question might not work. Let’s just give it a try. I'm assuming that you both read Gender Trouble (Butler, 1991). Well, you know how Butler starts the book by questioning, “What is the subject of feminism?” She says that feminism’s having to do with being a woman basically adds to the materialization of the oppression of the class of women and of gender norms. What if we try to do the same thing with queer and ask, “What would be the subject of queer?”

MD
Queer to me epitomizes weirdness. It's a way of being that's different from the societal norms we’re often held to, and so it's not limited to people who identify as a queer person. But I do think that queer people are well positioned to tell queer stories because we have become aware of and identified our weirdness and the specific ways that we're different from the norm. We are the weirdos, so we’re best suited to tell weird and interesting and queer stories.

[Right] Producer Jayce Jefferson (left) and Director James Heatherly (right) celebrate wrapping up a 15-day documentary tour of Appalachia and Atlanta. Filming took the crew to West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. [Above] The Transilient crew interviewed people at the Virigina Harm Reduction Center about trans healthcare and Appalachian healthcare, working to bridge the knowledge between the two areas.