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chloe grace moretz

Chloë Grace Moretz is sick of Hollywood's 'shocking' treatment of LGBTQ filmmakers

‘Queer movies should be told through a queer lens and created by queer people’

SHE’S BECOME AN outspoken advocate of feminist and LGBTQ issues in recent years, and Chloë Grace Moretz is showing no signs of stopping.

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After starring in her first film when she was 8-years-old, Chloë Grace Moretz has spent her formative years working in the film industry. Now, at the age of 21, she has become a shining light in speaking out for the changes she wishes to see in the industry.

She’s spoken about funding gender-equalizing movies, the abuse that two of her brothers who are gay have gone through, and about being body-shamed by an older male co-star.

Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloe Grace Moretz, Director Antoine Fuqua Hannah Yoon Hannah Yoon

Now she’s turning her attention to the unequal treatment of LGBTQ filmmakers.

Speaking with the LA Times, the actress said that straight, white men are still the dominant storytellers in Hollywood.

Even though people want these movies to be told, they want these things to be said, they’re not backing it enough. They’re still backing first and foremost the straight white man who is going to be putting out the movie that’s the safer bet.
They want something that’s a pretty package, but that’s still tolerable and acceptable. And I think that’s unfair. Queer movies should be told through a queer lens and created by queer people.

The Miseducation Of Cameron Post Premiere - Los Angeles SIPA USA / PA Images SIPA USA / PA Images / PA Images

She drew comparisons between the ‘unfair’ treatment of The Miseducation of Cameron Post, a film about conversion therapy that she’s currently starring in, and another film Boy Erased that’s also coming out this year.

There’s another conversion therapy movie that’s coming out and you see how that was picked up by a major distributor, they are putting all the money behind it, and you start to compare it.
This movie [The Miseducation of Cameron Post] was directed by a bisexual woman of diversity [Desiree Akhavan], it has a very diverse cast and we didn’t cast all celebrities.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post Screening - New York Sonia Moskowitz Sonia Moskowitz

However, the film with the straight, white male gaze was the one which won immediate backing.

You look at the other movie. That movie has distribution already. It’s going to come out, it’s going to be big. It’s written and directed by a white man, it’s shot through a straight male gaze. You just look at the discrepancy and that’s shocking.

This discrepancy is all the more shocking because Moretz’s film won the top prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

In the film Moretz plays the lead role of a teenager girl who is caught kissing the prom queen at her school and is sent to a remote treatment centre called ‘God’s Promise’ in order to be ‘cured’ of her so-called illness.

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Moretz’s movie is based on a novel of the same name, published in 2012.

Emily M Danforth, the author, said her book was inspired by the Zack Stark controversy.  Zack, a 16-year-old from Tennessee, wrote a blog on MySpace in June 2005 which went viral.

In the heartfelt post, the vulnerable teenager wrote:

I told my parents I was gay…. Well today, my mother, father, and I had a very long “talk” in my room where they let me know I am to apply for a fundamentalist christian program for gays.
They tell me that there is something psychologically wrong with me, and they “raised me wrong.” I’m a big screw up to them, who isn’t on the path God wants me to be on.

Zach subsequently appeared in a 2012 documentary, This Is What Love In Action Looks Like, where it was revealed he had accepted his sexuality.

You can catch the trailer for The Miseducation of Cameron Post below

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