Ellen Page is Completely Changing the Game for Queer Feminism on Televison

Earlier this week I came across my new favorite show/reason to procrastinate all of my responsibilities. PLOT TWIST - Ellen Page is to blame. Damn her and her quirky voice and style, ruining my ability to focus on schoolwork. HOW. RUDE. 

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                       She's perfect and not single. It's truly a national travesty. 

In Viceland’s new docu-series “Gaycation,” actress/ activist/Queer Icon, Ellen Page and best friend Ian Daniel travel around the world to explore LGBTQ+ cultures in other countries. Her inspiration for the show accompany the year long journey she has been enduring after publicly coming out at a National Human Rights Campaign event last year. Her hopes are to show realistic images and stories of real life LGBTQ+ people around the world in an attempt to demystify the stigma of the Queer Experience being a mainly white, ethnocentric issue in the United States. 

The Oscar-nominated self-proclaimed feminist also turned her attention toward America in the show’s first episode of the pilot season, even confronting Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz about LGBT rights at a rally. Shots fired, Page. I'm already ready for a second season.

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Look at that smile! That's the smile of someone who went toe-to-toe with Ted Cruz! 

                                                       *swoon*

Since coming out in 2014, Page has been able to make projects like “Gaycation” and the film “Freeheld,” which she produced and starred in with a new-found confidence and empowerment. She’s also producing a film with Kate Mara and Christine Vachon, in which she and Mara will star as lovers, but noted that that the conversation around such roles still seems to be fixated on her sexuality.

 Page told Variety magazine “The differences I see are these little things like, ‘oh, you’re doing this thing that’s gay and this thing that’s gay, so now you’re doing these [gay roles].’ I’m like, you would never bring that up with a straight person; you would not say, ‘oh, you’re doing another movie where you’re playing a straight person, are you a little worried about it?’ No judgment, I’m just saying these are the double standards, and this is the conversation that needs to change.”

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Gaycation is a prime example of spotling the issue of how mainstream media focuses on only telling one story when it comes to being Queer. If you don't have money, or friends/family who support you, or you don't look like the "stereotypical" gay person, you pretty much don't exist on television. And if you if a character is anywhere outside this norm, you can be sure that they aren't the main character, just the best friend. 

This docu-series visualizes the gap of lived experience of real life individuals dealing with the subordination of their identities and the white-washed version of what we see on television. Page is attempting to showcase the nit and grit of living outside the white cis-heteronormative world. And I personally applaud her efforts.

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Page and Daniel travel to Toyko, Rio De Janeiro and Jamaica to provide Queer representations outside of the typical American lens. The pair interact with all audiences, of all races, ethnicities, socio econmic statuses, bodies, etc. It's a really great show and I urge you to check it out.

Now if only more people watched Viceland....

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- K