Straightlaced - How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up

I am fascinated by the internal struggles most teens go through to navigate the cultural
pressures caused by gender pressures and homophobia, and wanted to make a film that
would help bring those private conundrums out into the open.

We started working on Straightlaced when my oldest son was 16. I was deeply affected
by the subtle, hard‐to‐discuss ways that I saw him and his friends trying to make sense
of all the messages they were getting about how men are supposed to be. From the way
they dress, to the way they are supposed to interact with girls, the pressures to prove
their masculinity by having sex or developing big muscles, and the constant threat of
being labeled as gay, it seemed as if the space young men are given to move around in
got smaller and smaller the minute they hit middle school, and then even more
constricted in high school.

Being a man means demonstrating that you aren’t weak—which means showing that
you are not female, which means that you can’t be seen as homosexual. It’s all
connected, yet there are very few opportunities today for youth to deconstruct these
equations, to develop critical thinking and analysis of these deeply held cultural norms.

For girls it isn’t much better. From the constant bombardment of media images about
what women are supposed to look like, to the pressures to dumb down in order to get a
guy, or the unspoken clothing rules you must follow to not be called a dyke, it’s obvious
that becoming a woman clearly comes with a mandatory script as well.

Much of the film and education work that has been done to date on any related topics
has focused on the struggles of LGBT youth themselves. But there has been very little
attention paid to how all youth—and all adults—are deeply affected by homophobia
and gender pressures, whether or not they are gay or straight.

To make Straightlaced, producer Sue Chen and I visited many high schools. In classroom
after classroom we would introduce ourselves saying, “We are making a documentary
about what it’s like to be in high school and the pressures that students face just
because they are male or female. Would anyone like to speak with us?”