Dear Writer Director Letter #67
In 2020, there was this weird pressure from the industry to lead with one’s ethnic identity in order to be more “desired in the market”.
Photo by Zach Ochinko.
Dear Writer Director,
In 2020, there was this weird pressure from the industry to lead with one’s ethnic identity in order to be more “desired in the market”. There was a pressure to simplify oneself down to a representative of “my people”. As a mixed-race person who grew up with only the white side of my family, this sent me into an identity crisis.
Before 2020, I had made some efforts towards working with other Iranian writers, but every time, I stepped foot in those spaces, people hissed in different ways and quickly demanded that I leave. Looking back, I can understand why. I have a white name. In a bustling metropolitan city, I look white. I’ve hired myself again and again to direct whatever I want. I am traditionally American pretty. In hindsight, that was their only territory. They perceived me to be encroaching upon it like a colonizer. It wasn’t my intention, of course, but I wised up to the impacts and backed the fuck off.
I think it’s insidious the way that film, TV, theatre, and every artistic discipline has grouped people all together and boxed them into these rigid definitions of what are basically generalizations and stereotypes. Every single writer, actor, director, creator deserves to be their full multifaceted self in how they are perceived. We deserve to live in a culture that reflects our actual true diversity. We don’t look like white 50’s America, so we shouldn’t have art that does.
In 2020, there was this weird pressure from the industry to lead with one’s ethnic identity in order to be more “desired in the market”. I watched as lots of people around me dealt with this ethical dilemma in all sorts of ways. I have a lot of extremely thoughtful friends who have a personal mission to support the growth of those that look like them who come from a similar background. That is fucking awesome and necessary. What’s not cool is when studios or institutions or gatekeepers tokenize artists who are doing that work just so that they can look like THEY are doing the work (which they are not).
As for me personally, I don’t particularly feel any affinity towards other Iranian women as a whole, but I have several other dope Iranian female friends. I have consumed bits and pieces of Iranian culture and history over the years and the more I dig in, the more I see so much of that in my own tendencies and behaviors. It all illuminates why I felt like such an outsider in my original family unit. There was a whole other half of me I was disconnected from. We’re all allowed to have our own personal relationship with the places we come from. Sometimes I’ve felt that because I don’t shout from the rooftops the right slogans, I’m simply labeled the enemy. When in reality, I just refuse to hide. I’m more complex than the world wants me to be in this era of tribes and us versus them. I refuse to give in or fit in because how is that helping anyone? I identify as an American mixed kid because my influences were not predetermined by a universe built for me by others as a child. I was sat in front of the television, and I laughed and talked about pop culture with my grandparents. My grandmother was an Irish immigrant who I consider a second mom, and my Dad was an Iranian immigrant whom I’ve only ever seen drawn on a napkin. All I have is American Network Television to start with and the neighborhood in which I stuck my fingers in the dirt.
Don’t get me wrong. I love that other people have different relationships to their diasporas. We all deserve to have what’s ours. It’s pretty scary that people want to change each other’s stories to make themselves feel like they’re more right. It’s weird to commodify ethnic groups in order to reach people of that same ethnic group, especially when the people selecting the stories are mostly white. When you think about it, it’s odd. Also, I find it odd that people can’t supposedly empathize or care about somebody of another race. That’s insane to me. I enjoy lots of stories told about worlds I have never experienced myself. That’s the whole point of storytelling: to expose yourself to beyond what you know.
Dear Writer Director, don’t make a choice about who you are because you think it’ll make you more sellable. Double down on what you want to see in the world that you don’t see yet. Just make that. Also, you too are allowed to have whatever kind of relationship you want to your origins and the people you came from. It does not have to fit into any narrative we have seen before. We all have the power to write our own stories. We actually do. You’ll be surprised at how many people can relate when you are just honest about the nuances. We don’t have to be ‘just like you’ to get you. Seriously, I’m super weird, and you’re still reading these letters.
To quote that Southern woman from Tik Tok I have been quoting a lot lately, ‘Say the weird thing too.’
Collage by Cyrus Finegan.
Love,
O