Matt Mazereeuw
…is a director-producer for fiction and commercial work. He tells genuine stories about people that evoke emotion. With a focus on (Queer) identity and human relations. He studies Film and Literature in Leiden, and amongst his favourite directors are Edgar Wright, Pedro Almodóvar, Taika Waititi, and Greta Gerwig. Together with Jordi van der Plank he created a film every month from 2019 to 2020 under the name Outcast Creatives. He made Aller en France in the pandemic and his most recent film Moe is in the festival circuit. A film about surviving in a chaotic household and having to grow up too fast.
He is currently available for freelance projects as (commercial) director-producer.
Now also available as editor and assistant editor! Check out my resume.
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New Wave Queer Cinema
It is not news that in the last 100+ years of cinema, people with a “different” sexual preference, skin colour, belief, gender etc. were barely represented or used as comedic carcatures and discrimanted against. But lately there is a slow, uphill movement of creators putting in extra effort for inclusivity. My passions lie in representing people from the LGBTQ+ community and our allies in a way that they can see themselves back in a positive light. My goal is to contribute to normalizing being “different” from the Hollywood norm and creating queer content that is engaging and hearfelt.
Feminist Manifesto 2022
(Minor assignment University Leiden)
Historically (mainstream) cinema has a reputation of following a very straight line of cisgender and heterosexual plots and themes. As cinema creates worlds, it holds up a hegemony where queer people are not included.
There is a social stigma against any people that stem away from hegemonic ideals. A constant repetition of cis-hetero representation has created social rules that exist in the creation of cinema and ensures a cis-hetero worldview in society. Cinema (art/media in general) has a lot of influential power in society's discourse that has resulted in a lot of damage to people identifying as part of the LGBTQIA+. Early Hollywood films in particular were forced to follow The Hays Code. A set of guidelines self-imposed by the industry to prohibit profanity, suggestive nudity, violence, sexual persuasions and rape. E.g. gangsters needed to eventually have a bad ending (arrestation or death). This evolved and also made it so that queer characters could only be included if they were villainous or strange and would find themselves in a deadly end. With a few exceptions, these ideas stuck around in cinematic discourse even after the abolishment of the Hays Code, and its influence can still be seen in some films of the 2020s.
Modern cinema needs to support the idea of normalising queerness with the aim to create a world where there is no fight for representation, but that it becomes something creators and viewers don't even think about when creating or consuming media. In the way that it's not unique for a man and a woman to get together, so should it be for queer relationships. We need to abolish the idea of queer cinema in the long run, where it is no longer a genre, but simply part of the worlds film creates. Obviously queer cinema is helping a lot, but a lot of films fall into the LGBTQ+ corners of streaming sites and the closets of Film Festivals.
Instead of the Hays Code, I propose the Gays Code. The below mentioned criteria should ensure an inclusion, not only closer to life, but representation that makes "different" ideas on gender and sexuality more common. The guidelines of the Gays Code are inspired by the Bechdel Test that is used as a test to evaluate a work on the basis of its inclusion and representation of female characters. The Gays Code will attempt to broaden this idea, and the pun with the Hays Code was too good to ignore. I do recognize that non-hegemonic views on gender and sexuality are not the only representation missing in cinema, but I am not qualified to speak on behalf of differently abled folks or people of colour. I will leave this to a more qualified colleague.
A character's gender and sexuality cannot be their only personality trait. Even when the film's theme or plot is related to the exploration or experience of queer identity, queer characters should have as much complexity as the average cis-hetero character has.
A queer character is not allowed to solely be the supporting character to the cis-hetero hero's struggles.
Queer characters should be part of the existing world and be respected in that way. E.g. a character that uses they/them pronouns is simply referred to as such, without it becoming eventful.
Queer relationships should be explicit, unless represented in the way of guideline 3. Homo-erotic subtext is not queer representation. For example, a couple of two men should be simply: two people that are visually recognizable as being in a romantic relationship. A marriage, not a "Gay-marriage".
Explicit representation should be done by, or in collaboration with, those that are being represented.
Lastly, the Gays Code should constantly be improved and changed as the world around it changes, as long as it continues to ensure inclusion and normalisation of queerness. These guidelines should never be absolute or set in stone, as that would go against the ideals of the Gays Code.
(Written as an assignment part of the Minor Gender & Sexuality in Society and Culture of Matt’s BA in Film Studies)