A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I plan to create a Coming-of-Age film opener, and my reasoning behind choosing the genre. I noticed the lack of black female representation, and I'd like to change that. After I researched more on the genre, I realized how bad the lack of representation in Coming-of-Age films has been, and how the genre has so much more progress to make, so that everyone can feel seen and represented in the genre.
This article by Monica Sinaloa from Imagine This Film Festival put my thoughts into more eloquent words. Sinaloa talks about how she, like many of us do, turned to Coming-of-Age films for comfort during her developmental years. She also said that she could only relate to the characters on a surface level, because of cultural differences between her and the usually-white characters. Yes, white students and POC students can relate to things like grades or rebelling or breaking societal norms, however, POC teens face more difficulties than their white counterparts. POC teenagers have to deal with racism, intergenerational trauma, identity issues, cultural norms/expectations, and so much more. It's unfair for them (us) to turn to a film and to barely relate to anything that the main character is dealing with, and we deserve to see ourselves on screen.
Sinaloa goes on to say that POC-led Coming-of-Age films are out there, they're just poorly funded and distributed, making them harder to find. She made an example out of the 2018 film Fast Color, directed by Julia Hart. The film was praised by critics for both the story and the acting in it, however, no one's really heard of it. Because of a lack of marketing and distribution, Fast Color only made $79,916 at the box office. It's upsetting that POC-led Coming-of-Age films are so underfunded... We wonder where these stories are, but they are out there... However, they're not given the same chances at success as white-led films.
What are possible solutions to this problem? Do big-named production companies need to hire more black, brown, indigenous and Asian-Pacific Islander writers and producers, or do the ones that are already active in the industry need to be more supported? Or should audiences actively look for more diverse Coming-of-Age films on their own?
Heres a link to the article that I referred to: POC Coming-Of-Age Films: They Matter Too
And here's the trailer to Fast Color, the film that I'd mentioned before: