BURY YOUR GAYS

We meet our lead Grace, a masc. presenting queer actor, on the set of a low budget hospital continuing drama, shooting what should be her deathbed scene. Roles that end in death are common for Grace, something she blames her management for. However, on this particular day, doing this particular scene, something inside of Grace snaps. She protests with the director that her character has great potential and doesn’t need to die. The director disagrees and Grace storms off set. When Grace steps off set, she enters a world unknown; a white-space-sky-scape. Has she died? She spots a woman dressed in a white power suit looming behind a desk. She recognises this woman to be a legendary queer actor - an actor she grew up watching onscreen. Seeing headshots scattering the woman’s desk and a whiteboard with more headshots circling the word ‘death’, Grace assumes the woman is now an agent. The Agent sits Grace down and tells her that she has been brought here as she has just experienced her fifth onscreen burial. She explains that it’s no coincidence she keeps getting killed off, but the fault of an old narrative trope known as ‘Bury Your Gays’. There is just one problem, you only get nine lives, and alarmingly Grace has already used five of them. Armed with this knowledge, the Agent announces that Grace has been booked for another job and cautions her with one instruction… DO NOT DIE. From a gritty independent film, to a hallmark movie, to a dark drama – Grace is pitted against the stereotypes that have haunted her career. The stakes are high, and survival is key. As she struggles to outlive her characters, a question hangs in the balance: What’s the final act for an actor who’s out of lives?