(Photo: YouTube screenshot)
It has already been an eventful Pride Month.
Eugene Lee Yang, a 33-year-old queer choreographer who is also one of Buzzfeed’s “Try Guys,” just came out as gay on June 15 on Twitter – and with the help of an epic music video. Yang wrote, directed and choreographed the video himself.
“I created this music video as my personal way of coming out as a proud gay man who has many unheard, specific stories to tell. I withheld because of fear and shame shaped by my background but I promise to give my full truth in the rest of my life’s work,” Yang wrote on Twitter.
I created this music video as my personal way of coming out as a proud gay man who has many unheard, specific stories to tell. I withheld because of fear and shame shaped by my background but I promise to give my full truth in the rest of my life’s work.?️?https://t.co/bLTX7c4fwv pic.twitter.com/0nLLAWR5FC
— Eugene Lee Yang (@EugeneLeeYang) June 15, 2019
The video, titled “I’m Gay” takes on heavy themes and features instrumental music by Odesza. “I’m Gay” depicts interpretations of societal queerphobia including a shooting at a gay bar, a gay bashing, an angry sermon at a conservative church and familial rejection.
Yang made sure to hire Asian performers to populate the video. RuPaul’s Drag Race stars Kim Chi and Mayhem Miller, Intae Kim, Gary Murakami, Terumi Shimazu, Grace Yoo and other well-known personalities like video personality Curly Velasquez, Instagram fashion influencer Jazzmyne Jay, drag queen Rhea Litré and trans actress Arisce Wanzer are all in the video.
“My safety always felt like it wasn’t something that I could consider a given. And so that sort of shaded a lot of my first sort of ways that I covered in regard to my openness about my sexuality because I already had seen the way some other openly gay kids were treated in my school — and it was really, really terrible,” Yang said in a recent interview with The Advocate. “I’m just announcing I’m a gay filmmaker, actor, producer, viral video maker, whatever you want to call me—but I’m gay, and that’s the perspective I’m coming from.”
