Juan Miguel Severo (Image: Nukie Timtiman)
Actor and spoken word poet Juan Miguel Severo has a “Boys’ Love” (BL) series in the works, and has stated that it will “soon be a reality” following a successful pitch to a studio.
The series, titled “Gaya sa Pelikula” (Like in the Movies), chronicles a romance between 18-year-old Karl and college upperclassman Vlad.
The BL genre or Yaoi is a genre of fictional media that features male characters in relationships. Although same-sex romance has yet to gain more ground in Filipino mainstream media, international BLs, such as those from Thailand, have a growing fanbase in the country.
With the wave of popularity of BLs in Asia, Severo announced on April 13 that he was going to develop a pitch for a series about two male characters in a university setting.
By April 17, he delivered a pitch that included his personal story in seeking more LGBTQ+ narratives. At the end of it, he got a producer.
“At the height of the success of [Thai TV show] ‘2gether: The Series’ and other Asian Boys Love content, I pitched my pilot of my own BL series to a studio in hopes of getting it [greenlit] so that we, too, can have more gay stories told by gay people,” he wrote on Facebook, along with a video of his pitch.
He explained in the pitch how it took time for him to be confident as a gay man and why media representation is important.
“I came out in college. But it took me a while to be comfortable with my sexuality. Even when I’ve accepted that I was gay, I believed I deserved less. I was conditioned to believe so, so much that I missed a lot of opportunities to flirt. To fully embrace joy where I found it. To express love,” he said.
He said writing the series was not only for the LGBTQ+ community but also for himself. “This is my apology to my younger self, and to every queer kid who I thought deserved less because of their queerness.
“For me, for everyone who—because of shame—lost opportunities to love and be loved, this is a love story I wish the world were kind enough to afford us when we were younger. And to those younger than us, believe: this is a love story you deserve now.”
Another way that Severo seeks to advocate for LGBTQ+ representation is including members of the LGBTQ+ community in the main artistic team and cast.
https://twitter.com/TheRainBro/status/1251119274212507650?s=20
For those who want a preview of things to come, Severo shared yesterday, April 20, the series’ opening scene on Wattpad. /ra
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