ABOVE: Kenny Ortega (Photo courtesy Twitter).
“High School Musical” and “Hocus Pocus” director Kenny Ortega has been featured on Variety’s annual Power of Pride list for 2020, prompting him to discuss his experiences working as a gay man in the entertainment industry, as well as the resonance some of his works have had with LGBTQ audiences.
Variety’s Power of Pride list seeks to highlight progressive LGBTQ creators, honoring “those in the LGBTQ community who use their spotlight to foster understanding and promote inclusion in the entertainment industry.”
Variety noted that Ortega’s work tends to have a universal queerness that speaks to younger LGBTQ audiences. “Most queer kids could relate to one of Ortega’s movies, even if they didn’t know they were queer while watching them,” the outlet wrote.
Ortega chalks this up to the fact that as a gay man, he often embeds his own queerness into the content he creates.
“I put a lot of who I am into my work,” Ortega said. “I mean, really all the way back from the earliest work that I’ve done, even as a choreographer in film and television. And I think, yeah, that it’s just there, and whether it’s screaming at you, or whether it’s just sort of quietly there, it’s there.”
The character of Ryan Evans from the Disney Channel franchise “High School Musical,” portrayed by actor Lucas Grabeel, is one example. Ortega subtly incorporated queerness into the subtext of his work. “We decided he’d probably … come out in college,” Ortega said. “It was less about coming out and just more about letting his true colors come forward.”
Ortega made the decision to not make Ryan openly gay due to the family-oriented nature of the film and his own hesitation of how families and the Disney Channel might have received a gay character at the time.
“I was concerned because it was family and kids, that Disney might not be ready to cross that line and move into that territory yet,” Ortega said. “So, I just took it upon myself to make choices that I felt that those who were watching would grab. They would see it, they would feel it, they would know it and they would identify with it. And that is what happened.”
In Ortega’s film “Hocus Pocus,” the campiness of the group of witches who terrorize the film’s protagonists, the Sanderson Sisters, were another nod to queerness.
“The girls are almost drag queens,” Ortega said. “I pushed for [the actresses] to go there and kind of felt that we [would] have an audience if they did, and God knows we did. They’re beloved characters and emulated all the time. Every Halloween, they’re knocking on my door. Those Sanderson Sisters are back.”
Before he went on to become a film director, Ortega worked as an actor. Once, while working in a touring production of the musical “Hair,” he encountered homophobia in the form of a South Carolina police chief who tried to frame him as being a drug dealer.
“I played a character that was bisexual, and this chief of police did not like what I stood for and did not like that we were there,” Ortega said. “And he planted enough narcotics in my hotel room to make me out to be a major drug dealer. And I was arrested and facing 25-years-to-life.”
Although the police chief’s deception was later discovered and the case was dismissed, Ortega says the experience had a lasting effect on him.
“It was a horror story that just had this incredible bright ending in that the whole thing was thrown out of court,” Ortega said. “He was removed from office. I was set free, but never to be the same. Christ, I’m still always looking over my shoulder.”
Ortega came out as a public figure after being approached by the LGBTQ publication “The Advocate.” The outlet was “looking for actors that [would] come out … soldiers to come out and stand for change.” While Ortega realized that the potential ramifications of coming out may not have been positive for his career prospects at the time, he also knew this visibility would ultimately serve a greater purpose.
“I’ve never regretted it, and I knew that at that time that there could be discrimination in the job, that as an actor that I might not get hired, that as a hopeful choreographer that I might be looked over,” Ortega said. “But I never regretted the choice and along with my brothers and sisters took arms and stood strong and raised my voice and managed to get to the ground that I’m standing on today. It wasn’t without a fight. And it wasn’t without putting myself at risk.”
Although he initially didn’t feel a sense of acceptance from Hollywood as an openly gay man, Ortega is glad to see that the tide has turned for LGBTQ+ acceptance within society as a whole.
“I was at McConnell’s ice cream parlor with a friend before the quarantine, and we were standing in line to get our favorite ice cream. And in walks these teenage boys, like six teenage boys, and they’re laughing and holding hands. And it is clear to me that they are gay young men and that they’re comfortable in their skin and in their shoes. Then they noticed me and they were like, ‘Oh, my gosh. It’s Kenny Ortega.’ I pulled them aside, and I said, ‘It’s just so exciting to be able to see you guys walk in with this kind of comfort and confidence, that you’re not even having to think twice about who you are or that anybody would have a problem with it.’”
Ortega hopes that the LGBTQ youth of today continue the pursuit of social equality and allow the work of previous generations of queer activists to inform their efforts.
“I would say, ‘Continue to carry the torch,’” Ortega said. “There have been lives lost in the quest for change and acceptance, and many soldiers that have spent years working to create a world where we can walk freely and without discrimination. So, just don’t forget the history and what it’s taken to get to where we are, and that we need to get further. It’s up to our young people to continue to carry that torch.”
You can read the full Variety profile here.
