Greg Berlanti accepted the inaugural Greg Berlanti Social Affect Award on the UCLA Middle for Students and Storytellers‘ annual Teenagers and Screens Summit on Thursday in Los Angeles. The author, director, producer and showrunner behind films and reveals comparable to “Love, Simon,” “Dawsons Creek,” “Riverdale,” “You” and a number of sequence within the CW’s “Arrowverse” delivered a heartfelt acceptance speech reflecting on his journey in the direction of self-acceptance, which led him to create reveals that assist audiences really feel represented, seen, and beloved.
“As storytellers in Hollywood, we get to heal our personal outdated tales, crafting new ones which might be sincere and susceptible, and people tales, in flip, can change hearts and minds and remind the viewers how far more common human expertise is than completely different,” a dewy-eyed Berlanti defined, “All of us nonetheless wish to join. All of us nonetheless wish to be seen and understood. All of us need love.”
Berlanti shared a few of these “outdated tales” that he’s had the chance to heal and develop upon all through his illustrious profession. He began along with his personal childhood, reminiscing about his boyish love for tv whereas additionally realizing “there was nonetheless an important void. I used to be a closeted homosexual teenager, and there have been solely a smattering of LGBTQ characters on TV.”
He mirrored on how a haphazard encounter with an AIDS march in New York Metropolis gave him his first optimistic illustration of queer folks, however when one of many marchers reached out a hand to him, he rejected it. “He waited for me to take it, however I didn’t. I didn’t have the braveness. I feared my mother and father or somebody would work out my secret if I took that hand, so I simply seemed away,” he mentioned, “I spent a lot of my youth working from that out-stretched hand, first afraid, however then, over time, discovering the power to come back out and finally come to like myself.”
The occasion got here full circle a long time later, when Berlanti screened “Love, Simon” in Olathe, Kansas in 2018. After the screening, a 14-year-old boy got here out publicly and thanked Berlanti for offering him with reveals and flicks that allowed him to really feel rather less alone. “As he reached out his hand to shake mine,” Berlanti recalled, “It wasn’t misplaced on me that I used to be getting a second shot to make up for the hand that I didn’t take so a few years earlier than.”
Berlanti’s writing companions Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson launched the award and its namesake. “Whenever you work with Greg, you cry lots, and that’s not by chance. There’s at all times large, heartfelt emotion on the middle of Greg’s work, as a result of that’s what Greg is,” Williamson mentioned, with Plec including, “He’s given us among the most heartfelt, numerous, formidable storytelling and tv, whether or not it’s a superhero in a cave, an adolescent falling in love for the primary time, or a household discovering its method, his reveals don’t simply entertain us. They see us.”
Molly Ringwald, who starred in “Riverdale,” additionally despatched in a video evaluating Berlanti to John Hughes. She mentioned that her iconic YA collaborations with Hughes from the Eighties have “stood the take a look at of time, however they’re additionally of their time,” including “Greg Berlanti has constructed upon this legacy, shaping our trendy portrayals of adolescence in a lot the identical method, however with extra illustration of our numerous society.”
The ceremony’s concentrate on Berlanti’s contributions to the YA house was a becoming emphasis for the Summit, which comes within the wake of the Middle for Students and Storytellers’ annual Teenagers and Screens report. The report supplies perception into the media tastes and consumption habits of Gen-Z People. Among the many findings have been that younger People nonetheless worth conventional films and tv, although it’s oftten consumed in small bites on TikTok and YouTube, they’ve a notable choice for animation, don’t look after over-sexualized love tales and crave content material that gives genuine representations of lives like their very own.
The summit unpacked these findings throughout a number of panels and discussions that includes media executives, content material creators and teachers. Essentially the most memorable panel might have been the “Ask The Teenagers” panel, the place 4 youngsters took the stage for a dialog about their tastes, moderated by Roblox Youth Engagement Program Supervisor Andres Cuervo. The younger panelists affirmed a lot of what the examine urged, increasing upon teenagers’ aversion to “development chasing” media that feels synthetic and out of contact in lieu of extra earnest storytelling. As 14-year-old Hollyn Alpert mentioned, “Teenagers, like adults, aren’t monoliths. All of them have completely different opinions. All of them have completely different views, beliefs, races, sexualities, religions. Simply discover that and embrace that.” A room stuffed with seasoned Hollywood professionals listened intently.
Berlanti summed up the significance of heeding these younger voices, saying, “What a present it’s to make a optimistic affect on the younger lives of audiences by reminding them of these items and to present them a way of belonging and empathy and self value. In return, they provide us hope. Younger persons are those I get my best sense of hope from as of late. Irrespective of how darkish issues appear at the moment or as rocky because the journey to our future might find yourself being, I imagine that the long run will probably be brighter due to our younger folks.”
