Underemployed

The LA Film Industry HATES to see me coming. Like actually though.

I graduated a year ago, and I still don’t have a job in the film industry. I’m near religious in my desire to succeed, and I’ve tried just about everything. I’m trying just about everything. When you’re unemployed in entertainment, and probably other industries too but I’ve obviously only done this one, you network like your life depends on it because in so many ways it does. I tell myself it is my job, so I wake up at 8:00am and message people on LinkedIn and email people back and it continues in this never-ending loop of meeting people in these useless 30 minute meetings that never lead anywhere. I’m often told I’m doing the right thing reaching out the way I am. “You’re doing everything right,” they tell me. I’ve even made a few genuine friends out of it, folks who are really succeeding in the industry, who I applaud. I’m not a jealous person, not really, and I love seeing good people win. I even keep a spreadsheet of who I meet and when I meet them. I follow up when I can, congratulating them on a project or a promotion. I’m genuinely thrilled to know them, but I’ve met over 150 people now in my thirst for people. That’s bigger than my high school graduating class. When does the job come? Where is the end of this rainbow?

I’m not entirely unemployed. I support myself in Los Angeles through a part-time job as the Office Coordinator at a nonprofit theatre, secured through a friend Thank You Very Much, and freelancing on random sets as they come up, mostly live events. I’m so deeply thankful for that, that I have something out here, but I spend my days surrounded by actors in their 80s that you’ve never heard of. They spent decades out here trying to make it happen, and it never really did for most of them. Bit parts on soaps and a few stints on stage in LA, decidedly not a place known for theatre. It puts a dampener on this period, one full of hope and friends getting glamorous jobs at agencies, casting companies, studios, and the like. It’s made me jaded in a way I really dislike about myself.

I call my mom, and she’ll tell me, “You’ll get there.” My first instinct isn’t thank you but, “Will I?” Everyone tells you all the time how difficult it is to make it in entertainment. Of course I know that, and I knew that when I decided to go to film school. Usually, when my grandparents warned me, I felt an indignant pride. How could they not see this desire to win formed by my father? How could they not see how capable I was? It’s only recently that has started to change, that I became the cynic and them the optimists. I’d like to think it’s because they’ve seen the quality of my work, which I’ve still been doing, and the passion I have for creation. They’ve seen how hard I struggle to make something happen when I will it, but a job seems to be the one thing I can’t reach. Now, I’m reassured it’ll happen to me. I’ll figure it out. It was only a few years ago they were cautioning me, sometimes even urging me to consider law school or a Masters Degree. How expectations can change.

The only thing my family has yet to give in to liking is my appearance. I have hair down to my waist now, and a moustache trimmed daily. It tumbles down my back in a way that makes me feel beautiful and glamorous, but it’s entirely unbecoming to an agency for a man to have these things. Agencies, and other Hollywood corporations, are big on appearances. No one would ever tell me to my face that I’m not getting the role because of my hair or my nails, when they were long and painted, or my moustache. Actually, feedback in general is near impossible in these companies that work like machines, grinding and churning and shuffling people around. It’s the periphery conversations, the networking, the subtext. I see the people who get the job. I bring up the idea of image to an entertainment lawyer at a networking event, and he agrees it isn’t how people look at an agency, land of suits and product. He sighs and apologizes, but across from me, he sits in a well tailored dress shirt and slacks, too. It’s the way it is! It’s the way it is.

I actually met another queer person on the set of a larger reality show, a queer executive in a beautiful suit and shoes. We chatted for a few minutes, and I got his email. We set up a meeting, one of those 30 minute meetings just to say hello, to chat, as they say. They call it a coffee even when there’s no beverage involved. His Instagram has him in mesh tank tops, slouchy jeans, the usual getup across West Hollywood, but he sits today in his office in a dress shirt. “How do you navigate a world where queer expression is considered unprofessional?” I asked him. I wanted to see what he said. To his credit, his answer was candid and kind. I think he could feel the emotion built into it. He said that his image at work was him, another part of him that made the whole. He said that there were plenty of things that were unprofessional to bring up at work, but that didn’t mean they weren’t a huge part of his life.

I’ve done a lot of groveling and changing myself to get a job, but for some reason, this I won’t do. I just can’t bring myself to cut my hair. I don’t have earrings anymore for a myriad of reasons. I cut my nails and scrubbed the polish off. I bought dress shirts and slacks, things that tug on the back of my shoulders a little when I shake hands. I feel like a baby playing dress up, but at least that baby might get hired. I’ve even gotten close, so close, on so many occasions. I did five interviews and a trial day (paid, thank god) at an animation company a few months ago. A small boutique one in Culver City. The people were young and hip, the founders wearing t-shirts. One’s in a band, playing festivals some weekends before returning to work. They picked a girl they went to college with. I sent a video interview into an agency. They encouraged our personalities to shine through, so I wore something business casual and left my background unblurred, a montage of my favorite shows and movies, flanking either side. No word. I interviewed twice for a stop-motion studio, this one I was sure I did well. I had four references, one a former executive there from an internship. I received a kind rejection letter from the temp assistant, telling me I got close, but not this time. Always second, it seems. It’s a sad theme, but at least I know I’m not bad, just not good enough. No, that’s sad. I’m not the right fit, I guess.

So then I guess the question is, “Why am I so Happy?” The truth is that I’ve never been happier despite having none of what I wanted my entire life. I don’t have a full-time job. I’m not putting my nose to the grindstone and working my way up the ladder to producer. I’m barely in a creative job at all, really. I could coordinate an office anywhere and be doing exactly what I’m doing at my current role, ink-stained from decades-old files and tired.

It’s easy to answer that question logically. I have friends in a way I never had friends before college, a group of close friends I see all the time. You don’t realize how little it takes to feel supported by friends, to have a community of people, but my calendar is packed with ridiculous arts-schooly things like kickball games and tea parties. Even normal things like family dinners, where we all try to gather and cook for each other. I create art I enjoy, touring the country with my short film and creating an original musical with aforementioned friends. I love LA so much, the sun soaking into me and making me feel strange and warm. I love my apartment, living over an older couple in the house they’ve lived in for decades. It’s the cheapest apartment I have ever lived in by far. I love that I have a yard draped in plastic turf. I love that I bought a plum tree from Facebook. I love that I live with my friends. My parents tell me on FaceTime (via WhatsApp, they have Androids) that I smile more here, that I look so happy. I even love the sets I work, the random events that lead to even more random tasks like driving a 15-foot box truck through the narrow streets of Venice Beach with nothing in the cab but barricades. I revel in this feeling sometimes, when I can muster it.

So many people ask me how I am when they see me, and I’m thankful for that. I usually say the something along the lines of: “Professionally, I’ve never been worse. Personally, I’ve never been better.” My boss at the theatre, a smiling, chronically overworked millennial, even tells me my social calendar must be demanding, all the networking and the parties and the like. It’s easy to tell myself that I am not my work, but it’s a lot less easy to actually feel that I am not my work, especially with the goal to be in film, an industry fueled by people who make work their entire life. I was ready to be that person, hunched over a computer writing not essays or poems but emails and spreadsheets. I’m still ready to be that person. There’s something appealing to me about overworking myself in a Devil Wears Prada kind of way.

Emotionally, the answer is more about security, and I think that’s the reason I won’t cut my hair. I’ve built this security in myself, one I sought out in academic and then professional validation until now. I don’t know where it came from; it honestly snuck up on me. It’s not based in a physical confidence. I’ve actually never been less confident in my body living in LA, surrounded by the hottest people I’ve ever seen with the gloss of influence and dim bar lights. My hair’s falling out from a reaction to my own scalp, and my beard grows patchy and red-tinged. It’s not based in professional validation anymore either; I’m unfulfilled by my days in the dark cement-walled office. I’m not achieving anything noteworthy day-to-day. Maybe I’m scared cutting my hair will throw me out of this strange equilibrium I’ve reached full of whimsical, endless days of nothing. It’s giving something up that I’m not prepared to do. Admitting failure, a bit. I’ve admitted so much failure to so many people, but this one I can’t seem to shake.

I hope to find a job by the end of the year, but I said that last year when I went to Emerson Los Angeles for my second internship at a studio. I started applying before I even got out there, and it turned over nothing. I’ve applied to hundred of jobs, gotten dozens of interviews. I’m tired, so tired, yet so happy. This is a part of life that many people look back fondly on! Even the folks at the theatre whose biggest career milestones came five years out of college and never went further. Is that mean? I don’t think so. If I asked them what they found satisfying in their lives, they wouldn’t say their careers. That’s okay. I don’t want to reach that point, where my best achievements in life are unrelated to film. I fight against it constantly, but it’s a harsh reminder that the job market is horrible and entertainment is struggling under the weight of efficiency obsessed tech CEOs. I don’t know if I’ll ever “make it.” I’ve given up on getting a job at an agency from simply applying and finding references. I try to envision anything like that and come up with nothing. I guess I’m on my own path, but I don’t want to produce shows that have a budget of less that $5,000 my whole life. I don’t want to struggle to create. I feel like I could do so much if given a chance. I hope I find it!