Performer declines gay adult film award due to industry’s “racism and bigotry”
Hugh Hunter slammed the GayVN Awards for creating a "Best Ethnic Scene" category
Gay porn actor Hugh Hunter has refused nominations for an industry award due to the ceremony’s segregation of actors of color.
In a Twitter post, Hunter said he was “respectfully declining” his three nominations for a GayVN Award due to a category titled “Best Ethnic Scene.”
“The gay porn industry has always been a place of veiled racism and bigotry,” Hunter wrote. “It now appears as if the GayVN Awards have chosen to make this racism and bigotry more blatant in their return to the awards arena.” (The awards ran between 1998 and 2011, but were resurrected this year.)
While browsing the nominations, Hunter said he came across the “Best Ethnic Scene” category and it “immediately struck my sensibilities as wrong and, quite frankly, turned my stomach.”
“This category features, exclusively, the works of black, Latin, and Asian performers,” he continued. “It is a category designated specifically for minority gay adult performers.”
Hunter asked why the scenes weren’t included among those in the best scene category, why the GayVN Awards had decided “to separate minority groups into their own race at an event that is supposed to celebrate the gay industry in its entirety,” and why the category even existed in 2017 “when the political climate is so thick with racial divide in this country.”
“Why would they call it ethnic?” he asked. “Who uses the term ethnic?”
Hunter also pointed out in his tweet that no minority actors were included in the nominations for best actor or best supporting actor.
He ended his statement with a call for “all members of the gay adult entertainment industry…to stand up against the systemic racism and bigotry in this industry.”
“We are all members of the LGBTQ family,” he concluded. “This family includes all colors of the rainbow and all people from every corner of the world. Let’s force this industry, one built by and dependent on the passions and fantasies of the LGBTQ community, to be all-inclusive and shed racism and bigoted bias.
“For so many we are the educators of sexuality. Let’s be the best educators we can be.”
The @gayvn awards announce nominations including a BEST ETHNIC SCENE category for black, Latin, and Asian models. Meanwhile none are nominated as best actor or supporting actor.
My response, “…I am respectfully declining my nominations in all categories…”
Full letter here. pic.twitter.com/CQPxZFRuZ6
— Hugh Hunter (@theHughHunter) November 25, 2017
Hunter’s impassioned tweet comes after Men.com recently drew criticism for its gay porn parody of the Justice League movie, which replaced black hero Cyborg with a white character.
Men.com chose to cast Colby Keller as Green Lantern — a controversial move, given Keller publicly declared that he voted for Donald Trump in last year’s election.
In a follow-up tweet, Hunter referenced the casting decision, saying Keller’s casting “further validates my call for a conversation about race inequalities in this industry.
Hunter blasted Men.com for hiring someone who “demonstrated his white privilege by voting against the rights of all people.”
—further validates my call for a conversation about race inequalities in this industry. pic.twitter.com/pkmRbWdWqf
— Hugh Hunter (@theHughHunter) November 26, 2017
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