Actors that have championed great causes and why I respect them.

Actors that I have a great deal of respect for them, I discovered Harry Shum jr later in my life as I  mentioned before that I have chronic illness and disabilities and due to this spend far too much time on the couch watching either Youtube or Netflix. 

I discovered him in what I would say is a cult hit 'Shadowhunter', playing a character that I really resonate with; a bisexual warlock and the tragedy of his life is he is immortal. So this play's into the idea of well what happens when you don't have to plan for the end of your life but you see the lives of people around you age and die. 

What do you do with your time yes he has magic powers to heal and his position as the high warlock is from what I see in the show and books more a political one, being open to warlocks that have issues, and he seems to help a lot of what they call the downworlders, so generally vampires, werewolf's are the ones that seem to be the main ones in what the show and books call the Shadow world. 

So a lot of discussions online are around Magnus and his identity, powers and trauma.  This resonated with the LGBT community because it was a healthy relationship that wasn't oversexualized and started to fall into the trope of the person who had been out of the closet helping this person realize he is gay.  However, it developed past this into what the fandom and even parent groups see as a very healthy relationship, about helping someone fight for what they want and need. 

This parallels Harry's own life and the story of having to fight for what he wanted his whole life, he was not of a typical upbringing. This is due to having immigrant parents wanting what they perceived as traditional success, he was given 12 months by his parents to " get his shit together,"  to figure out his life and how he was going to live before he was going to be made to go back to college and get a degree.  This was because his parents wanted him to be safe and usually traditional parents of Asian descent, want their children to take a safe route to careers; a doctor, lawyer or jobs that would bring their the family honour as his parents brought him and his sisters to the US from Costa Rica for a better life.    

Harry Shum Jr's "moment" - YouTube

In this clip he talks about the challenges of going out and learning the importance of businesses and having a backup plan, about the businesses of dance because he wanted to be paid to dance,  and this applies to any creative industry, due to how unstable it can be at times and he was made to do his "homework," about alternative routes of being able to dance, so running a dance school, tours, choreography and then the possibility of acting came into it through chance. I know in my own life, I have been told to not give up my government allowance for disabled adults until my own hobbies start making money.  

He is respected greatly by his colleagues however has had to fight against being type-cast his whole life as a background dancer or token minority character and when on glee starting to push back against inappropriate racial jokes and stereotypes. In his work behind the camera and offline, he has recently produced two independent films and is an active member of the Asian American actor's alliance and is known for pushing for these actors to audition for non-traditional roles as this is how he landed the role that broke him out into a wider audience and being able to utilise his diverse skill set. 

Being one of the rare people in Hollywood that has never been caught in any drama, this has earned him great respect from all of the groups he has worked with and he is openly admired for being able to be committed to his wife to the point that when he through social media announced that his wife was pregnant what is called the "Shadow fam," we're sending the couple gifts. They respect the child's privacy by only showing her back of her on social media and He also has a two-week rule with his wife that they won't take on a project that takes them away from each other for more than two weeks, if he is away for longer they would go together. 

However, with him pushing back on his personal and professional boundaries, it has come at a cost of having to play the long waiting game and risking being labelled a trouble maker. But this is starting to change as bad behaviours of actors are being exposed through social media, Eg the bad behaviours at the recent Oscars. ( that shadowed a historic moment where a film that stared a disabled actor and featured the reality of living with a disability won best Oscars) 

 Harry when looking at cast clips interviews, comic cons, and other related press has fun but knows where the boundaries are in contrast to some of his young colleagues that didn't know how to handle the pressure he seems to mentor them and keep them on track,  there is a well-known fact about the cast of Shadowhunter's having nerf guns in there kitchen's as Harry saw the dangers of phone addictions, and would encourage social interaction. 

His wife is also very supportive of him and the press seems to respect their private life it still confuses me how some of his co-stars have had to take social media breaks due to parasocial bonds and people want to know everything about his life. It show's increasingly rare in Hollywood, and grace and this grace should be more accepted by young actors that have kept their noses clean or have owned up to their own behaviour and made an effort to educate themselves on the issues that cause the offence.