“Serious Business was inspired by a number of conversations I’ve had with fellow skaters from my area. Some of these conversations focused around frustration with the direction of skate media: the torrential stream of Instagram content, the primacy of digital-only content, and the capture/cooptation of DIY culture by Capital.” Now, we’re sure some of these themes ring true with present company. Since its inception, queer filmmaker Clayton Schleg’s long-awaited cult-skate-movie ‘Serious Business’, has lived up to its name. Predominantly targeted at the overtly macho posture of skateboarding’s most core culture, this full-length skate video is an uncontrived critique of our community which, gleefully, never quite shrugs off the irony in its title.
Film by Clayton Schleg
Clayton, these conversations that inspired ‘Serious Business’ – what were you talking about?
Well, some of them focused on the strange relationship of social media, austerity, and surveillance. We [the cast and crew] wanted to create something that took patience and collaboration to complete, avoided the trappings both of irony and self-seriousness, and was (relatively) easy for others to replicate. We wanted to make something sincere, replicable, and fun – for cheap. My hope was for people to see this video and it’s production model as a sort of anti-rubric for creating their own skate media: you don’t have to take yourself or your project too seriously, you don’t have to spend big bucks on materials, you don’t have to fly to California or Barcelona, you can simply take your time and make something local and small and still feel great about what you and your friends have done together.
So you’re setting an example for future projects in a sense… what did you want to achieve in that example?
I specifically wanted to avoid overly emphasising a masculinist posture or tone. While some of the song selections and part structures follow traditional skate-video forms, I wanted to use a number of tones, paces, and themes to make a little something for everyone. Part of how we ensured that level of accessibility was by keeping filming sessions light and without expectations—sometimes you get a clip, sometimes you don’t.
Did you achieve what you set out to achieve?
What we ended up with is what we ended up with, I suppose. The video was made almost entirely in northern Washington State, centred around Bellingham. It’s a college town with a fucked up cost-of-living and not much in terms of job prospects. The skaters in the video come from a working-class background, and use skateboarding as an outlet after work. Most of the skaters in the video didn’t really start filming with the expectation of it becoming anything like it did.
How do you think your background crafted this project, and your view of skateboarding?
I’ve been living in Bellingham for like 7 or 8 years. Outside of skating, I work as a youth advocate for a local drop-in centre for homeless and at-risk young people. Much of the community we serve is part of the LGBT and queer community. I spend much of my time working with these youth to find housing and employment, engage with America’s labyrinthian welfare state, and access local life-sustaining resources. The resilience and sense of solidarity I see among the youth I engage with is truly moving.
Wow. So what brought you to that work?
A few years ago, I received a degree in political science, focusing in political theory and women, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS) and wanted to stay in town. A lot of people up and move right after school, but that’s never really made sense to me—this community has taught me so much about the world/political economy. To move felt like it would’ve been a betrayal of the community-empowerment models I became so invested in during university.
Hence the video, at least from the perspective of skateboarding…
That sentiment became fuel for this video project. In some little way, ‘Serious Business’ is a means of passing on the gift of culture to the rest of a community that has given me so much. The local scene up here is so much bigger than other small towns, and it’s all thanks to Unknown Board Shop and the selflessness of our scene. Everyone here is so giving and outgoing, it’s an honour to be a part of that.
So here’s a question which is close to our hearts: how do you think the broader skate world has shifted to acknowledge its own shortcomings and be more inclusive?
I feel like there are two dimensions to this shift. The first is in terms of media representation, and the second is the material conditions/accessibility of skateboarding. First, the proliferation of counter-normative representation in skate media is important and exciting. Seeing different people doing tons of different things in different places is awesome. I’m happy that we don’t have to watch nothing but male pro-skaters from California or New York anymore to get hyped before a session. Similarly, the steady stream of skate media that isn’t just another company video has been important too. It’s led to people taking skateboarding as a whole less seriously, which I think is a good thing. There’s more room for play and experimentation, and what counts as skate media has never been so loosely defined (again, a good thing). I hope that this DIY impulse continues to grow, and eats away at the corporatization of skate media.
And the accessibility?
When it comes to the material conditions and accessibility of skateboarding, this is the best time to be alive and skating, at least from my experience. However, this isn’t some trickle-down process: just because there is more visible diversity among pro-skaters doesn’t mean that there will be a change in the culture. Rather, it’s the result of grassroots efforts in communities across the world. Here in Bellingham, at the park every other person is queer, disabled, womxn, or trans. It hasn’t always been like that, though. Much of our scene is womxn-led, and I have to give a shout-out to the local womxn who have forced a lot of change to happen very quickly here in Bellingham. It’s been inspiring to see, and an honour to support in some small way.
Keep up the good work, and we hope we can get over to Bellingham to skate with them soon!
