“I’m known as the action guy. I will always bring up an action movie from the 80s and 90s because they are all gay”
Dale talks about his niche skill of finding queer themes in action-packed blockbusters.
Chapter 1 |5 min read | October 5, 2021
Hi, my name is Dale Herbert, I currently work for Indeed. I'm a global benefits manager at indeed. So basically what I'm doing is making sure that all of our employees get all of the the best that we can offer, the best experience we can offer them as far as what we give [for] leaves or time away from work to spend with your families or any time away that you need to for transitioning—all of that stuff my team covers.
I actually graduated from Texas State with a degree in theater. And it's not really what I'm doing but I also can't say that I wouldn't be where I am today without all of those skills that I learned as a director. It's really helped me come out of my shell and be more welcoming to people I kind of also developed this passion of wanting to help people and do the best that I could for everyone in whatever way that I could. It's not necessarily what I think is best but what will work out better for the person.
A few years ago, a local artist named created a show that is called queer film theory. The show was set up as a way for people around our age, to talk about the films that we watched as a kid that we found queer representation in, because we didn't have it growing up. It wasn't as readily available as it is now, I can turn on Netflix or Hulu or any of the streaming services and just get all of the queer content I can ask for. But that wasn't around in the 80s at all. So the show was created as a way for queer people to kind of take a look back at the movies that had a larger impact on them than they probably thought at the time. But as they've grown and developed their personality and really come into their identity, they realized that it was always just kind of there in the background. It has been going on for years now. It's now hosted by Mike Grossman, another local fantastic person. But the show's kind of evolved into more what do we find just generally so we've opened up the audience to just pretty much anyone of any age.
We've had a lot of people who really don't know who they are, yet come up on stage and speak. But they found this subversive queer narrative and film and they didn't realize it and it really connected with them. So that's been a really beautiful thing to watch is that people of all ages now coming up talking about films that were just released in theaters that nobody picked up on the queer subtext or movies, even from the 40s and 50s that it's usually right there.
So the theme of the month was blockbusters and Mike and the co-host, Leslie Clayton lovingly referred to me as the action dude, because I will always bring up an action movie from the 80s and 90s because they are all gay. So I talked about Total Recall—which is clearly like he is on a quest, that entire movie to find out who he is exactly like what we have now.
“We are people that are capable of living full and same lives that have layers to them. And we aren't just a coming-out story.”
Dale
So I'm an only child, single mom. And as a treat for herself, my mom would go to San Antonio from a small town in South East Texas, she had tickets to like Broadway Across America growing up, and she would go with her girlfriends. It was always a special day for me because I got to wake up early and my mom took me into the video store and I got to pick out whatever movies I wanted to entertain myself all day. While she was watching theater, I always chose the action movies where the guy is like shirtless on the cover.
And my mom was, from [when I was] a very young age, as she told me when I was an adult, she was always scared that I was going to be gay. So she tried to always push me into all of the like, masculine stuff since I didn't have a father in my life. I would go on the farm with my uncle, and cousins, and we would do all of the farm things. I learned how to drive a tractor before I learned how to drive a car. Like that's always the like South Texas story, right, of a farm kid?
She put me into Boy Scouts, she did all of this stuff that would put me around like more of a masculine energy. And in her mind, what I've gathered is that, these are action movies. So they're hyper-masculine and they're probably going to have sex with a woman in it, and you're going to see her boobs, and it's going to be great for him to get that exposure.
But what she never realized is that I was like, looking at the men never looking at the woman. That's a story I love to tell a Queer Film Theory before I set up the inevitable action movie that I'm going to talk about later on in the program.
I still kind of struggle with queer representation and television. Sometimes it still doesn't feel as authentic as it could. I am quite frankly a little tired of the coming-out story. There is more to us than that, we are people that are capable of living full and same lives that have layers to them. And we aren't just a coming-out story. One of the big standouts for me is Love, Simon. I know that I get a lot of hate when I talk about this because it's such a beloved movie for so many people. But as I was watching that movie, it didn't feel like it was for us. It didn't feel like it was a movie that was trying to relate to us or speak to us. It felt like it was a movie for our parents to watch. And kind of finally come to terms a little bit with maybe the homophobia they had of not wanting a queer child, or maybe not always reading the signs when your child is like crying out for help, essentially, wanting to be heard. That movie is huge I mean, it's cute, it's fine. But I just don't think it was for us.
See More from Dale
Chapter 2: Health and High Water
Dale shares his story about battling testicular cancer and his journey through recovery and self-positivity
Chapter 3: Standing Up for Your Values
Dale discusses the joys of working at a place that shares his values and how that is important when finding a place to make a career.