Jacen Zhu Explains Why He’ll No Longer Film With Noir Male: “We Are Being Used To Sell A Product That Doesn’t Cater To Our Community”
He was arguably the hottest man on their model roster, but you won’t see Jacen Zhu performing in Noir Male scenes anymore. The award-winning gay porn star announced today that he’ll no longer be appearing in scenes for the studio, and he explained why in a series of tweets this afternoon. Zhu says he stopped filming with the studio (his last scene with them was released in February) when he “woke up” to see that “everything was a lie” at Noir Male:
Zhu went on to explain that the “aspiration didn’t meet the reality” at Noir Male, and that he and his black co-stars were “used to sell a product that doesn’t cater to our community”:
As Str8UpGayPorn noted last year when the studio launched, a majority of Noir Male’s models were white men, not black men. Despite that fact, the studio marketed itself with the tagline, “Showcases Black Men As They Deserve To Be Seen.” In Zhu’s opinion, Noir Male hasn’t lived up to that promise.
In another tweet, Zhu pointed out that the person who does casting for Noir Male also does the casting for its sister studio, Icon Male:
As some will recall, both Icon Male and Noir Male are part of the Canadian straight porn conglomerate Mile High Media, which is owned by a straight white man named Jon Blitt. Yes, a straight white man in Canada owns and operates a gay porn studio that “showcases black men as they deserve to be seen.” And, all of Noir Male’s scenes (and Icon Male’s scenes, too, since disgraced director Nica Noelle finally left the studio after being sued in federal court for illegally filming content in a rental house) are directed by Chi Chi LaRue.
Back in August of 2018 when it launched, there were 29 men on Noir Male’s model roster, with 16 of them being white, and just 13 of them being black or mixed race. Over six months later, that ratio hasn’t improved much, for a studio that’s purportedly focused on black men. As of today, there are now 67 men on the Noir Male model roster, 30 of whom are white and 37 of whom are black or mixed race.
Jacen Zhu concluded his tweets earlier today by telling followers that his concerns with Noir Male have nothing to do with not being paid, and that they were about “misrepresentation and promises for people of color”:
When asked what led up to his announcement today, Jacen Zhu told Str8UpGayPorn, “It’s something I wanted to say for a while, after I sat back and watched how the site isn’t really doing justice for men of color.”
