Sean Cody Issues Statement In Response To Nationwide Protests: “We Fully Support The Black Lives Matter Movement”
Following a similar statement from their sister studio Men.com last week, Sean Cody has just released their own statement in response to the nationwide protests—now in their 14th day following the police murder of George Floyd—in support of Black Lives Matter.
Here’s the image the studio posted on Twitter today, which reads in part, “We fully support the Black Lives Matter movement. In recent years, diversity has become one of our mandates, but we acknowledge that there is more to be done to create a space that normalizes our differences, fosters change, and puts an end to bigotry and systemic oppression.”
Sean Cody has faced criticism for their lack of diversity since the studio was launched in 2001, long before the studio was sold to conglomerate MindGeek in 2015. A 2016 Str8Up ranking found that men of color made up just 2.7% of the studio’s overall roster (only 28 of 1024 models), and while there has been an improvement in those numbers over the last four years, Sean Cody—like virtually every gay porn studio—has a considerable amount of work left to do. Just one year ago, Sean Cody hired a model with a Confederate Flag tattoo and was caught attempting to blur out the racist symbol in his scenes. Following the articles here and severe backlash, the studio removed the model’s scenes from their site and eventually apologized.
Other gay porn studios have released statements on Twitter regarding the protests and Black Lives Matter, including Falcon/NakedSword (previously covered here):
NextDoor:
And here was Men’s:
Making statements on Twitter in support of Black Lives Matter, acknowledging past mistakes, and vowing to increase diversity are good things, obviously, but what matters more are the actions these studios now take, and who they actually cast in their productions going forward. It’ll be quite clear who’s living up to their promises as we look at the content these studios release in the months ahead.
