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Jen Tullock and Hannah Pearl Utt are “Disengaged”

Super Deluxe‘s new series Disengaged follows the engagement of Sydney (series co-creator and writer Jen Tullock) and Jules (co-creator, writer and director Hannah Pearl Utt) after they give in to the pressures of getting married following the Supreme Court decision to legalize marriage equality. The pilot premiered this past December, and now more episodes will launch on their YouTube channel this Sunday.

We chatted with Jen and Hannah about how the series came to fruition, the new pressure same-sex couples have on them to get married, and their collaborative partnership of 10 years.

AfterEllen: So where did the idea of creating this series about two women being engaged stem from?

Jen Tullock: Well, I think it was two-fold, actually. I think it was inspired by true-to-life codependent experiences Hannah and I have both had in past relationships and with each other as friends and business partners. In a series of conversations we have had over the years as friends, we found that if there was a through line in our past relationships, it was severe co-dependency and oftentimes a competitive nature-even though, historically, my relationships have been with women and Hannah’s have been with men.

Hannah Pearl Utt: We got a real insight into the marriage industrial complex and the wedding industrial complex.

JT: We’ve had a lot of people tell us that they saw themselves in the pilot and the issue of feeling pressured to get married. People have also told us that their rushed or pressured decision to get married ended in divorce. On the flip side, we have many happily married friends who we love and hope see themselves in aspects of the show as well.

HPU: There were so many aspects of Jen’s relationship with women that were totally unique to two women cohabitating and sharing friends, that we just thought were great opportunities for comedy that we hadn’t seen before.

AE: Do you think that there are LGBT couples out there that are feeling pressured to get married now that it’s legal?

JT: Oh 100%. When you are compartmentalized as a minority, not just a minority but a social minority, where you are campaigning for something, there is absolutely an applied pressure to do the socially responsible thing.

HPU: We’ve had a lot of people tell us that they have watched the pilot and told us that they have felt the same type of pressure to get married when same-sex marriage was legalized. There are people who have also told us they are already divorced because they simply got married to take a stand, but on the other side of that, we have several friends who are very happily married.

JT: We certainly didn’t want this to be a thing where we are saying we don’t agree with marriage, but the heart of the piece was that regardless of the exterior circumstances of a relationship, it’s something you have to think very critically about.

HPU: Also, no convention makes sense for all types of relationships. Just like not all education makes sense for every child, marriage isn’t the right format for all relationships.

JT: When you talk about queer television and queer cinema, we see an attempt to bring the story lines to the front, but oftentimes, we then canonize or idealize these relationships to say “Oh, look! Queer people are just like everyone else.” And the truth is yes,we are varied and nuanced and can be fucked up.

AE: So what would be some advice you would give someone who is feeling pressured to get married because they can now?

JT: You don’t get a do-over. You are talking about someone else autonomy and, more importantly, your own autonomy and your future.

HPU: And it’s legally binding. First of all, you should know there is nothing you should do in a relationship simply based on outside pressure; I think that’s standard relationship advice.

JT: Also, specifically talking about queer people thinking about getting married, remember the soldier in you. Remember how difficult it was to fight for the understanding and community that if you are lucky, you now enjoy. Remember that tenacity because when it comes down to all of a sudden having to “march in line” if that’s a healthy situation for you then you will have the support of our community, but if it’s not right for you, then it’s not your cross to bear.

AE: Did you have to do any research while creating this or was it all based on what you have learned throughout your own lives?

HPU: Ummm…thats a good question! We did do some wedding research in talking about what we wanted to focus on in each episode.

JT: We did, actually, and I’m embarrassed to tell you as a gay woman, but I had to go back and look up when all of the legalization decisions had been made.

HPU: We also did a lot of what we call “character therapy.” Part of my process as an actor and director is basically holding therapy sessions as our characters, to figure out the parameters of arguments or disagreements, and then talk that out in character. This helps find the emotional arc of the story and really fine tune the conflict.

AE: Well you guys have great chemistry together!

JT: Thank you! It’s interesting to inhabit this space as incredibly close friends, we have been friends for 10 years almost, I dated Hannah’s childhood best friend for years, which is what brought our families together. Which we have to continually convince them that we are not secretly dating. [laughs] Hannah’s mom asks every time she sees us, “Is there something you want to tell me?”

HPU: Which I always say, “Do you really think I wouldn’t tell you that mom?” We are actually playing sisters in our feature coming out.

JT: Yes it’s going to be interesting going from a madly in love couple to playing sisters. [laughs]

AE: How did you get Disengaged started?

HPU: We started talking to Super Deluxe, where we know one of the producers who works there, and she told [Superdeluxe Director] Wolfgang [Hammer] about us and our dynamic and some of the things we were working on. And then we started tossing around ideas with him, and some of the other producers and we were just really encouraged by them to focus on stories that we really wanted to tell, and we knew these characters and had been playing around with them for a while, so it was just about finding the right framework. We wanted to use the traditional model of using the pilot as a way of gauging the response and nailing down our aesthetic-which is why there’s been so much time between the pilot and these next episodes-but we’re really happy we did it that way.

AE: I really liked it! It’s not often that you see a lesbian couple who are the main characters who aren’t necessarily that happy in their relationship and are just trying to figure it out, but also, like we said before, the pressures that same-sex couples feel to get married but might not want to technically admit that.

JT: Thank you! I think those characters that play our friends were also meaningful to have because we wanted to reflect the feelings of pressure to get married from other gay couples as well as straight couples, from people who had benefitted from those conventions for years. It’s such an interesting culture, the culture of marriage, and it sheds a lot of light on people’s neurotic behaviors.

HPU: We are sort of at a point in our lives where there is such a generational shift in how we think about marriage, and it’s almost like that’s not the only choice now.

AE: Were there any challenges that you encountered or times you felt discouraged while filming?

HPU: We claimed a lot of firsts on this so it was sort of scary in an exhilarating way of, like, “What if no one watches this?” or “What if EVERYONE watches this?”

JT: I think it was a dual anxiety. Hannah and I have worked together for a long time and have a shorthand and an ease creatively, but this was the first time that we lived in that relationship directly with a whole team of people. Historically when we have shot things together, it was with a small group of people that we knew really well. This was the first time where we had to act in those roles and we had to do it extra efficiently because we were working on other people’s timetable, so that was a challenge at times. I think it was also knowing that there was a social, topical piece to this, even though the point for us was just to tell a story about a relationship, we didn’t set out to make a gay thing specifically, but we just wanted to tell a human story that we knew was going to be told best. And also reflected on shared experiences, that just so happened include most of my ex-girlfriends. [laughs]

HPU: I think we also wanted to honor the community of people that would see themselves in this story while also making it acceptable for anybody.

JT: We wanted the specific story of two women to resonate on a much broader scheme.

AE: What is one thing you hope people take away from watching this?

JT: I hope people in relationships feel inspired towards the greater independence that doesn’t take away from their relationship and I hope that people that aren’t in relationships feel inspired towards the greater independence regardless. Because, for us, the thing about these two girls deciding whether or not they should be together isn’t a question of if they love each other; it’s a question about whether they build each other up and make each other better. I also hope that people have fun! I hope people have a fucking good time laughing at the absurdity of these two neurotic self-indulgent people.

Check back on AfterEllen this Sunday at 9am PT for the exclusive premiere of the second episode of Disengaged and then watch the rest of the season at 10am PT on the Super Deluxe YouTube page.

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