Arts·Here & Queer

Sook-Yin Lee explores sex work through a story from her own past in Paying For It

Lee stopped by Here & Queer to talk about her acclaimed adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel.

Lee stopped by Here & Queer to talk about her acclaimed adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel

Peter Knegt · CBC Arts · Posted: Jan 23, 2025 12:40 PM EST | Last Updated: January 23

Sook-Yin Lee on the set of Here & Queer. (CBC Arts)

Here & Queer is a Canadian Screen Award-winning talk series hosted by Peter Knegt that celebrates and amplifies the work of LGBTQ artists through unfiltered conversations.

For Sook-Yin Lee, making her new film Paying For It was a deeply meaningful experience. Not only did it allow her to adapt her great friend Chester Brown's graphic novel of the same name, but it allowed her to explore a story that was in many ways also her own.

Cutaways
Sook-Yin Lee on adapting Chester Brown's comic strip memoir about sex work into a film

"Chester Brown is a fantastic cartoonist," Lee said, stopping by the Here & Queer set back in September when the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. "He's also my family. I've known him for a long time. He's my best friend. He was my first love, the first significant love of my life. And in 2011, he came out with an extraordinary book called Paying for It."

The book is about Brown's experience with paying for sex in the late 1990s, but it's also about his relationship with Lee and a sort of political treatise around the disparity of rights for sex workers. All of this combined was too much for Lee to pass up as a filmmaker, so she asked Brown if she could adapt it into a movie.

"And because we were very close, he said, 'yes, OK, no problem.'"

Watch Lee talk about the journey from there in this episode of Here & Queer:

Paying For It opens in Canadian cinemas on January 31, 2025. Find out where to watch it here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Knegt

Peter Knegt (he/him) hosts the Canadian Screen Award-winning talk series Here & Queer, writes the monthly column Dispatches From Dystopia and produces the essay series Emerging Queer Voices. His previous work at CBC Arts included writing the LGBTQ-culture column Queeries (winner of the Digital Publishing Award for best digital column in Canada) and spearheading the launch and production of series Canada's a Drag, variety special Queer Pride Inside, and interactive projects Superqueeroes and The 2010s: The Decade Canadian Artists Stopped Saying Sorry. Beyond CBC, Knegt is also the filmmaker of numerous short films, the author of the book About Canada: Queer Rights and the curator and host of the monthly film series Queer Cinema Club at Toronto's Paradise Theatre.

Sook-Yin Lee explores sex work through a story from her own past in Paying For It

Lee stopped by Here & Queer to talk about her acclaimed adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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