Gay guide to the Oscars: there are queer hooks to this year’s Academy Awards, if you’re willing to dig a little for them
Alonso Duralde
While gay auteurs Bill Condon (Kinsey) and Pedro Almodovar (Bad Education) find themselves not Oscar-nominated for the first time in several movies, there will still be a queer presence at the 77th annual Academy Awards. This list may not win you any betting pools, but at least you’ll have the full homo skinny on Hollywood’s orgy of self-back-patting, also known as “the gay Super Bowl.”
THE AVIATOR The 11 nominations for this year’s front-runner include the screenplay by out writer John Logan [see page 54] and Cate Blanchett’s mostly spot-on portrayal of Kate Hepburn–discussions of the latter’s sex life get more and more interesting the longer she’s dead.
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MILLION DOLLAR BABY Besides the lesbians who helped get Hilary Swank into fighting fettle [see page 50], this seven-time nominee features the Boys Don’t Cry star butching it up in the boxing ring. Seems butch is how the Academy likes her best.
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KINSEY It topped The Advocate’s list of movies of the year, but Bill Condon’s extra-ordinary biopic of bi sex researcher Alfred Kinsey scored but one nod, for Laura Linney’s wonderful supporting performance. The Academy’s message to Condon and canoodling costars Liam Neeson and Peter Sarsgaard [see page 44]? Kiss a dude, lose the nomination.
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RYAN This nominee in the animated shorts category depicts the life of bisexual animator Ryan Larkin, who was himself a nominee in 1970 for the short film Walking.
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RAY and COLLATERAL WhiLe two-time nominee Jamie Foxx is on his way to owning Hollywood, we’ll always remember his comedic cross-dressing on In Living Color. You go, Wanda!
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CLOSER Supporting actor nominee Clive Owen’s bout of cybersex with costar Jude Law is arguably hotter than any of his scenes with Julia Roberts or fellow nominee Natalie Portman. But then, they both had screen breakthroughs playing gay men–Owen in Bent, Law in Wilde–so no surprise there.
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BEING JULIA This backstage comedy features a gay British lord (Bruce Greenwood) and a stealth lesbian arts patron (Miriam Margolyes), but the whole show belongs to its sole nominee, Annette Bening.
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SHARK TALE and SHREK 2 The fish movie presents Jack Black’s vegetarian shark as a subtle gay metaphor, while the sequel features Larry King as a very butch barmaid, much to the ire of certain fundamentalist types. Oh, and Shrek as a human? Total hottie.
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SIDEWAYS We’re thrilled that Virginia Madsen and Thomas Haden Church got nominated, but what about Sandra Oh (so unforgettable as a lesbian in Under the Tuscan Sun) or the incomparable Paul Giamatti? His snub last year for American Splendor was bad enough, but this takes the merlot.
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THE SEA INSIDE and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Gay directors Alejandro Amenabar and Joel Schumacher represent on Oscar night, as their films snag a few nominations each–but not for direction.
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FINDING NEVERLAND
Taking a break from camping it up between Pirates of the Caribbean and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, actor nominee Johnny Depp found time to play a writer whose friendship with a family of young boys is inevitably misunderstood.
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TROY A lone nomination for costume design acknowledges that it’s the best thing to happen to miniskirts since Georgy Girl. Our own costume award goes to documentary nominee SUPER SIZE ME, since McDonald’s nemesis Morgan Spurlock is hotter than Mark Spitz in his stars-and-stripes Speedo, even after a month of junk food.
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COPYRIGHT 2005 Liberation Publications, Inc.
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