The Academy Awards are one of the most coveted trophies in the realm of cinema. The Oscars are conferred to some of the best talents in the film industry in Hollywood and beyond. Some of the most decorated categories are that ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actor’, ‘Best Actress’, and others. Motion Pictures tell many stories which get recognition at the Academy Awards due to their grammar, sub-text, screenplay, and all other aspects that conspire together. However, somehow, LGBTQIA+ films have been slower to get the deserved recognition.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has done work toward recognizing the queer voices in the cinema. However, time and again they have snubbed certain voices from the community. During the 95th Academy Awards, in the ‘Best Foreign Film’ category, they snubbed an important Pakistani film ‘Joyland’. It had a transgender character in the film which was a pivotal representation of orthodox Pakistani society. As we said, the Academy is warming up to the representation of those voices, here is a list of LGBTQIA+ voices in the cinema that the Oscars amplified.
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10) Boys Don’t Cry
“We have come a long way”, Hilary Swank said as she accepted the ‘Best Actress’ award for the 2000 drama ‘Boys Don’t Cry’. It is an important film in the cinema archives where a transgender character is represented in a nearly right manner. It was not a mockery, but a display of what a transgender person can go through in a rural town in Nebraska. Hilary played the character of Teena Brandon, who wants to become a boy. But, life’s tragedy increases as she fights for her identity to be seen and acknowledged.
9) American Beauty
One of the most interesting wins in the last century was Sam Mendes’ ‘American Beauty’. It takes us on a journey of an unhappy man who seems to have lost the rigor of life due to his unloving family and job, but the film takes an empathetic take on his failures and a witty take on his midlife crisis. Though the film does not directly deal with anything queer, the homophobia portrayed by Chris Cooper is a significant picture of today’s time as well.
8) Call Me By Your Name
It is not an easy task to adapt a book into a screenplay for celluloid, but Luca Guadagnino and James Ivory did a stellar job doing so. The film is an intimate look at a young boy’s journey to discover his sexuality during one summer with his father’s apprentice. Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer present tender romance and sensuality in a very intricate and economic manner credited to Luca’s direction. At the 2018 Oscar awards, the film won the black statuette for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’.
7) Milk
One of the most LGBTQIA+ figures Harvey Milk was played by Sean Penn in Gus van Sant’s biographical drama ‘Milk’. Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. He was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Penn portrayed Milk in a very economically camp manner toning the stereotype many notches down. At the Oscars 2009, Sean Penn very rightfully won the ‘Best Actor’ trophy and the film won the ‘Best Original Screenplay’ award.
6) Midnight Cowboy
It is a very fun American debut for John Schlesinger with ‘Midnight Cowboy’. It stars Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two hustlers in New York City. Voight plays an eager beaver and overconfident Joe Buck who thinks he can get a rich, sugar mommy. So, he comes to New York to find one but meets with disappointment and Hoffman’s Enrico.
The film deals very subtly with the sexuality of two men who are in denial and their friendship. It won in most of the important categories at the Oscars in 1970. ‘Midnight Cowboy’ won the trophy for ‘Best Film’. John also won the award for ‘Best Director’, and Waldo Salt won the trophy for ‘Best Writing’. One of the most awarded LGBTQIA+ films.
5) All About My Mother
There has been a tradition of having a tragic story for LGBTQIA+ characters. Even if they are to be represented comically, the portrayal is hell-bent on stereotypes. However, Pedro Almodòvar presents this queer tale in a whimsical and heartfelt manner. It is about a mother who wants to complete the unfulfilled project of her deceased son. When she goes back to Barcelona, she meets with her past life of prostitution after meeting a transvestite friend, a lesbian couple, and a transgender woman, who is her son’s father. The film won the Academy Award for ‘Best Foreign Film’ in 2000.
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4) Brokeback Mountain
The Oscars 2006 was filled with drama due to the upset audience and cinephiles raging when ‘Crash’ won the ‘Best Film’ award at the ceremony. The Academy snubbed one of the most important LGBTQIA+ films that are ‘Brokeback Mountain’. The film was not only a breakthrough for a mainstream film to present the aching dual life of two gay men in rural Wyoming. The Ang Lee gay Western won three awards that night including ‘Best Director’.
3) A Fantastic Woman
It is always a foreign film that has portrayed the life of a transgender person in society. Sebastián Lelio’s film ‘A Fantastic Woman’ also takes on the journey with its protagonist Marina, a Chilean trans woman played by the effervescent Daniela Vega dignified the character. Marina is suffering from the untimely death of her lover Orlando. However, a mistress’ grieving is of no value. The dehumanization of Marina during the police procedure exposes the systematic injustice toward transgender individuals. The film won the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’.
2) Green Book
If ‘Crash’ was a non-deserving film dealing with racism, ‘Green Book’ was far superior in terms of its meticulousness and complexity. There are two actors Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, who are pitch-perfect in their portrayal of Don Shirley and Tony Vallelonga. Don is a snobbish Jazz Musician and Tony is his newly appointed driver. As the two go to the racially insensitive South, the duo has to navigate spaces and aspects like class, race, and sexual orientation. The film won the Academy for ‘Best Picture, ‘Best Supporting Actor’ to Mahershala Ali, and ‘Best Original Screenplay’.
1) Moonlight
There was a baseless debate ongoing on why ‘La La Land’ did not win the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture’ in 2017. Mahershala Ali’s starrer ‘Moonlight’ is a great structural study of masculinity and breaking its conventionality of it keeping it tied to conventional tropes. It is a story of a man Black, who gets out of jail to have a new life. Barry Jenkins takes on the journey through his life on what conditioning makes him like that. He conceals a side of himself to others and himself. His sexuality. The film was a deserving winner of the black trophy. It was an important international cinematic piece infused with emotions and visuals.
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