LGBTQ Presence At The Oscars

Though it was a banner year for LGBTQ inclusion at the 90th Academy Awards it didn’t come close to last year’s game-changing Best Picture win for “Moonlight”. This year we celebrated more LGBTQ presence behind the camera especially with Mudbound’s Rachel Morrison nominated for cinematography & its director Dee Rees nominated for screenplay. Though “Call Me by Your Name” was nominated for Best Picture making this the second year in a row a film focused around LGBTQ lead characters had been nominated, “The Shape of Water” did win that includes Richard Jenkins’ sensitive & moving portrayal of a gay man. A LGBTQ highlight of the 90th Oscar show was when host Jimmy Kimmel stated, “We don’t make films like ‘Call Me By Your Name' for money. We make them to upset Mike Pence." We did have a win with “A Fantastic Woman” from Chile starring transgender actress Daniela Vega receiving the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film that tells the story of Marina (Vega) a transgender woman grieving the loss of her recently deceased lover Orlando while dealing with his family’s prejudice. Also another LGBTQ nominee was Yance Ford is the first transgender director ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for “Strong Island” which tells the story of how race played a factor in the criminal justice system’s failure to indict the man who murdered his brother & the effect that it had on his family. However Best Documentary Feature went to Icarus by Bryan Fogel & Dan Cogan. So now we look forward to the future important stories our LGBTQ community will tell.
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