LGBTQ+ cinema has a history of being overlooked by the Oscars, and the 2025 edition of the awards show proves this is still the case.
Gays love awards. Is it because we love the drama of it all? Or is it because we didn't feel valued growing up in a society that strove to push us down and traumatise us in any way possible? Nah, it's definitely the drama. And no awards run is more dramatic or juicy than the Oscars.
Every year, some faves get nominated and others get robbed, much to the indignation of gays worldwide. That's especially true when it comes to LGBTQ+ cinema, which has a history of being overlooked by the Oscars. Saying any combination of the words "All", "Of", "Us", or "Strangers" risks giving me a full-blown seizure. And by this point, my therapist has banned me from talking about the year Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture to ****.
Still, there have been some exceptions to this "no homo" rule, just look at Moonlight, and with a new year comes new nominations to sing our praises for.
Sing Sing, for one, which gave gay actor Colman Domingo his second Best Actor nod in a row following last year's Rustin. Incredible acting aside, give the award to Colman for his red carpet looks, if nothing else. He looks so good that gays actually want to see him in clothes, despite how hot he is.
And don't forget Adam Elliot's Best Animated Film nod for Memoir of a Snail which arrives 9 years after he became the first gay filmmaker to win for his short, Harvie Krumpet.
But when the queers all meet for their weekly get-together, the two films that will obviously top the (gay) agenda at our latest meeting will of course be Wicked and Emilia Pérez.
Did you know that their Best Picture noms make this the first time two musicals have been put together in that same category since 1968 when Oliver and Funny Girl were both nominated? Of course you did. You're a homosexual. And if you're not, why are you reading this article?
Wicked bagged ten nominations this year, which also happens to be the number of times I want to sleep with Jonathan Bailey in one night. I'm not quite sure how it nabbed Best Original Score though, what with it being one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time. Even the Best Film nod is a bit suspect when you look at the way it was lit and shot. But at the end of the day, Wicked is a musical, so that's still a win for the alphabet people regardless.
Plus, Cynthia Erivo's nomination means the queer star now has a shot at completing that elusive EGOT lineup following her Emmy, Grammy, and Tony wins. Don't know what an EGOT is? Think of these four awards like they're Infinity Stones if Thanos was gay and into theatre.
To win the Oscar and complete her gauntlet, Erivo must defeat the star of Emilia Pérez who's just made history as the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for an Oscar. Kudos to Karla Sofía Gascón for delivering a worthy performance in a deeply unworthy film, which I previously described as a "groundbreaking trainwreck" right here.
The success of Emilia Pérez this season has been baffling and never more so than when I realised it's set the record for most Oscar nominations received by a non-English language film. Those 13 nods eclipse previous record holders Roma and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which previously bagged 10 each. I will avenge you, Michelle Yeoh!
Why nominate such a poorly made film, one that's drawn ire from trans and Mexican communities alike, in a year where trans cinema as a whole has never been more exciting?
Netflix's documentary Will & Harper had a shot, but didn't make the shortlist while it seems remarkable films such as The People's Joker and I Saw The TV Glow were too radical to succeed outside of indie award spaces like the Independent Spirits and the Gotham Awards. GLAAD also snubbed this latter pair in particular, which does not sit right when a convicted felon is out to steal the rights of trans people in America at this very moment.
The list of queer and queer-adjacent snubs at the Oscars continues with Angelina Jolie for Maria (bisexual icon), Denzel Washington for Gladiator II (who plays a bisexual hussy), and Pamela Anderson, who isn't queer and doesn't play a queer character in The Last Showgirl for that matter either. Still, Pam is an honorary gay regardless thanks to her generation-defining turn in Barb Wire, which will eventually land in the Criterion Collection, no matter what the haters say.
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Yet two of the biggest snubs this year were undoubtedly for Queer and Challengers, two seminal and extremely horny movies made by the seminal and (presumably) horny legend Luca Guadagnino. Since Call Me Be Your Name nabbed four nominations and raised an entire generation of baby gays in one fell swoop, Luca has fallen out of favour with the Academy, despite being one of the best filmmakers working today.
I know, I know, awards are subjective. Blah blah blah. But refusing to recognise Daniel Craig for his career-best performance in Queer is objectively wrong. Did you not see the awkward little bow he did in the cafe?
The same is also true of pretty much everything about Challengers. There is more talent in that little churro than in the entirety of Emilia Pérez. At the very least, the film's score deserved a nomination and it's hard to understand why that didn't happen.
What did Guadagnino do to be shut out so resolutely? Unless Oscar voters simply hate to see the gays winning?
It's true that when queer films are nominated, it tends to be those seen as more "palatable" for mainstream audiences. That's definitely true of Wicked, which is barely gay at all if you ignore Fiyero's bulge, and it's somewhat true of Emilia Pérez as well given how dated the trans storytelling feels. Disagree? I'll direct you to an actual song from the film, which goes something like, "Man to woman / From penis to vagina!" and "Adam's apple reduction / Yes, yes, yes, yes!"
At least we'll always have The Substance, which, while not gay on paper, is actually very queer, thematically speaking. Because who among us LGBTQs hasn't worried about aging or felt monstrous in our own bodies at one point or another?
Body dysmorphia hits the gays harder than William Lee tried to tap that a** in Queer. And then there's gender dysphoria, that horrific feeling of being trapped in the wrong body, which also seems pretty darn relevant to The Substance if you think about it.
Throw in an inspiring narrative around Demi Moore's journey to Oscar glory and you've got yourself a film that's arguably more queer than Wicked and Emilia Pérez combined. Demi Moore did star in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, lest you forget. Give her a long overdue Oscar win for that and maybe we can forgive everything that went wrong with the Oscars in the year of our good lord, 2025.