Why Kristen Stewart, Ariana Debose’s Oscar nominations are meaningful
Hollywood certainly has no shortage of LGBTQ actors. But rarely do any receive acting Oscar nominations.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences delighted the LGBTQ community when it revealed the Academy Awards field last month. It bestowed nominations on not one but two queer actors out of 20 nominees: Kristen Stewart for her lead actress turn as Princess Diana in the spellbinding “Spencer,” and Ariana Debose for supporting honors for playing Anita in the bewitching Steven Spielberg remake of “West Side Story.”
This historic moment aside, the academy has much to make up for. Ian Mckellan, for example, is still the only out gay male actor ever nominated for an Oscar, reports Vanity Fair.
Contrast that with how many straight, cisgender actors have been nominated for playing LGBTQ characters. Think Felicity Huffman for “Transamerica,” Eddie Redmayne for “The Danish Girl” and Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal for “Brokeback Mountain.” Others have even won, like Natalie Portman for “Black Swan,” and Jared Leto for “Dallas Buyers Club.”
The recognition for straight actors playing queer characters follows a painful past for the LGBTQ community and the academy: Rock Hudson was nominated for best actor but stayed closeted until he died in 1985 of AIDS; two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey announced he was living as a gay man only after he was accused of sexually harassing a teenage boy; and Jodie Foster is still the only best actress winner to come out (and years after her win at that).
“Hollywood, for about a century, has really stood on the labors and talents of so many queer people who have felt the need to conceal their queerness,” says Nadine Hubbs, director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender’s Lesbian-gay-queer Research Initiative at the University of Michigan. “And
these are two young, brilliant actresses who are brave enough to be out in Hollywood.”
Stewart and Debose’s nominations are historic for the LGBTQ community, but Hollywood’s metric for inclusion of queer actors must go beyond this moment to ensure progress, experts say.
“We think things are going to change forever and structurally, but sometimes it’s only the exception,” says Karen Tongson, director of the Consortium for Gender, Sexuality, Race and Public Culture at the University of Southern California. “And there’s so much work that needs to be done actually to transform Hollywood – with a capital H – in all its many forms, from the industry to its accolades.”
Increasingly, people from younger generations are coming out as queer. But it wasn’t so long ago that doing so was met with ridicule and vitriol instead of praise and congratulations – especially in Hollywood.
Take actress Anne Heche. On “Dancing With the Stars” in 2020, Heche discussed how her 31⁄2-year romance with Ellen Degeneres in the ’90s got her fired
from a major movie deal.
“The stigma attached to that relationship was so bad that I was fired from my multimillion-dollar picture deal and I did not work in a studio picture for 10 years,” Heche said at the time.
This moment isn’t lost on Debose, who has acknowledged the groundbreaking nature of her awards season.
“It’s just indicative that the doors are opening,” Debose told reporters after her Screen Actors Guild win for best supporting actress. “It’s an honor to be seen. It’s an honor to be an Afro-latina, an openly queer women of color, a dancer, a singer and an actor.”
Stewart added to Awardswatch: “I can’t believe that we’re among the first actually openly gay actors to be nominated.”
While queer people enjoy more acceptance today, in the U.S., the community still faces mounting ANTI-LGBTQ legislation. Representation in (and accolades for) film is invaluable for encouraging inclusion everywhere.
The Oscars spotlight “sends a very direct message to Hollywood that it’s important to invest in queer talent,” says Anthony Allen Ramos, vice president of communications and talent at GLAAD. “These two women in particular have been very outspoken and open about their queer identity.”
But it also presents a moment to consider these women outside of their identities, because Stewart and Debose play straight characters in their movies. We’ll see that again in the upcoming film “Bros,” in which lead heterosexual roles will be played by openly queer actors.
“It’s representative on a larger stage of how LGBTQ people would hope to be treated, and to be seen as people who can do all kinds of things and shouldn’t just be boiled down to their sexual and gender identities,” Hubbs says.
Despite a broader range of acceptance of stars speaking openly about their sexuality, too few queer roles still exist in Hollywood. Just 1.4% of speaking roles in the 100 most popular U.S. movies of 2019 were an LGBTQ character, according to a 2020 USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study. GLAAD’S Studio Responsibility Index found that just 22.7% of films from major studios in 2021 were Lgbtq-inclusive. And with the few queer roles that exist going mostly to straight actors – as in the case of Penélope Cruz, who is nominated for “Parallel Mothers,” in which she plays a new mother exploring her sexuality – opportunities for LGBTQ talent are as scarce as slots for Oscar nominations.
Hubbs notes that Stewart and Debose’s nominations – and even wins – could signal to viewers that queer people are fully human and can play all different kinds of parts.
Plus, if Debose wins, it’s not just a win for the queer community but for Afro-latinos, too. “We’re potentially on the verge of a huge moment here,” Ramos said.
Just don’t expect sunshine and rainbows to suddenly soar over Hollywood’s LGBTQ community going forward.
“I don’t think we’re at a place where we can assume that this establishes any kind of permanent precedent,” Hubbs says.