Media watchdog GLAAD on Monday lamented
the lack of “significant LGBTQ representation” in this year's
Oscar nominations.
The 93rd Annual Academy
Awards will take place on Sunday, April 25th at Los
Angeles' Union Station and Hollywood's Dolby Theater, the ceremony's
traditional home.
Viola Davis and Andra Day received
acting nominations for playing real-life bisexual music legends Ma
Rainey and Billie Holiday, respectively. Davis played Rainey in
Netflix's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, while Day played Holiday
in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, which was originally
set for a theatrical release but instead premiered on Hulu due to the
pandemic.
Lena Waithe was nominated for playing
the voice of a queer character in Pixar's animated film Onward.
Bisexual writer Travon Free received a
nomination for Two Distant Strangers, a short film.
“[I]n a year expected to yield
several LGBTQ inclusive nominees, very few emerged,” GLAAD said on
its website.
Among those that GLAAD expected to be
nominated were director David France for Welcome to Chechnya,
which documents the anti-LGBT purges in Chechnya, and the film Two
of Us, which centers on a lesbian couple. GLAAD also said that
out artist Janelle Monae should have been nominated in the Best
Original Song category for “Turntables” from All In: The Fight
for Democracy.
The Netflix documentary Disclosure,
which looks at the history of transgender representation in film and
television, was also snubbed.
“There were no LGBT actors nominated
in any acting category,” GLAAD said.
GLAAD did applaud the Academy for its
slate of diverse nominees, including the nominations of two women in
the Best Director category.