Playing Gay: A Bona Fide Ticket to Oscarville?

THE TRAILER for Gus Van Sant’s highly anticipated new film MILK was leaked less than a week ago, and already we’re hearing the “O” word mentioned. It makes sense. If MILK is anything like the trailer, then Sean Penn is an almost guaranteed Oscar contender. Ted Casablanca has a theory. The idea that if an actor wants to be taken seriously (i.e. to be nominated for an Academy Award), he’s gotta play gay.

Think Philip Seymour Hoffman as a delicate Truman Capote in Capote (winner). Or Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain (both nominated). Or go back as far as, Javier Bardem as Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls (nominated). And even farther to front runner Tom Hanks as an HIV positive lawyer in Philadelphia (winner). Not to mention the speculation of a posthumous Oscar nom for Ledger as drag queen, super-diva The Joker in The Dark Night – not an explicitly gay role, but read between the lines folks. In that light, yes, a nomination for Penn doesn’t seem far fetched.

But is playing gay the only seemingly bona fide ticket to Oscarville? No and probably not. Playing gay may get the attention of directors, and certainly the media — see this gushing article in The Times that almost proclaims the second coming of a new queer cinema (back in 2005!). When it comes down to actually winning, playing gay is as certain as…. (insert your own punster simile here).

E-Online’s Ted Casablanca disagrees.

It’s worth noting Casablanca’s effortless jump from “hookers” and “sluts” to “homos” and “handicaps” — as though the two were synonymous. And he’s a gay man. Surely, by now, someone at Lambda Legal or GLAD has put in a call into E-Online! for that small, if not innocent, quip.

At best we must take Casablanca’s snark with a grain of salt (or a shot of tequila, or both!), at worst we accuse him of inaccuracy. This is tough. Mr. Casablanca has written about entertainment gossip for longer than than the lifespan of this blog. (In fact, this reviewer was 7-years-old when Casablanca began his distinguished career at Premiere.) So, we can — and for sanity’s sake must — rationalize that his off-the-cuff remarks are merely ironic and teasing instead of presumptuous and lazy. Pretenses aside, if playing gay, as Mr. C suggests, is a surefire stroll to nomination city, why are there so few gay roles — especially staring roles — ever nominated, or ever produced for that matter?

Over the past decade, starting with 1997, the roles for characters who explicitly mention or deal with homosexuality (and/or queerness) are fewer than Mr. Casablanca would have us believe. Out of a total 100 possible nominations (5 noms, x2 categories, x10 years) over the past decade of Academy Award shows we count 6 meager noms in the categories for Best Actor in both Leading or Supporting Roles.

1998. Ian McKellen (openly gay) was nominated for Gods and Monsters. he plays director James Whale. Based on a novel of the same name by openly gay author Christopher Bram.

2000. Javier Bardem was nominated for Before Night Falls. He plays Reinaldo Arenas, the openly gay, HIV positive, Cuban author. Loosely based on the author’s memoir of the same name.

2002. Ed Harris was nominated for The Hours. He plays Richard Brown, a frustrated HIV positive author and invalid who commits suicide.  Based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize wining novel of the same name. Incidentally, Meryl Streep plays a lesbian book editor.

2005. Philip Seymour Hoffman won (!!!) the Oscar for Capote. He portrays openly gay author-slash-socialite Truman Capote. Based on a biography of the same name by Gerald Clarke.

2005. Heath Ledger was nominated for Brokeback Mountain. He plays Ennis Del Mar a young cowboy conflicted with his sexuality. Based on the short story of the same name by Annie Proulx.

2005. Jake Gyllenhaal was nominated for Brokeback Mountain. He plays Jack Twist, the other half of Heath Ledger’s conflicted love disaster.

We’re not complaining here for the sake of complaining. We welcome the growing number of mainstream pop-culture portrayals of gay men. We’re happy to observe that more and more actors, producers, directors, and Academy members in general have evolved to the point that playing gay is acceptable, desirable even. However, the theory that playing gay increases an actor’s chances at Oscar gold is limp.

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Films we’re looking forward to this fall:

• The Informers | Co-written by, and based on the novel by, openly gay author Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, the book not the movie) — coming to a theater (fingers crossed) this winter.
• Choke | Also co-written by, and based on a novel by other homo-fav, Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) — showing in limited distribution later this month. We’ll tell you all about it.
• MILK | Directed by openly gay filmmaker, Gus Van Sant — the same guy who directed Good Will Hunting, Elephant, Drugstore Cowboy, and My Own Private Idaho. It’s got to be good.
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona | Written and directed by Woody Allen, this films stars one of the most beautiful power couples of all time Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz.

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