Oscars 2022: How they could make history

As recently as the 1990s, LGBTQ+ cinema was considered a fringe interest, confined to film festivals and arthouse cinema chains, save for a handful of exceptions (think: 1993's Philadelphia, and 1999's Boys Don't Cry, which won Tom Hanks and Hilary Swank acting Oscars, respectively). But the tide has changed in Hollywood in recent decades, reflecting a broader shift in attitudes within Western society. Awards are sometimes considered an unreliable metric for quality, but they do tend to reflect the contemporary social mood. It's no surprise, then, that as the public has become more accepting of LGBTQ+ identities and relationships, more films reflecting the stories of LGBTQ+ people have come under the awards spotlight.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Milk (2008) are the two most high-profile examples from the early 2000s. The former, Ang Lee's adaptation of the Annie Proulx story about a tortured gay affair between two cowboys, earned three Oscars and was favourite for best picture, before being controversially pipped to the post by Crash. The latter, a biopic of San Francisco's first openly gay mayor Harvey Milk, won Sean Penn best actor, and the pre-eminent gay writer Dustin Lance Black best adapted screenplay. Then in 2016, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight provided another pivotal moment in recognition for LGBTQ+ stories, when it became the first movie with a gay protagonist – whose lifelong struggle with his sexuality is the central narrative – to win best picture. From hereon, the erstwhile trickle has become more of a stream, with explicitly LGBTQ+ movies like A Fantastic Woman (2017), Call Me by Your Name (2017), and The Favourite (2018) being widely championed on the awards circuit.

In spite of this progress, however, there is a striking curiosity. While LGBTQ+ stories have become increasingly en vogue, openly LGBTQ+ actors have been almost entirely shut out from awards consideration for the past 20 years. Since Sir Ian McKellen's 2002 nod for wielding Gandalf's staff in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, no openly gay man has been nominated in any performance category. LBGTQ+ women have fared marginally better: Angelina Jolie, who is openly bisexual, won best supporting actress for Girl, Interrupted (1999), and later landed a leading actress nomination for Changeling (2008). Since Jolie's nomination, however, Lady Gaga, who also identifies as bisexual, was the only LGBTQ+ person to receive any performance recognition – until now.

Dismal as this record is, this is why the 2022 Oscars are relatively special in this respect, with not one but two LGBTQ+ actors up for awards: Kristen Stewart for best actress for Spencer and Ariana DeBose for best supporting actress for Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake. Stewart identifies as bisexual, and DeBose as queer, and it is the first time that two openly LGBTQ+ performers have been nominated in the same year. If either of them win, that would make them one of the first ever out LGBTQ+ actors to pick up an award, and if both of them won, that would be truly historic – prognosticators are especially optimistic for DeBose, currently a clear favourite in the betting, while Stewart is coming in third or fourth in her category.

Why have LGBTQ+ actors been shut out?

But should this be a moment for a celebration – and to what extent? And, after all the film industry's gestures towards progressiveness in recent years, how can we explain the continuing near-total absence of LGBTQ+ actors from the prizes?

There's one caveat to note: in discussing this, it's logical to assume, based on historical patterns and sheer statistical likelihood, that there are more LGBTQ+ actors, and therefore Oscar-winners, in the film and television industries than we know – they're just not out. Just think of Kevin Spacey, who came out – albeit in the most controversial of circumstances – long after his pair of Oscar wins in the late-90s, or Jodie Foster, who went public as a lesbian similarly long after taking her statuette for The Silence of the Lambs (1993).

Nevertheless, one might assume that with broader recognition for LGBTQ+ stories should come more awards kudos for LGBTQ+ performers that are out. However that has clearly not been the case. What it comes back to is the fact that these actors are not being given the high-profile LGBTQ+ roles that are instead pushing straight actors to awards glory. The question of whether straight actors should be so often trusted with gay roles, and whether that is to the detriment of LGBTQ+ performers, is one that has been increasingly debated in recent years, but particularly flares up whenever the Oscars roll around.

On the one hand, an argument put forward by the likes of leading gay screenwriter Russell T Davies is that LGBTQ+ roles are best taken by LGBTQ+ performers because lived experience lends an abundance of authenticity, But a common counterpoint to this view is that it's an actor's job to fill the shoes of characters different to themselves – it's called acting, after all. The problem with that, critics suggest, is that it isn't a two-way street: straight actors will get the awards kudos for gay roles, but gay actors aren't given the opportunity to play straight in major – and award-winning – movies. Television is a more progressive field in this regard – one needs only look to Jonathan Bailey, the gay leading man playing the straight romantic hero in Netflix's Bridgerton (2019), or Neil Patrick Harris's stint as the womanising Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014). Sarah Paulson, who avoids labels but has been in public relationships with men and women, is an eight-time Emmy nominee, with a win coming for her role as Marcia Clark in The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story (2016). Cherry Jones's win in 2009, coming for her role as President Allison Taylor in 24, made her one of the first openly lesbian actresses to win a major TV award.

When McKellen himself was asked about why no openly gay man had ever won the best actor Oscar in an interview in 2016, he implied that that it was down to "prejudice", rather than chance: "My speech has been in two jackets… 'I’m proud to be the first openly gay man to win the Oscar'. I've had to put it back in my pocket twice," McKellen told The Guardian – while when asked to comment on the fact that Tom Hanks , Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sean Penn had all won best actor Oscars for playing gay men, he responded "How clever, how clever… what about giving me one for playing a straight man?"

Who should play LGBTQ+ characters?

"I think it's very strange that we're [still] routinely seeing actors who do not identify as queer being rewarded for playing a queer character," says Hannah Strong, digital editor of film magazine Little White Lies. In recent years, indeed, there has been a positive conveyor belt of ostensibly straight actors who have played LGBTQ+ roles to great acclaim, and subsequent awards recognition – from Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club (2014), to Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name (2017), Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Olivia Colman in The Favourite (2018). The latest, this year, is Benedict Cumberbatch, who is considered a best actor frontrunner for playing an implicitly gay rancher in The Power of the Dog. This isn't to say that said performances didn't merit the recognition they received, but, as Strong says: "We still struggle, massively, to see queer actors, or even queer filmmakers, get that kind of kudos. And I think that probably is prejudice... think about the makeup of places like the Academy. [Traditionally] they are quite dominated by the sort of 'one percenters' – you know, very wealthy, very conservative figures."

In recent years, the Academy has done work to diversify its voter pool in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite movement and other conversations about its lack of proportionate representation, doubling its number of female members between 2015 and 2020, and nearly tripling its number of members from racial and ethnic minorities, though there is no data related to members' sexual identities. At the same time, just last year the Academy also implemented a series of standards that a production must fulfil to qualify for best picture: broadly speaking, those working on a film – from the main cast through to gaffers and marketing assistants – are expected to be sourced, to some degree, from "underrepresented identity, racial, or ethnic groups". These groups include LGBTQ+ people, though that doesn't mean a film has to cast LGBTQ+ actors, regardless of content.

In thinking about this whole issue, an obvious question does arise: should we be this invested in the real-life sexualities of those we see on screen in any case? "The whole [question of a person's sexuality] is a bit of a spectrum, to me. I think this is very common in a lot of people's careers and lives: there's not usually one definitive moment before they're out, and after they're out, it just doesn't work like that," says Robey. "Drawing those lines is a little bit arbitrary, in my view." The counter argument usually goes that you can't be what you can't see – and that if queer actors and identities are clearly visible, on podiums and otherwise, then this is an inspiring thing for the next generation of LGBTQ+ people, within the industry and outside it. "I go back and forth on this, because, you know, it's 2022 – does it really matter who's kissing who, and who's having sex with who," says Strong. "But at the same time, I do feel it's important to see yourself reflected in culture... I would like to get to the stage where we're not having to have conversations like this, and where queer actors are recognised for their talent, and not having to constantly speak as a queer person."

When it comes to Stewart and DeBose, it's interesting, and many would say positive, that the fact of these two LGBTQ+ stars being nominated in one year has hitherto mostly flown under the radar, their sexuality treated as incidental. It could be argued that it is a positive step, too, when it comes to the opportunities afforded openly LGBTQ+ actors, that both are nominated for roles that are ostensibly straight: DeBose for playing Anita, the role made famous by Rita Moreno in the original film, and Stewart for playing Princess Diana. The latter might be argued to contain a queer subtext – given its high-camp sensibilities, the cultural importance of the Princess of Wales to LGBTQ+ people, and the unrequited love Sally Hawkins's lesbian character holds for Diana – but it is, for all intents and purposes, a biopic of a straight woman. This is, ultimately, the end goal: for sexuality to be incidental, and for talent to take precedent over identity in casting. Unfortunately, at present, as  industry leaders like Russell T Davies argue, the balance is terribly lopsided.

Nevertheless, it would manifestly be a great thing for either of these actors considered out-and-proud, clearly visible queer stars to win. That's partly because any talk of such a milestone might also conversely help highlight the prejudice that does still exist within the industry, from the awards podiums to the casting rooms – even if, as Strong notes, "wider structural change is much harder to enact, and it's not something you can solve with an award". We'll certainly get more Stewarts, DeBoses, and McKellens on Oscar night in time – but wins for LGBTQ+ actors will remain vanishingly rare until those systemic issues are properly interrogated and addressed.