Infographic Breaks Down Gay Oscar-Bait Of The Past Decade

The Oscars are only a few weeks away, which has given the guys over at FarsiteForecast an excuse to come up with the infographic above (click on it for a larger version), which takes a look at LGBT-related Oscar, SAG and Golden Globe wins and nominations from the past 10 years.

It comes up with some interesting facts, such as that while there have been several well known wins for straight people playing gay characters – Sean Penn in Milk, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, Christopher Plummer in Beginners – no openly gay actor has ever won.

As the site notes, there are a couple of caveats to that, such as that, ‘Gay actor John Gielgud Won for Best Supporting Actor in 1981 for Arthur and he was nominated in 1964 as well. Despite a gay scandal in the British tabloids 1953, Gielgud’s sexual orientation was not well-known or publicized in Hollywood. Recent news-maker Jodie Foster has twice won and four times been nominated for an Oscar. But, until last week’s Golden Globes, Foster’s identification as a Lesbian was Hollywood’s worst kept secret. She, in fact, made this into a punch line in her speech.

‘Sir Ian Murray McKellen has long been out and proud. But, despite multiple Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, five Emmy Award nominations, and two Academy Award nominations, Sir Ian has never taken home the Oscar.’

In the past decade there have been 13 identifiable LGBT roles that have received Oscar nominations, and quite a few more who have picked up SAG and Golden Globe nods. Although the infographic is somewhat encouraging in that in eight of the last 10 years, there’s been at least one LGBT character included in the acting categories, it does suggest we’ve still got a long way to go.

After all, it’s not long ago that the likes of Ernest Borgnine refused to watch Brokeback Mountain when he was considering what movies to vote for in the Oscars. It’s also true that there are no gay-nominations in any of the main categories this year, although Tony Kushner is in the running for his Lincoln screenplay. Paranorman is also up for Best Animated Film, which is being lauded as the first mainstream animated movie to feature a gay character.