Queering the Oscars: Knowing Our History in “Changing Our Minds"

For Pride Month, Team Experience is looking at LGBTQ+ related Oscar nominations... 

dr evelyn hooker

by Eurocheese

When this series was announced, my first goal was to find a film that was completely new to me on a subject outside of my cinematic wheelhouse. Watching this film served as a reminder of how little I know about LGBTQ+ history. While I’d heard the name Evelyn Hooker before, I’m ashamed to admit I couldn’t have told you what role she played in history, much less the impact she had on the state of gay rights today. If the same is true for you, dear reader, I highly recommend carving 107 minutes out of your day to learn a bit about her impact in the Oscar nominated documentary Changing Our Minds: The Story of Evelyn Hooker (1992). I want to offer a trigger warning though as this film delves into difficult topics and images.

The sliding doors nature of Hooker coming to study homosexuality is mind-boggling if you stop to picture a world where her findings never existed...

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Queering the Oscars: "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"

For Pride Month Team Experience is looking at queer and queer-adjacent moments in Oscar history...

by Cláudio Alves

It was the night of the 67th Academy Awards when a Vera Wang-clad Sharon Stone stepped on stage to present the Best Costume Design Oscar, the second category in an evening most remembered for its Forrest Gump lovefest. And yet, amid celebrating that epic of political passivity and proto conservatism, the Academy found time to tip its metaphorical hat at two classics of 1990s queer cinema. The second such picture, Trevor, would have its moment later when the Live-Action Short race resolved itself in a shocking tie. For now, slotted after a resplendent Dianne Wiest accepted the Supporting Actress trophy, it was time to honor The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert…

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Will history repeat itself?

Please welcome new contributor Danny Cox.

by Danny Cox

At this moment, the fate of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is the least settled of the acting  categories. Will Jamie Lee Curtis ride the wave of her SAG win? Does Kerry Condon’s BAFTA  upset suggest wanting to award at least one actor from the much lauded film? Or does the earliest  front runner, the winner of the Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice Award, Angela Bassett rally back around to take home the prize? While there is definitely momentum for both Curtis and Condon,  one thing Bassett has over the two of them is a strange parallel to a former win. If Bassett pulls  this off, this would not be the first time a highly respected actor gets a late career nomination for  a film that is popular with the general public in a category with split competition. Does that sound familiar?

If Bassett wins, it would be Jack Palance in City Slickers all over again.  Unexpected comparison I know, but hear me out...

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Oscar Stat Fun - No Sweeps in the Modern Era but can "EEAAO" change that?

by Nathaniel R

That complete sweep at the Spirits and SAG has us wondering now whether or not Everything Everywhere All At Once will win Best Picture but how many statues in total can actually win. We haven't seen a sweeper at the Oscars in a long long time. Yes some films have won all their categories but they aren't true "sweepers" i.e. thoroughly dominant movies. It would be technically accurate, for example, to say that CODA performed a clean sweep last season. It did win all of its categories but it wasn't a sweeper in any meaningful sense since it was only up for 3 Oscars.

In fact, a big sweep hasn't yet happened in the expanded Best Picture era!  Can Everything Everywhere All At Once change that? Let's look at the history and stats after the jump...

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Almost There: Julianne Moore in "Magnolia"

by Cláudio Alves

Though the year is still relatively young, Julianne Moore has already staked her claim on 2023. She stars in two early releases, Jesse Eisenberg's When You Finish Saving the World and Benjamin Caron's Sharper and has some juicy upcoming projects lined up. For instance, Todd Haynes' May December has already wrapped filming and is in post-production, maybe headed towards a festival release later in the year. With all this in mind, it felt like a good time to shine the Almost There spotlight on the 2014 Best Actress champion. And so, let's think back to the afterglow of Moore's first brush with Hollywood's most coveted trophy.

In 1997, she was nominated for Boogie Nights, grasping mainstream acclaim. Two years later, Moore was back working with P.T. Anderson on another prestigious project - the Berlinale-winning hyperlink nightmare of Magnolia…

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