Last night’s Academy Awards were full not only of queer moments, but of several that featured queer parents in particular. Did you catch them all—particularly the Black two-mom family in one short film/advertisement made just for the Oscars?
The ad was one of three short films commissioned by retail giant Walmart, each showcasing the work of a female director—Melissa McCarthy, Nancy Meyers and Dee Rees—and somehow incorporating the company’s blue shipping box. Rees, whose film Mudbound was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, knocked it out of the park again with the short film below about a little girl and her scifi world of imagination. If you weren’t watching closely, you might have missed the moment at the end that shows the girl’s two moms. It’s lovely because the girl could have had any parents—but Rees, an out lesbian herself, chose to increase representation for queer parents of color.
Of course, this shouldn’t stop us from continuing to agitate for even more positive representations of people of color, women, and LGBTQ people (and intersections thereof) in film, filmmaking, and major industry awards, or making sure Walmart and other companies enforce and strengthen their stated restrictions on gun sales.
Still, this feels like a good piece of representation, and I applaud Walmart for supporting it. Now I just want to know when the full-length film (and/or book series) is coming out.
Other queer parent moments in the Oscars:
Filmmaker Debra Chasnoff, who was the first lesbian to thank her partner when accepting an Academy Award (for her documentary Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment, in 1992), was sadly part of the In Memoriam list this year. She died in November from breast cancer. This queer mom may have been better known to readers here for her many educational films on LGBTQ inclusion and her groundbreaking 1984 documentary on intentional lesbian families, Choosing Children. Read more about her here.
Chilean film Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman), about a transgender woman, Marina, struggling against her suddenly deceased boyfriend Orlando’s family, won Best Foreign Language film, and star Daniela Vega made history as the first transgender presenter at the Oscars. The film isn’t about parenting per se, but part of the storyline involves Orlando’s grown son, who tries to kick Marina out of the apartment she and Orlando had shared, so I’m including it for its look this aspect of parent-child relationships in a queer context.
On a lighter note, queer mom Jodie Foster didn’t let a ski accident and crutches prevent her from presenting the award for Best Actress alongside Jennifer Lawrence (and joking about having been “I, Tonya’d” by Meryl Streep—a reference to the film about figure skater Tonya Harding). Foster looked dapper in a white, double-breasted jacket and black pants.
And gay dads Ricky Martin and husband Jwan Yosef gained headlines last night for attending the 2018 Elton John AIDS Foundation’s Academy Awards Viewing Party. Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, are also dads.
