Oscars: A great year for lesbians.

Yes Lisa Cholodenko’s gay movie The Kids Are Alright about a lesbian couple and their children who meet their sperm donor father (plus all the complications ) was nominated for numerous awards but even without this movie -  as a whole there was a very gay vibe at this years Oscar ceremony. Several times I had to double take during the ceremony and think did I just see that. Did that just happen?

The night opened with gags from James Franco and Anne Hathaway.

 With Hathaway shouting “its been a great year for lesbians”.

Franco: The kids are all right.

Hathaway: Lesbians

Franco: Black Swan

Hathaway: Dancing lesbians

Franco: Toy Story 3

Hathaway: Where’s the dad?

The audience laughed and it was a good joke. But that was about as good as it got, as a whole, the co-hosts were criticised by many, most saying that Anne Hathaway was trying too hard and James Franco was pretty much in a coma!  Franco did very little to engage with the audience. I felt sorry for Hathaway who had to almost carry the Oscars show on her own with this pretty boy who looked like he was half asleep. It was disappointing.

 When Billy Crystal came on to present an award and did a mini monologue everyone was thinking ‘please stay…and fix this mess!’. At one point, Franco came out in drag and even that wasn’t very funny, he just stood there and said very little. Hathaway a natural with comic timing – tried her best but really she was dragging this lump around on her back most of the time. The majority of tweets related to the Oscars repeatedly asked whether Franco was stoned or bored as the night went on and also asked whether Hathaway was drunk or high. I question the former …yeah may he was stoned…but the latter, I think…what else could she do? The guy simply didn’t seem up to the job so she tried harder…who can blame her?.

Melissa Leo won the first Oscar for best supporting actress in her role in The Fighter. Her dress was a doily that looked like it was made out of cardboard. No literally, she looked like she had just whisked it off some grandma’s table. Almost immediately she said Fuck – and gasped covering her mouth! If anything this just made her more endearing! There is nothing like some unnecessary swearing to make people feel more laid back and get laughs from the audience. Another link to this tiny lesbian world, Melissa Leo had played Helena Peabody’s ex wife on the The L Word.

Anne Hathaway had numerous costume changes and her first one was a full tuxedo which many have said was her best outfit of the night. Women in suits, well no one can argue with that! Franco, then followed coming out dressed in pink as Marilyn Monroe but didn’t seem at all enthusiastic about it. Matt Zoller Seitz wrote that the problem was that the crowd at the Kodak Theatre took entirely too long to register that it was him. And when they did  figure it out - somewhere around the time that Franco said 'I just got a text message from Charlie Sheen!' - they just sort of tittered politely. Again, we dreamed….wouldn’t it be so nice to have an equal to Hathaway, someone funnier, someone with a bit of bite and not just some plain smile that he’s been coasting on his whole career. Even the boulder from ‘127 hours’ seemed to have more personality and would have done a better job!

The most unexpected and biggest lesbian moment was when Lora Hirschberg, an out lesbian won an Oscar for Sound Mixing on Inception with her colleagues Ed Novick and Gary.A.Rizzo. As Hirschberg got up, the camera had a great view of her kissing her wife just before she walked down the aisle to the stage. Again, in their acceptance speech for the group “ Thank you to our families and wonderful wives: Susan, Laura and Jennifer”. It was a giant punch in the air, it felt like we had just stuffed the giant oxygen canister into the mouth of Jaws…ready to explode. A slap in the face to every bible basher and gay hater across America and yet it all felt so natural, easy and so right.

Hilary Swank winner of the Oscar for Best Actress for ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ (1999) came on to introduce Kathryn Bigelow,last year’s winner, the first ever female best director. It is hard to believe that so much time has past since Boys Don’t Cry, one presenter stated it had been 11 years since Swank had won her Oscar. Bigelow then presented  Tom Hooper with the Oscar for Best Director for The King’s Speech. In his acceptance speech he talked about the ‘triangle of manlove’ between himself, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem came out to present an award dressed in matching white suits. As they walked out hand in hand they did a playful dance and exchanged a kiss. However viewers never saw the kiss as the producers made the decision to cut the scene from the dance that the viewers saw. The camera instead focused on Penelope Cruz's reaction to the event and the cut away lasted until the dancing was over. The website AfterElton says it seems unlikely that ABC would find a kiss between Bardem and Brolin to be something that needed censoring as back in 2006 there was a Brokeback Mountain spoof featuring Jon Stewart and George Clooney in bed. On the other hand, the cutaway to Cruz seemed awkward". The question has been asked as to whether the producers of the Oscars panicked! 

Natalie Portman then won Best Actress for her role in Black Swan. Her acceptance speech was easily one of the most genuine and well constructed of the night but no one seemed to be in any doubt that she would win. She failed to thank Mila Kunis but this was probably by accident. Oddly, there was mention of ‘Michelle Rodriguez’ unfortunately this is not the same Rodriguez from Lost and every other lady punch up movie going. We can only dream that in her spare time, Portman goes round there for movie nights and body shots. Instead, this Michelle Rodriguez is a physical therapist who appeared on the film and helped Natalie nurse a dislocated rib she sustained while shooting the film. As Natalie mentioned it is often these small members who make up the cast but play an integral role who are often forgotten, so she made it a point to mention her…which was sweet.

Portman was wearing a purple dress by Rodarte which caused some controversy as she is supposed to be the face of Dior. This led to questioning over whether, Portman who is Jewish and born in Israel had decided to breach her contract with the fashion house. John Galliano, Dior’s creative director, only days earlier had been suspended from his job due to anti-Semitic remarks in a bar which appeared on film and is now currently all over the internet. She did not answer questions related to this topic and the transcript of the press conference omitted the questioning from the record.

Collin Firth won Best Actor for The Kings Speech and one couldn’t help but notice the incredible difference in accents between him and Christian Bale who won ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for The Fighter. I could actually believe that Firth was a real King, perhaps a distant Duke or exiled Prince and that Bale was a window cleaner or a chimney sweep. I think everyone in England, suddenly stepped back and went ‘Is he British?’….’What’s with the accent?’

The last award of the night did not fail either, as producer Ian Canning thanked his ‘boyfriend Ben’ in his acceptance speech as he won the award for ‘Best Picture’ for Kings Speech.

As Hathaway said at the beginning…It’s a great year for lesbians!