Oscar and “My Kind:” A childhood bro-mance

Remember your thrilling childhood interest criticized for its deviant interpretation? My Little Ricky’s was the Academy Awards movie celebration. People told him that was queer, and the sneer felt bad — but eventually, I discovered my kind of people.

And like a movie, memory replays 1961’s Time Machine winning Special Effects. I’m hooked! Judy Garland loses for Judgment at Nuremberg. It’s rigged! My loves Mary Poppins and Julie Andrews win in 1965. It’s fair! I’m conflicted! Debbie Reynolds, nominated for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, loses. (These early years seeded annual ambivalence.)

I hid my Oscar glee and the odd stirrings I felt watching hunky Time Machine’s Rod Taylor with best friend and first love Steve. But movies and their awards show would mold parts of my gay persona.

Like in 1970, Oscar’s Year of the Cowboy. Underage, I had sneaked into the Brighton Twin, enthralled with gay-themed and X-rated Midnight Cowboy, lusting over Jon Voight. During the ceremony, I cheered when it won Best Picture, fantasized about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and hated John Wayne, Best Actor for True Grit, who despised my kind.

Finally addressing the plague decimating my people, Longtime Companion, 1989’s first film dealing with AIDS, disappointingly lost its only nomination, Bruce Davison for Supporting Actor. In 1992, red ribbons supporting AIDS awareness and a gay lover first appeared. Then Beauty and the Beast won Best Song. Bill Lauch’s acceptance speech on behalf of partner Howard Ashman (who had recently died of the disease)rendered many vicarious tears.

Oscar nominates and awards few LGBT films telling my kind happiness and life are undeserved, evidenced by my poll: AIDS casualties — 5; death — 10; misery — 7; perverts — 11; rape — 1, 1972’s Deliverance (“I bet you can squeal like a pig.”); suicide — 4, including 1961’s The Children’s Hour, the earliest reference; documentaries — 3.

There are a few exceptions, comedic drag films: Some Like It Hot, La Cage Aux Folles, Tootsie (preposterous!), Victor/Victoria. All of these creative, courageous, and compassionate films propelled the LGBT movement forward, informed the public, and deserved the Academy’s honors. This year’s nominees Carol, The Danish Girl, and Spotlight continue the momentum unlike other minorities with this year’s looming African American boycott.

My kind doesn’t have a lock on the miseries of the human condition (the Academy’s recipe for honors) but with comparatively few LGBT films, “normal” subjects have little chance. For every The Kids Are All Right, there’s a Mel Gibson, homophobic Braveheart.

My kind has few out Oscar winners and nominees. Unlike straight honorees playing LGBT characters, out actor Ian McKellen mused: “What about giving me one for playing a straight man?”