This was a good year for gays at the Oscars — at least on screen. Of the 20 characters whose portrayers were nominated for acting Oscars, five — Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Rooney Mara, Kenneth Branagh (as bisexual Laurence Olivier) and Christopher Plummer — were members of the LGBT community. (I also have my suspicions about Jonah Hill’s character.) In the end, only one — Plummer — ended up in the winners’ circle, but it was a sweet victory nonetheless.
Onstage, Meryl Streep’s makeup artist seemed to be the only gay winner, though you can never tell about those sound mixers.
For those keeping track, I correctly picked seven of the top eight categories (missing only original screenplay), but the raft categories proved to be a crap-shoot: some very puzzling victories (for instance, Hugo for visual effects over the far superior achievements of Rise of the Planet of the Apes) muddled things.
Although both won five Oscars, in head-to-heads between The Artist and Hugo, The Artist came out ahead, beating Hugo for best picture, director, score and costumes. Hugo beat The Artist in direct competition for cinematography and art direction. Remarkably, neither of the frontrunners won for their screenplays, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the (happy) surprise winner for film editing.
See the list of last night’s winners after the jump:
Picture: The Artist
Director: Michel Hazavanicius, The Artist
Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris
Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants
Cinematography: Hugo
Film Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Art Direction: Hugo
Costume Design: The Artist
Score: The Artist
Song: “Man or Muppet,” The Muppets
Sound Mixing: Hugo
Sound Editing: Hugo
Visual Effects: Hugo
Makeup: The Iron Lady
Foreign Language Film: A Separation
Animated Feature Film: Rango
Documentary Feature Film: Undefeated
Live Action Short Subject: The Shore
Animated Short Subject: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Documentary Short Subject: Saving Face