Oscars 2019 Breaks Record for Gayface Nominations

Gayface at the Oscars

It will be a standout year for LGBTQ representation at the Academy Awards.

More than half of the Best Picture nominees, announced Tuesday, are LGBTQ-inclusive films: A Star Is Born, Green Book, The Favourite, Vice, and Bohemian Rhapsody.

Moreover, every acting category -- Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress -- includes at least one queer role. However, as is commonplace at the Oscars, every actor portraying these roles identifies as straight. (Bisexual actress Lady Gaga is nominated for her performance in A Star Is Born -- but that role, Ally, does not identify as queer in the film.)

The Advocate celebrates the telling of LGBTQ stories. But it is also necessary to point out that nearly 60 straight people have received Oscar nominations for LGBTQ roles, which is evidence that bias in casting still exists in Tinseltown. Meanwhile, an out gay actor has never won.

As out A Very English Scandal actor Ben Whishaw said after his Golden Globes win this year, "I think there needs to be greater equality. I would like to see more gay actors playing straight roles. It needs to be an even playing field for everybody -- that would be my ideal."

Review this year's "gayface" nominees below.

Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

Olivia Colman was nominated in the Actress in a Leading Role category for her portrayal of Queen Anne in The Favourite. The period film shows the English monarch at the center of a love triangle with two female members of her court, portrayed by Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone.

Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Melissa McCarthy was nominated for Actress in a Leading Role for portraying the late lesbian writer Lee Israel in the (excellent) biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me? The film, based on Israel's memoir, shows how the out-of-work biographer coordinated an operation forging the letters of luminaries like Tennessee Williams and Katharine Hepburn, with the famed gay bar Julius' as her home base.

Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Rami Malek was nominated in the Actor in a Leading Role category for his performance as the bisexual Queen front man Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.The film was popular at the box office, but it received criticism from some LGBTQ activists for its inaccurate portrayal of Mercury's sexuality and his battle with AIDS, as well as its problematic credited director, Bryan Singer.

Emma Stone (The Favourite)

Emma Stone was nominated for Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Abigail Hill, an 18th-century social-climber who improves her station by seducing Queen Anne in The Favourite.

Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Rachel Weisz is another secret lover of Queen Anne in The Favourite, a role that garnered her a nomination for Actress in a Supporting Role, a category in which she must vie against Stone for the trophy. This year, Weisz also played a queer character in Disobedience, a film about forbidden love in the Hasidic community.

Mahershala Ali (Green Book)

Mahershala Ali was nominated in the Actor in a Supporting Role category for his performance as jazz pianist Don Shirley in Green Book. Shirley never came out in his lifetime. But the film depicts a real-life incident in which the musician just barely escaped being arrested for a same-sex encounter at a YMCA.

Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Richard E. Grant was nominated in the category of Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Jack Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Based on a real-life person from the memoir of Lee Israel, Jack is a former hustler who is homeless and HIV-positive. His friendship with Israel, which veers into criminal territory, is a rare movie depiction of a friendship between a gay man and a lesbian.