‘Bros,’ ‘White Lotus,’ ‘World of Warcraft’: GLAAD Media Award nominees unveiled – NBC News
From a gay Latino police officer in Texas to a narcissistic lesbian music conductor in Berlin and a Black drag queen traveling through small-town America, last year’s queer-inclusive media content covered nearly every corner of the vast LGBTQ spectrum, and the nominees for the 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards reflect that diversity.
Every year since 1990, the media advocacy nonprofit group has honored films, television shows, musicians, journalists and other media figures for fair, accurate and inclusive representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.
In a news release Wednesday, GLAAD noted that of the 30 TV shows nominated across three categories, 17 feature transgender and/or nonbinary characters, including “A League of Their Own,” “Sort Of” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” And in the video game category, six of the 10 nominees feature trans and/or nonbinary characters, including “Apex Legends” and “Need for Speed: Unbound.”
Queer women and LGBTQ people of color also feature prominently among this year’s nominees. Of the 10 wide-release film nominees, for example, six featured prominent lesbian, bisexual or other queer women characters, including “Tár,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and “Scream,” the group noted in its release. And of the 10 podcast nominees, eight prominently feature LGBTQ people of color as hosts or guests, including “LGBTQ&A” and “Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.”
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement that the record number of anti-LGBTQ bills being proposed in statehouses across the United States, along with escalating homophobic and transphobic rhetoric, mean it’s “more crucial than ever that our community remains visible and included in the stories that the world sees in film, television, music, journalism, and other forms of media.”
“This year we have more nominees than ever before to represent immensely impactful projects that entertain, educate, and grow acceptance of LGBTQ people,” she said. “From new stories that debunk lies about transgender youth to kids and family programming which allows all families to be represented, this year’s nominated media images are beloved by audiences and are creating real change.”
This year’s GLAAD Media Awards include 295 nominees across 33 categories, including two new categories: outstanding podcast and outstanding live TV journalism — segment or special.
Netflix scored the most nominations of any network, outlet or platform, with a total of 21, followed by ABC with 12 and HBO Max with 10.
NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News, received two dozen nominations across its entertainment and news properties, including one for the NBC News Now documentary “Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary“ and another for an NBCNews.com article titled “A 25-Year-Old Got In A Taxi Outside An N.Y.C. Gay Bar. He Was Dead An Hour Later.”
Award winners will be announced during two live ceremonies: in Los Angeles on March 30, and in New York City on May 13. The full list of nominees can be found on GLAAD’s website.