When Faye Dunaway, standing next to a puzzled-looking Warren Beatty, announced that La La Land had won Best Picture at Monday\u27s Oscars, I doubt many people were surprised. Sure, pretty much all of the queer film fans, writers and academics I follow on Twitter were hoping for a win by the new gay classic Moonlight, but we are a crowd that has been disappointed before

McKinnon, Scott J

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University of WollongongResearch OnlineFaculty of Social Sciences - Papers Faculty of Social Sciences2017With Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins toright old wrongsScott J. McKinnonUniversity of Wollongong, scottmck@uow.edu.auResearch Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:research-pubs@uow.edu.auPublication DetailsMcKinnon, S. (2017). With Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs. The Conversation, 2 March 1-3.With Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongsAbstractWhen Faye Dunaway, standing next to a puzzled-looking Warren Beatty, announced that La La Land had wonBest Picture at Monday's Oscars, I doubt many people were surprised. Sure, pretty much all of the queer filmfans, writers and academics I follow on Twitter were hoping for a win by the new gay classic Moonlight, butwe are a crowd that has been disappointed before.Keywordsright, begins, hollywood, win, oscar, moonlight's, old, wrongsDisciplinesEducation | Social and Behavioral SciencesPublication DetailsMcKinnon, S. (2017). With Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs. The Conversation,2 March 1-3.This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/2775AuthorScott McKinnonVice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral ResearchFellow, University of WollongongAcademic rigour, journalistic flairWhen Faye Dunaway, standing next to a puzzled-looking Warren Beatty, announced thatLa La Land had won Best Picture at Monday’s Oscars, I doubt many people were surprised.Sure, pretty much all of the queer film fans, writers and academics I follow on Twitter werehoping for a win by the new gay classic Moonlight, but we are a crowd that has beendisappointed before.In 2005, we watched opened-mouthed as the ensemble piece Crash took Best Pictureahead of the far more deserving “I ain’t no queer” masterpiece, Brokeback Mountain. Justlast year, the Academy failed to even nominate the extraordinary lesbian romance Carol forits top prize. It has seemed in recent years that queer films, even the masterpieces, are justnot Best Picture material.With Dunaway’s announcement, therefore, I imagined less an outraged cry than a resigned sighringing throughout the queer world. But then Moonlight – a low budget film that explores the life of ablack man struggling with same-sex desires – was declared the true Best Picture winner.In Moonlight, we see lives generally absent from movie screens. Although gay characters are morecommonly seen in film now than ever before, the lives of queer people of colour are rarely explored.A quick look at the queer films with Oscar-nominated performancessince 2000 (including Brokeback Mountain, Carol, Capote, Milk, A Single Man and The Danish Girl) reveals a startlingly monochromeAndré Holland and Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight: it has seemed in recent years that queer films are just not Best Picture material. A24, Plan BEntertainmentMarch 2, 2017 6.12am AEDTWith Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs https://theconversation.com/with-moonlights-oscar-win-hollywood-be...1 of 3 22/03/2017 10:35 AMpalate. The recent historical drama Stonewall, meanwhile, was heavilycritiqued for shifting real-life transgender people of colour to themargins of their own story. Moonlight was, therefore, always going to bea welcome arrival.If the subject matter was welcome, the film itself is stunning. Moonlightexplores, with beauty and gentleness, a heartbreakingly constrained andfearful life. The film is divided into three chapters, each devoted to aperiod of that life, following Chiron from young boy to teenager totwenty-something. He is cruelly bullied at school, labelled a faggot andlearns to respond to a world of violence with violence of his own.Through each chapter, Chiron craves love and kindness. He tries to hidebehind silence, but his yearning glows through.Among the delight over Moonlight’s win, there is an equal amount ofsurprise. Just how did we get to the point where such a film could win?The reasons for this shock lie in memories of Brokeback Mountain andCarol, certainly, but also in both the long history of Hollywood and thecurrent mood of America.It is only in relatively recent times that a film like Moonlight could even be made. Indeed, WarrenBeatty began his acting career as a 1950s pretty-boy, TV star in an era that simply would not havecountenanced homosexual men at the centre of any cinematic story.Films like Tea and Sympathy (1956) and Rebel Without a Cause (1956) told stories about queer characters, but only bypretending that those characters weren’t queer at all. Itwasn’t until the 1960s, with the British Victim (1961), thatthe pretence was finally dropped and gay characters were, atleast from time to time, allowed to admit to being gay. Likemany actors of his generation, the film’s star, Dirk Bogarde,was forced to hide his own homosexuality throughout much of his career.Non-white queer lives remained even rarer on-screen.Occasional comedic characters appeared in 1970s films likeCar Wash and Next Stop Greenwich Village, but they werenever central to the film. It would only be in the late 1980sand early 1990s that black queer lives found central focus in a range of non-Hollywood documentariesand experimental works including Looking for Langston, Tongues Untied and Paris is Burning.This long history of exclusion matters greatly to Moonlight’s victory. Many queer people felt that, evenif Hollywood seemed willing to make films about our lives, a final door of acceptance was slammed inthe face of Brokeback Mountain and Carol. Equally, queer people of colour found it difficult tocelebrate the victories of queer film when their own lives were excluded. The success of Moonlight,Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in Carol. WeinsteinCompanyJohn Ker in Tea and Sympathy. MGM/idmbWith Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs https://theconversation.com/with-moonlights-oscar-win-hollywood-be...2 of 3 22/03/2017 10:35 AMFilm Queer culture Academy awardstherefore, offers two victories at once.And then, of course, there is the particular moment in which we now find ourselves. The election ofTrump and the blatantly racist, homophobic and transphobic policies of many Republican politicianshave offered a reminder to queer people and people of colour that hard-fought victories might all tooeasily be swept away.An Oscar win doesn’t only mean a nice statue, but a far greater audience. In the US, for instance,Moonlight has now been booked into at least 1,500 theaters for the coming weekend. In these crazytimes, the fact that more people will now see Chiron’s story feels like a victory over ascendant darkforces.While I take great pleasure in Moonlight’s win, I hope that this isn’t seen as a resolution ofHollywood’s continuing problems with race, sexuality and gender. We shouldn’t have only one greatfilm about black queer lives, any more than we should have one great film about white straight people.Hopefully, Moonlight is less a point of redemption for the Oscars than the start of somethinginteresting in Hollywood more generally.Found this article useful? A tax-deductible gift of $30/month helps deliver knowledge-based,ethical journalism.Make a donationHeather Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain. Focus FeaturesWith Moonlight's Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs https://theconversation.com/with-moonlights-oscar-win-hollywood-be...3 of 3 22/03/2017 10:35 AM

With Moonlight\u27s Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs

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With Moonlight\u27s Oscar win, Hollywood begins to right old wrongs

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