Sam Smith, the gay 23-year-old who picked up an Oscar Sunday night for best original song, blew it during his acceptance speech when he speculated that he was the first openly gay person to win an Academy Award. The error shows that Smith, like many other young queer people, needs to learn his history. Smith and his writing partner, Jimmy Napes, won for "The Writing's on the Wall" from the James Bond movie Spectre ,
"I read an article a few months ago by Sir Ian McKellen and he said no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar," Smith said in front of 34 million viewers and the hundreds gathered at the Dolby Theatre. "If this is the case ... even if it isn't the case, I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community, all around the world. I stand here, tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals some day."
It was laudable that Smith dedicated his win to the LGBT community and said he's a "proud gay man." And although he included his disclaimer, "even if it's not the case," his gaffe sparked a backlash on social media that was further compounded by an attempt to dismiss his previous mistake. "Second openly gay man to win an oscar or third or fourth or 100th, It wasn't my point," Smith tweeted on Monday. The problem is that was exactly Smith's point Sunday night, and he was wrong.
Smith was apparently referring to a piece in the Guardian in which McKellen said that no openly gay male actor has ever won a best actor Oscar, even though he and The Crying Game 's Jaye Davidson were nominated in the past. That, of course, does not take into account all the other gays and lesbians who have won Oscars in various categories in the show's 88-year history.
Shortly after the Oscars ended, People magazine posted, "Is Sam Smith the first openly gay man to win an Oscar? Not exactly." It went on to note that Sir Elton John won best original song in 1994 for the song, "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from Disney's The Lion King. More recently, Dustin Lance Black took home the award for best original screenplay in 2009 for Milk. Gay composer Stephen Sondheim won best original song in 1991 for "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)," which Madonna sang in Dick Tracy . Alan Ball, a gay man, won best original screenplay in 2000 for American Beauty. Rob Epstein won an Oscar in 1984 for The Times of Harvey Milk and thanked his partner. You get the idea.
And let's not forget the lesbians. Melissa Etheridge won an Oscar for best original song in 2007 for "I Need to Wake Up" from Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth . Nearly 25 years ago, in 1992, Debra Chasnoff won an Oscar for her documentary short about General Electric and the nuclear weapons industry. She thanked her "life partner" from the podium, making her the first lesbian to do so at the ceremony, according to Brian Moylan's article on the Smith dustup in Time magazine.
Also complicating Smith's claim are Oscars awarded to people who came out after they won, like Jodie Foster (best actress twice), and Joel Grey, who won best supporting actor in 1972 but didn't come out until last year. And on and on.
Smith needs a crash course in LGBT Hollywood history, or gay history in general, before he spouts off inaccuracies about his achievement. Keeping our history alive and relevant is all of our responsibility. Seeing the movie Milk would be a good starting point, or touring the GLBT History Museum in the Castro, where we're sure that the helpful folks at the GLBT Historical Society would welcome you. It's not enough for young LGBT people to learn their history; it's also up to us to teach them.
Rock knows his history
Oscar host Chris Rock, on the other hand, knew his history and nailed his monologue, which called attention to Hollywood's diversity problem. For the second year in a row, all of the nominees in the acting categories were white, and Rock brilliantly skewered the industry. But he also wondered why this year's Oscars were so controversial. Since the Academy Awards have been handed out for 88 years, "that means that this whole black-nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times," he said, adding that black people didn't protest the all-white list of nominees in the 1950s and 1960s because "we were too busy being raped or lynched."
"When your grandmother is swinging from a tree, it's really hard to care about best cinematography short," he quipped.
Jokes aside, however, Rock was able to shine a bright light on the problem that the writers, producers, and others don't hire black people. We could add that Hollywood doesn't hire many LGBT people either, or Latinos or Asians. Hollywood is mostly male, white, and straight. Until that changes, the makeup of nominees won't change much.