What Are the Queer Snubs in this Year's Golden Globe Movie Nominations?

The Golden Globes are back, but this year under new management and with a new network (CBS) providing the national broadcast of the troubled awards. In 2022 NBC dropped broadcasting the awards – long thought as the precursor to the Oscars – after a host of scandals involving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group that voted for the Golden Globes. Hollywood showed its dismay by staying home, which led to the awards being revamped. The group – largely 90-or-so members – was criticized for its lack of Black representation, which was addressed by tripling (to 300) the membership roll and replacing some controversial members. The strategy sort-of worked last year when out comic Jerrod Carmichael hosted (having great fun in his intro with his lack of celebrity), and attracted a respectable guest list of celebrities.

"In June, the H.F.P.A. was formally dissolved when the Golden Globes brand was bought by Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions (which is part of Penske Media, owner of many Hollywood trade publications)," reports the New York Times. CBS came on board and what appears to be a new era for the awards has arrived.

Whether or not this will return the awards to the status they once had remains to be seen. For decades they were seen as the first major stop for those seeking Oscars. And arriving on Sunday, January 7, a win this year could easily influence Oscar voting, which runs from January 11 – 16 with the nominations dropping on January 23.

How did queer representation stack up at this year's awards? First, the plus side:

"Maestro." Bradley Cooper's epic biopic on the life of Leonard Bernstein has received mostly strong reviews, most notably for Carey Mulligan (who plays Bernstein's wife Felicia Montealegre). She received a Best Actress (Drama) nomination for playing the troubled wife of the bisexual conductor. And Cooper (who also is a producer) received three nominations – for Best Picture Drama, Best Actor and Best Director. The Globes do not give out technical awards so there was no mention of whether Cooper's famous prosthetic nose being honored.

In another instance of a famous actor playing a LGBTQ+ individual, Annette Bening was nominated for playing swimmer Diana Nyad in "Nyad," which follows her attempt at swimming from Florida to Cuba without a shark cage in her early 60s. Also nominated was queer actor and former Globe winner Jodie Foster, who plays Diana's coach Bonnie Stoll, for Best Supporting Actress, Motion Picture.

Colman Domingo's performance as queer civil rights advocate Bayard Rustin has been one of the best received of the year and he is acknowledged with a Best Performance by an Actor (Drama) nod. But the film only received one other nomination, for Best Original Song – "Road to Freedom" by Lenny Kravitz.

"May December" scored for its actors – Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and Charles Melton – but not for director Todd Haynes

One of the more curious aspects of the Globes is dividing the films between dramas and comedies. This makes for some strange bedfellows this year with "May December," out director Todd Haynes film that most have categorized as a drama, but here falls in the Comedy and Musical category. The film sounds serious: it is loosely based the life of Mary Kay LeTourneau, a schoolteacher who was convicted of having a sexual relationship with a student whom she married. Set two decades after the scandal, the film follows Portman as she insinuates into the lives of the schoolteacher (Moore) and her 30-something husband (Melton). But the Golden Globes allows the studios and producers to choose what category – Drama or Comedy and Musical – films fall into and the chose the latter. It may be a gamble that paid off given the three acting nominations that would likely not have happened if in the more competitive Drama category, but the film looks like an outlier.

Left out was Haynes, who received nominations for his script to "Far from Heaven" (2002) and Best Director for "Carol" (2015).