Hollywood thrives on outsider and queer storytelling. From writers’ rooms to fashion to film history itself, LGBTQ+ people have shaped the industry’s creative DNA for generations. Yet recognition for queer stories still arrives in strange waves.
This year feels especially dissonant. At a moment when LGBTQ+ people are being targeted politically across the country, queer films and performances are largely absent from the Oscars conversation. (Notable exceptions include the documentaries Come See Me in the Good Light and Mr. Nobody Against Putin; the short film A Friend of Dorothy; and Elio, a Pixar film that was degayed to be more palatable for mainstream audiences.)
For an industry that prides itself on progress, that contradiction is hard to ignore.
It is important to acknowledge that meaningful change inside institutions as large as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rarely happens quickly. I have seen that reality firsthand. During my time at Girl Scouts of the USA, I worked on the team that designed and implemented one of the first national youth organization policies explicitly affirming the inclusion of transgender kids. Institutional change is possible, but it requires leadership willing to act.
In at least one crucial area, the Academy has shown that it can do exactly that. A decade ago, the #OscarsSoWhite movement forced Hollywood to confront a glaring truth. The people deciding what counted as the best in film were overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly American. The backlash that followed was not polite or incremental. It was loud, organized, and necessary. Black artists, critics, and audiences pushed the industry to confront its own gatekeeping. And that pressure worked.
The Academy has dramatically expanded its membership, recruiting more women, more people of color, and more voters from outside the United States. Today roughly a quarter of the Academy’s membership lives abroad, and the impact is visible in the nominations themselves. Non-English language films have never been more present across the Oscars landscape, breaking into acting categories and competing for Best Picture with a regularity that would have seemed unimaginable 15 years ago.
That transformation should be celebrated because it proves that institutions can evolve when they are pushed to do so. But progress in one dimension does not guarantee progress everywhere.
Even as the Academy becomes more international and racially diverse, queer visibility at the Oscars still moves in fits and starts. Some years bring breakthroughs. Other years feel like the industry has simply forgotten us.
Part of the problem begins long before nomination ballots are cast.
The Oscars do not simply reflect what Hollywood celebrates. They reflect what Hollywood decides to finance. If queer stories are not being greenlit at scale, if they are not being funded at the same level as other prestige projects, and if studios are not willing to campaign them as serious contenders, those stories will struggle to reach the awards stage in the first place.
This is not speculation. Research across the entertainment industry consistently shows that projects led by underrepresented creators often receive smaller budgets despite delivering strong returns. A McKinsey study found that films with multiple Black creatives in key off-screen roles receive more than 40 percent less funding on average even while generating a higher box office.
Hollywood does not suffer from a shortage of talent. It suffers from a shortage of risk tolerance. It is easier to congratulate diversity after the fact than to invest in it before the cameras start rolling.
That contradiction becomes even more troubling when placed against the broader cultural moment. A recent survey found that nearly four in 10 American adults now say homosexuality is morally unacceptable. That statistic alone should alarm anyone who believes that cultural visibility and storytelling matter.
Visibility is not simply a matter of representation. It shapes how societies imagine who belongs.
Hollywood has spent decades celebrating creativity, individuality, and outsider voices. Queer artists have been central to that story. They have shaped the aesthetics of cinema, the music that defines its emotional rhythms, and the cultural movements that keep the industry alive. Which is why moments like this year’s awards season raise necessary questions.
If Hollywood understands how deeply queer talent has shaped its culture, why does its support sometimes evaporate when the political climate becomes more hostile?
Hollywood is an industry before it is an ideology. Studios are increasingly consolidated, publicly traded, and risk-averse. When political backlash intensifies, executives begin recalculating what projects feel “safe” to finance and promote. In that environment, queer stories are often among the first to be quietly deprioritized.
It will take more than a handful of sensational television dramas or prestige projects built around familiar formulas to answer that question. It will require studios to invest in queer storytelling with the same seriousness they bring to any other major cultural narrative.
That means funding those projects. Greenlighting them. Campaigning them as legitimate contenders. And trusting audiences to connect with stories that reflect the full spectrum of human experience.
The Oscars cannot fix the film industry’s structural problems on their own. But they remain the most visible signal of what Hollywood values and what stories it believes deserve to define the moment.
A decade ago, the #OscarsSoWhite success showed that pressure could move the industry forward. The challenge now is making sure that progress does not stop there. Hollywood has already proven it can change.
The real question now is whether Hollywood will show the same courage when it comes to queer stories, or whether it will once again wait to be pushed.
Josh Ackley is a political strategist and the frontman of the queerpunk band The Dead Betties. @momdarkness @thedeadbetties
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