Welcome back to LGBTQ+ Focus/Feature! Today, we will be focusing on actor Jamie Lee Curtis. You may know them from Everything, Everywhere All At Once, which they won an Oscar for as Best Supporting Actress in 2023, and other movies like Knives Out, Scream Queens, and Halloween.

Curtis has dedicated themselves to activism within the LGBTQ+ community, utilizing their platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, show support, and so much more. Just last year, Curtis spoke out against an anti-trans bill which would have Child Protective Services in the state of Texas open cases against parents of trans children for "child abuse." Curtis, and many others, found huge issues with such a bill, calling out politicians for finding faults with parents for affirming their children's identities and for attempting to suppress gender expression and freedom altogether.

In addition, Curtis has spoken out against antisemitic comments from Kanye West. Having Jewish roots, this issue really hit home for Curtis, inspiring them to utilize their platform to combat hate and racism. Curtis is also a huge proponent of women's rights, though it has a unique layer of depth for them and many others. Speaking about the Oscars and their recent award, Curtis highlighted that they would like to see more inclusivity, especially gender inclusivity, in the awards. Curtis won Best Supporting Actress, which is defined via a binary lens of men and women. This leaves out many, many people and diminishes their opportunities. However, Curtis struggles with a solution to this problem as they believe that shifting to completely gender-neutral awards will reduce opportunities for women and female-presenting people in general as the distinction into gendered terms has helped to focus awards towards women. Curtis feels hopeful that award shows are moving in the right direction and hopes that these efforts to include women can be extended to all people who are left out or have fewer opportunities than others, especially due to the prevalence of binary terminology.

Although not queer themselves, Curtis' ties with the LGBTQ+ community stem from many places. Curtis has built relationships and ties with many queer people throughout their career and even lost one to the AIDS pandemic. However, and even more closely, Curtis has a trans daughter, Ruby, whom Curtis is a huge supporter of. During the 2023 Oscars, in which Curtis won an award, as mentioned earlier in the article, they dedicated the Oscar to Ruby and gave it they/them pronouns as an alternative to the she/her pronouns usually ascribed to the award. Curtis continues to be a wonderful ally for their daughter and the community as a whole. One thing I found really powerful was when Curtis mentioned they are still learning and have room to grow. It is a beautiful thing to recognize that one can improve, especially as an ally. It shows humility and, most of all, a true commitment to becoming an ally and supporter.

That is all for today! Stay tuned for the next LGBTQ+ Focus/Feature!

Welcome back, lovely Prism readers. We're back for another round of LGBTQ+ representation in the media. This time around, we're going to be talking about a broader subject - the GLAAD Media Awards. These awards are given out for "outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and the issues that affect their lives" in a variety of different categories, such as film, television, media, art, journalism, and advertising. Back at the first ceremony (1990) there were only seven different categories, and 34 nominees in total, meaning it started out as a very small event.

This year is its 34th ceremony, and awards are presented on the 30th of March (Los Angeles) and on the 13th of May (New York). The nominees were announced back in January by Sasha Colby and Salina EsTittes on GLAAD's youtube channel. With 33 categories (27 English, 12 Spanish) and 297 nominees, as well as seven special recognitions, it's transformed way beyond what it first started out as while still holding true to the same goal.

This year, two new categories were introduced: the Outstanding Podcast and Outstanding Live TV Journalism Segment/Special. The Outstanding Reality Program was split up between regular reality shows and competitions, and the Outstanding Kids and Family Programming is now split between live-action and animation. A new category for streaming films and TV movies was also created to highlight even more cool movies and shows.

Nominees are selected by voters and volunteers and use the following criteria:
-Fair, accurate, and inclusive representation
-Boldness and originality of the project
-Significant cultural impact on mainstream culture
-Overall quality
From there, a review panel goes over all of the nominations and decides who the winners are based on their own opinions as well as online balloting. If an award doesn't have enough 'worthy' entries in a single year, GLAAD sometimes opts to not give out the award in that year. If this becomes an ongoing issue, they may choose to retire that category altogether. There are also certain honorary awards given out annually that aren't competitive and are simply meant as special recognition.

Each year GLAAD hands out the GLAAD Excellence in Media Award, which is also announced during the Media Awards. It's given out to a public figure in media/entertainment who has increased visibility and understanding of the community through their work. This year's honoured recipient was Barbara Gittings for her works Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade.

The other special recognition awards this year go to Alejandra Caraballo (transgender rights activist), Drag Queen Story Hour (storytellers using the art of drag to read books to kids in libraries, schools, and bookstores), Rothaniel (HBO comedy special by stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael), the Lesbian Bar Project (Campaign to "celebrate, support, and preserve the remaining lesbian bars in the US."), and Letters4TransKids (an Instagram account that shares inspirational messages in support of trans kids written by strangers on their account).

Obviously, going over all 297 of this year's nominations would take way too long, so we'll round it off here by saying there's been a lot of improvements made over the years, as you can see in the ever-growing list of nominees and categories. This doesn't mean that there's not still a lot of work to do, and hopefully representing the community will become more standard and common in the years to come.

I hope to see you back in next month's Media Representation article!

Sources: The Nominees for the 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards | YouTube Announcement