Ten years ago 3.5% of Americans said they identified as LGBTQIA, and today 7.1% are so identifying — a 100% increase, mainly due to Zoomers and Younger Millennials wanting to mingle with the crowd and be trendy.

Boiled down we’re talking one out of nearly 15 people. Which means, of course, that nearly 14 out of 15 Americans identify as straight.

Do this year’s Best Picture contenders represent this approximate gay-to-straight proportion? Of course not. Do they tilt in the direction of gay-themed or gay-seasoned subject matter? No, they do not “tilt” — they lean heavily in this direction. Two-thirds to a third.

If you accept there are twelve top award contenders (and you really can’t count Napoleon among them), you’ve only got four that are completely, unregenerately, hot-dog-with-a-brewski, Travis Kelce, low-thread-count T-shirt straight with nothing the least bit gay or even gay-flirting among them — Oppenheimer, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon and Past Lives. And three of these (Oppie, Holdovers, Killers) are period pieces.

On the other hand eight of the twelve award-season contenders have gay characters or gay sex scenes, or they satirize or belittle straight males.

1. Maestro (famous gay conductor lovingly married to beard wife, with whom he’s sired three children), 2. Barbie (dozens upon dozens of might-as-well-be-gay buff-bod Kens — the only overtly straight males are played by Michael Cera and Will Ferrell and the Matell board members), 3. American Fiction (Sterling K. Brown as Jeffrey Wright‘s gay brother, Clifford Ellison), 4. Poor Things (mostly hetero but with a lesbian oral sex scene in a Paris brothel), 5. Anatomy of a Fall (Sandra Huller admits to having had same-sex affairs outside the bonds of marriage to her late husband), 6. Rustin (charismatic gay civil leader of the ’60s), 7. Nyad (lesbian long-distance swimmer) and 8. The Color Purple (partly about lesbian-tinged relationship relationship between Celie and Shug, based on a book by bisexual author Alice Walker).

Summary: On-screen this season we have eight gay or gay-tinged films vs. four that are flat-out straight. In real life nearly 14 out of 15 folks are non-LGBTQIA.

What does that tell you about where Hollywood is coming from, and to what extent that they’re making films for the vast majority of moviegoers? At least as far as the ’23 award season is concerned? I’ll tell you what it means. It means that within industry culture, it seems safer or cooler to make gayish films or those with a little gay flavoring, It neans that industry culture sees Average Joe straight culture as crude or tedious or troglodyte-ish.

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Sidenote: You can apparently buy original paperback editions of Matt Bradley‘s “Homo Hill”, a respected, relatively trim account of urban gay life during the JFK era. It first hit the stands on 1.1.63.

If I was told “okay, this is it — who among these four is your immediate, no-going-back choice to take the oath of office tomorrow?…decide right now,” I would say Christie or Haley, no question. Neither has a chance against The Beast, I realize…

HE isn’t 100% persuaded in terms of the Disqus poster’s identity, but it may the same Lily Gladstone with whom we’re all familiar,

Either way I have two replies — (a) thanks for the recognition and the for the implied limited respect therein, and (b) thanks for expanding my horizons with a Navajo term I wasn’t familiar with — da’alzhin, which means ayehole.

The HE comment in question appeared late last night. It was in response to yesterday afternoon’s “Lily Wins Again…Yeesh” riff. I’m mentioning it for posterity’s sake as her Apple handlers will most likely be urging @lilygladstone to delete the post, if (and I say “if”) the authorship is indeed genuine.

HE statement: I don’t have an issue with Lily Gladstone per se — not in the least. She’s fine within the realm of her own talent, and there’s nothing wrong per se with wrapping herself in a Native American identity blanket on the campaign trail.

Gladstone is simply out of her depth in the current Best Actress race compared to Emma Stone and Carey Mulligan’s guns-blazing performances in Poor Things and Maestro, respectively. Her Mollie Burkhart performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, good as it modestly is, is a supporting thing —it simply lacks the necessary scope, depth and intensity that is commonly associated with an award-aspiring lead performance.

Alas, Lily has been running an effective woke identity campaign (a three-pronged one, one could argue), and it’s obviously working with the rank-and-file. Such efforts have been yielding award-season fruit since the Great Awokening kicked in four or five years ago.

For what it’s worth, I’m a passionate fan of Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction (or at least the first half) and Jeffrey Wright’s lead performance in particular. I’m surprised it hasn’t attracted more praise.

What can I add in the way of commentary to the overwhelming terra cotta color scheme? Nothing. George Miller returns to the Australian wasteland…bingo. The dust, the dust…wash rinse repeat. Opening worldwide on 5.24.24, probably debuting in Canb=nes.

Many online lyric pages state that the chorus of the Rolling Stones‘ Honky Tonk Women” (’69)
reads as follows: “It’s the honky tonk women / Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues.”

What you’re almost hearing, however, is different. You’re almost hearing Honky Tonk Women” (’69) as follows: “It’s the hahhnn-aww-hahun-hawwwn-ky tonk women…gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues.”

I’m seen the Stones live a few times and that’s what they sing, all right. Excerpt they don’t sing these words on the original single. They very explicitly don’t sing the word “women.” In its place they sing “it’s okay.”

Here’s how the chorus goes on the single: “It’s ahh-ohhhl-ahhhowll-huhll-ow-huhll…it’s okay!! Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues.”

Lily Gladstone‘s Killers of the Flower Moon Best Actress campaign isn’t just founded upon her Native American identity, although that’s obviously the main rallying point. (Gladstone is a distant but direct cousin of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, who served from 1868 to 1894.)

Now hear this: According to various sources including her Wiki page, Gladstone is non-binary (goes by both she/her and they/them pronouns). So now she’s really got the woke bull by the horns — native American plus non-binary. Imagine the hearts of all those Millennial and Zoonmer Academy and SAG members going pitty-pat upon hearing this news.

The Critics Choice film nominations will be revealed one week hence — Wednesday, 12.13 at 9 a.m. Pacific.

Many CC members are shameless whores to varying degrees, but if they fail to nominate BlackBerry‘s Glenn Howerton for Best Supporting Actor they will have double-branded themselves as valueless sluts for all eternity.

Do they even know what’s happening out there, or for that matter within themselves?

Do they understand how mesmerizing and shattering the last half-hour of Maestro is? Do they have even a glimmer of a hint at how wonderfully surreal and groundbreaking and resplendently out there Poor Things is?

They wouldn’t dare blow off The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine Joy Randolph for Best Supporting Actress, but has it sunk into their gelatinous membranes how perfectly alive and percolating Paul Giamatti is in that Alexander Payne film?