While it was all about celebrating the year’s notable contributions to porn at the GayVN Awards in San Francisco this weekend, in the considerably more staid New York City, Saturday marked the less raucous 20th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. What the GLAAD Awards may have lacked in bare skin – save for Hedda Lettuce’s cleavage – the show made up for in size, a full three hours to be exact. And despite any possible celebrity overlap, GLAAD churned out a slew of big name presenters and guests, all in the name of honoring fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of LGBT people in the media.
Host Kate Clinton, the sly lesbian comedienne, managed to keep the crowd attentive inside the Marriott Marquis Ballroom in Midtown, serving up zingers like “Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle in a pony tail,” and of course a requisite reference to Anderson Cooper’s “360 degree” sexuality. Tony Award winner and gay fave Jennifer Holliday sprinkled in performances during the ceremony, and Special Recognition Awards were presented to a handful of media luminaries, including Phil Donahue, Tyra Banks, and Suze Orman.
Orman was without a doubt a show stealer in her acceptance of the Vito Russo Award (given to an openly gay or lesbian media figure for contributions towards eliminating homophobia). With her blond wedge haircut, hardcore spray tan and commanding voice, Orman has always been a diva in her own right, but Saturday night cemented her status as Gay Diva. “It’s my life, it’s your life… We’re going to live it the way we should!” she shouted out in trademark Suze staccato, after marching up to the stage to the tune of Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life.” She went on and roared “Stand up!” to various corporations and people who had supported her, barking the same refrain until nearly every power gay in the room was standing. Finally she thanked her partner, Kathy Travis, calling her “the love of my life.”
Clay Aiken attended his first GLAAD Awards as an out gay man and seemed remarkably at ease on the red carpet. He presented the Excellence in Media Award to Tyra Banks, who busted out a few “Hollas!” before saying that she always relied on gay friends during her struggle as an African-American in the largely white modeling world. “Hate is hate, and prejudice is prejudice,” she said, as the audience cheered.
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As you might imagine, Proposition 8 was a hot topic, and the Outstanding TV Journalism Segment award went to Keith Olbermann for his much-YouTubed “Special Comment: Gay Marriage Is a Question of Love.” Accepting the award, Olbermann magnanimously apologized for not having done the segment prior to the Prop. 8 vote. Presenter and long-time gay rights advocate Judith Light also spoke on the subject, telling Queerty, “We are angry but we’re going to take that energy and channel it into something much more powerful.”
Other presenters included T.R. Knight, Cherry Jones, Stockard Channing, Vanessa Williams and Chris Noth, and other winners were A Jihad For Love for Outstanding Documentary, and a tie between LOGO’s Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom and surfer love story Shelter for Outstanding Limited Release Film. Accepting the award for Shelter was Paul Colichman, Regent and Here! Media CEO, who closed by proclaiming, “We wish you shelter, a pair of loving arms to hold you.”
While most ceremonies lag when the yawn-inducing suits behind the awards take the stage, Neil Giuliano, the outgoing President of GLAAD, actually gave one of the most moving speeches of the evening. He cited promising statistics about the increasing acceptance of gays among young people and related a story about his dying mother’s wishes, one of which was for him to meet a man and settle down. Apparently he’s still working on that part (he’s on Facebook, boys! Rawr!).
Jennifer Holliday closed out the evening with “And I Am Telling You…I’m Not Going,” but after three hours, it was indeed finally time to go.
More GLAAD Media Awards will be announced during a ceremony in Los Angeles on April 18 and in San Francisco on May 9. A complete list of winners and honorees can be found here.
-Ben Harvey
fern
Whether we like or not it’s here to stay. To me that was Newsom’s greatest statement. I know that, we all know that, even the churches know that. As for what the pope said about the uselessness of condoms believe you me he knows about it, he used them himself to protect his rifle when he was with the Vermacht and they (the condoms) didn’t stop them from loosing the war.
I don’t like celebrities but Keith Olbermann jerked some tears out of me and I hate that…
Erick
How could Noahs Arc tie with Shelter?
dgz
i love suze orman. wish we had a male version, too.
p.s. was she wearing a snazzy jacket?
Kate
@dgz: Suze was wearing a very flattering black shirt, though it could have been a fitted jacket (I was not that close). She looked amazing.
cubby
I was sitting not far from Aiken & his gorgeous boyfriend. They were a pretty cute couple. Tyra is so frickin’ tall! Luv the bitch.
Monica Roberts
Susie Orman is a LIE.
I called her last month and pretended to be a broke ex-felon from Houston, Texas who used to do shitty drag.
I told her how I had struggled to buy a Greyhound ticket to move to Canada (the promise land) but has ran out of money halfway there and end up living in squalor in Louisville, Kentucky.
My premise was simplicity itself:
“How do I, as a black transexual gay lesbian male activist, get all the federal money in repararions due me?”
Yet her so-called “assistant” kept hanging up on me.
See.. this is the kind of thing make me want to V O M I C T.
mike80
She is so beautiful. Her blog and photos were found at agegap dating site agelesskiss.com last week. I am wondering what kind of relationship she is seeking on that site.
lars77
@Monica Roberts: Reparaqtions due you? Is it too much to expect you to get a job Monica? Have you tried MSNBC, very gay friendly. As a matter of fact, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would love to do a 3sum with you and probably pay you darn well. Like the saying goes, gays of a feather fuck together
Nitesurf
Keith deserved to win for his powerful Special Comment on gay marriage, but lay off Anderson, there are plenty of other gay personalities on television who get a free pass from all the “closet” talk because everyone wants to throw it on Anderson. Not exactly fair.
kidwell
Olberman is an ass… A true emabrassment to the airwaves to any that employ him. MSNBC deserves the poor ratings.
Adam
No, an ass would be a person that is full of so much self loathing that they think they can tell others that they can’t be married, simply because they don’t like them and it boosts their ego to make other people’s lives harder.
rbctv
Check out the some behind the scenes GLAAD recaps.
http://therainbowcollective.com/?p=319
George
Olbermann is a total waste just like the 2 worthless scumbag Clintons. Those kind of people hang out in sewers.
No. 14 · George is a bitter person
Number 14 seems rather bitter. What’s eating you?
ck
Olbermann is hilarious! He was a pretty good sports caster but as a news man he is the limit. I wonder why his ratings are so microscopic. Couldn’t be that people actually think that he believes the idiotic things he says. Ray Maddow isn’t bad either considering Olbermann is a pretty tough act to follow.
Dan
Why is it hateful to warn people of the dangers of sodomy? When you suffer the consequences and pass the consequences on to someone else – who is to blame for this? Personal responsibility is a lacking quality these days.
SkippyIN
OK, lemme get this straight (no pun intended):
Gays get upset when Ann Coulter refers to John Edwards as a ‘fag’ when she didn’t even specify his tendencies, and yet honors Keith Olberman, Suze Orman, and Anderson Cooper for their open support of homosexuals.
Were they upset at being associated with John Edwards, or possibly being mistaken by Brits for a cigarette?
Of course there’s no sense wasting my time actually watching these individuals on TV…I only heard about this froma link on Newsbusters.org/blog.
BTW, Olberman’s show title is interesting, and somehow propheticaly appropriate – “Countdown” sounds like a ratings race to the bottom.
Acknowledgements like this from GLAAD will just hasten the trip to the bottom.
TONY
the people have spoken and voted down gay marrages so get over it..
TANK
@TONY:
I will not get over it, you friggin’ queer. I will continue to complain and fight and throw public fits until people like US (you, TONY, and me, TANK)–ya know, FLAMING queens– can get same sex married and have lotsa sloppy same sex gay sexin’. Get it? Until that day COMES HARD, then it’s no rest for US, huh, TONY?
Mike Johnson
While I find Mr. Olberman entertaining, I still remember how much of a jerk we was on ESPN. Sorry, but a racist homo-phobe by any other name is still a racist homo-phobe.
Brian Williams
I always knew Olberman probably likes it up the ass. Well done bitch. Talk about teabagging, you probably invented it. And Rachel Maddow probably loves it when you lick her balls.
Toni Borghese
I recently read a book, promoted as having been channeled directly from God. The book explores many of the explosive issues of our time (abortion, gay marriage, organized religion). In each case, God offers up his own opinion about these issues that polarize our people.
Essentially, the book (read “God”) comes down on the side of free choice, against organized religion, for gay marriage and a host of other progressive sensitivities.
It seems to me that, rather than preach in opposition to the reactionary view, quoting from God’s own words will generate more press, public engagement and, more importantly, a logical view from which to engage public discourse. Perhaps, it will also expose conservative “received wisdom” as flawed when logical enlightened reason shines a light on these issues.
As far as I can tell, the book only has a few distributors. It’s not available yet in most of the national chains (only Amazon & Barnes & Noble carry it). The title is ‘In The Beginning, There Was Me’ by Samson Soledad. It was released this month. I got to read it through someone with a review copy.
I just think a headline like ‘GOD PROMOTES FREE CHOICE’ will rise above the information chatter and get people’s attention.
—
Toni B.
marianne
Boy is someone nuts to give you this???????? I hope you know that what goes around comes around. HOW dare you make fun of the TEA PARTY the way you did . You have a dirty mind.
Ken Denne
Keith Olberman is a non entity, freak, scumbag…..
Lisa
I don’t want to register for an account because after I watched this idiot and Janeane Garofalo call the American people racist, laugh, make fun of, and lower themselves to beneath pond-scum,there’s no accountability there for lack of brains.
JOE
olberman blows
fecesphilic
Olberman is just another feces-feeding, colon-kissing Homocrat.