Just when you thought the gay Super Bowl couldn’t be much gayer this year, even the commercials played an important supporting role with five queer couple performances.
Here are our nominees for the Best Queer Couple in a commercial during the Academy Awards. Let us know in the comments below…
1. British Airways
Celebrating 100 years for the airline, this ad features a handholding male couple, after noting “you’ve led revolutions.” It also stars several British celebrities, including a cheeky Olivia Colman, who stole from Glenn Close the title for Best Actress via her role as a lesbian in the campy movie, The Favourite. This online video version also includes a transgender person in a fanciful outfit.
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2. Mount Sinai Hospital
An older male couple walk slowly, arm in arm in Central Park, one of several examples of people saved by the hospital. For the men, it says, “Living life again with a transplanted liver.”
3. Samsung Galaxy
Celebrating technology to come in this ad called “The Future,” we see a clothing designer putting something together on a triple panel of 6-foot tall monitors, an artist tattooing someone remotely via a robot, and a pregnant lesbian couple conducting their own ultrasound at home with an attachment to their phone.
4. Stitch Fix
This online clothing delivery service commercial made just for the Oscars plays on how everyday people get dressed.
“Today, Hollywood got dressed up for the big night out, and Molly got dressed for hers.” Several other adults and a child follow, including a male couple: “Mateo and Kevin got dressed for their Sunday ritual.” The two reappear a second time revealing their ritual: the movies.
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/Ij84/stitch-fix-2019-oscars-we-see-you
5. BERMUDA TOURISM
Part of a series called “Out Here” featuring a different way of life on the island, two women get off a small boat together, as one affectionately holds the other’s waist. It appears they’re breaking the heart of the male boat operator. The narrator playfully says, “Out here, there are three sides to every story.”
And the winner is? Please let us know in the comments below!
Michael Wilke has covered LGBTQ issues in advertising since 1992, is the founder of Commercial Closet/AdRespect.org, and Senior US Consultant for LGBTQ marketing and diversity firm Out Now.
@HarryB
And the winner is British Airways. Really well done commercial
stevenlburch
British Airways is the win for me. . .
OzJosh
Queerty seems to have missed the presence in the BA ad of noted British Queer artist Grayson Perry (in drag). Of course, what’s truly notably about this advert is what an utter crock of s*** it is, peddling the notion of a proud, united and harmonious Britain at the exact time that the entire nation is tearing itself apart over Brexit, and perched to consign itself to the dustbin of history as it trashes its economy and descends into something like civil war over the divisions ripping the country in two.
PoetDaddy
Golly, it must be fun to wake up being you every morning.
MarathonBoy
I’m gay. I like guys. Why would I want to see an ad with a man in a woman’s dress?
Apolodorus
Hi Ozjosh – you basically read my mind.
galileo
All a bit silly that British Airways 100 years ad, they did not even exist until 1974 when state owned BOAC and BEA merged…
Despair272
Am I the only one who screams “a commercial is a commercial, they cant be gay, stop using that word like an adjective to insult” inside? I know this article doesnt mean to use it as an insult. I mean if I saw this on Oscar’s subreddit I’d be offended pretty much.
Blackceo
The British Airways commercial hit me right in the feels. Very well made. I love flying British Airways but I hate having to fly into Heathrow