Gay Best Friend: Artie in "Cruella" (2021) and All The Other 'First Gay Disney Characters'

a series by Christopher James looking at the 'Gay Best Friend' trope

How many Arties are we going to see at Halloween this year?The “Gay Best Friend” in romantic comedies used to be the de facto example of empty virtue signaling. However, like most things in the film world, Disney has decided to do it bigger and... better? This weekend, Craig Gillespie’s Cruella has touted that it features “Disney’s first openly gay character.” All gays stand on the shoulders of their forefathers, and Artie (played by John McCrea) is no exception. In fact, his claim to the title is laughable not just because of how sanitized his character is, but also because Disney has declared having their “first openly gay character” more times than the boy who cried wolf.

So how does Artie compare to the other “first openly gay characters” in the Disney universe?

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12 Days till Oscar - What will win Best Animated Feature?

by Nathaniel R

With just 12 days till Oscar most of the big ticket races are feeling quite locked up apart from arguably Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature. The latter is particularly volatile...

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22 days till Oscar. Randy Newman, again !

by Nathaniel R

image credit: Danny Moloshok

Scarlett Johansson and Cynthia Erivo got all the press for being double-nominees this year at the Oscars but they were hardly the only ones. Others include Sound engineer Mark Ulano (Ad Astra, Once Upon a Time...) and special effects supervisor Dominic Tuohy (1917, Rise of Skywalker).  Randy Newman, nominated for both Original Score (Marriage Story) and Original Song (Toy Story 4) also got the double bringing his grand total up to 22 career nominations. Oscar's music branch can't get enough of him and he's also won twice before...

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'Parasite' and 'Jojo Rabbit' win ACE Eddie Awards

by Murtada Elfadl

Bong Joon Ho and Song Kang Ho celebrate their film's win

Parasite (edited by Jinmo Yang) and Jojo Rabbit (edited by Tom Eagles) won Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic) and Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy) respectively at the 70th Annual ACE Eddie Awards last night in LA. This is a huge win for Parasite at the start of the guild awards. Though there’s no direct relation between this award and the best picture Oscar - the last film to win both is Argo (2012) - it still shows broad support...

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Never bet against Disney

by Cláudio Alves

While not all of Disney’s movies get Oscar gold, it’s never a good idea to bet against the studio. This year, Captain Marvel, Dumbo and Aladdin failed to conquer any nomination, but many other Disney properties got in the race, even in categories people weren’t expecting them to. Think of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil’s makeup nod, for instance. It’s true most of those movies don’t seem like frontrunners, but if we trust in the patterns of Oscar history, then we can be assured the House of Mouse will earn a couple of statues come Hollywood’s biggest night. 

To prove this point, let's peruse the last decade of the Academy Awards and explore Disney’s many nods and victories. Notice there’s at least a win per year…

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