This dogged crime tale was one of the first—and best—films to bring queerness to the Oscars
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we’re revisiting 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon, one of the first films with LGBTQ+ themes and characters nominated for an Oscar.The history between the Oscars and queer film has always been a tricky and complicated one.
For many decades, films with queer themes or openly gay actors struggled to get in the radar of the Academy at all, let alone earn a nomination or take the trophy home.
It’s not until recently, as LGBTQ+ narratives and performers have made their way into the mainstream, that the Oscars have begun to embrace them with more regularity.
It’s a long and tumultuous history that certainly deserves its own separate examination. Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.As we lead into the 96th Academy Awards this weekend, we take a look at one of the few films that managed to not only be recognized in the major categories at a time when this kind of representation barely existed, but is now canonized as one of the great films in American cinema history: Dog Day Afternoon.In 1972, a man named John Wojtowicz went into a Chase Bank in New York City alongside an accomplice with the intent of pulling off a quick robbery.
