The Oscars: Actresses in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gender Bending and Coded Roles Throughout History

It’s that time of year for Hollywood’s self-congratulatory schmooze fest and guilty pleasure, The Academy Awards! The Oscars offers up plenty of red carpet eye candy and opportunities for tears, empathy and schadenfreude during acceptance speeches, making it a must-see event for celebrity gawkers and cinephiles.

While Oscar – or Hollywood as a whole – has rarely sought to represent queerness positively on film, there remain a few handfuls of performances that, for good or bad, helped to bring visibility to lesbian, bi, trans and queer characters throughout the years. Of course, since Hollywood has traditionally punished transgressive women, be they adulterers, prossies, dykes or just unsupportive of their men, most of the queer characters portrayed by these master thespians were either crazy, paid for their sins or died a gruesome death.

2009's acting nominees didn't include a lesbian, bi or queer part among them – ahem, Paula Patton should have been nominated for Precious. But 2008 broke ground with Penelope Cruz winning the Oscar for her hilarious and peerless performance as a fiery bisexual artist who beds Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, as the character was only mildly crazy and presumably lived fairly happily ever after. This year the Academy has honored Annette Bening with a nod for playing – gasp – a completely sane, if not tightly wound, lesbian character who lives to see the credits in The Kids Are All Right.

Here’s a round-up of actresses nominated for queer roles since Oscar began, including a couple of gender-bending or ‘coded’ roles. We wholly admit we may have missed a few. Happy Oscars' season! We'd love to hear what some of your favorite 'queer' Oscar nominated performances are.

Best Supporting Actress

Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs, 2011

McTeer, mostly recognized for her TV roles and theater achievements, received her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Hubert Page, a woman living as a man, hired to paint the Irish hotel where Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) worked and lived. She won the 1996 London Critics Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in A Doll's House, and was later awarded the 1997 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play and Broadway’s prestigious 1997 Tony Award for Best Actress in a play. In 2009, she received her second Tony nomination for Best Performance for a Leading Actress in a Play for Mary Stuart.

Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2009 – Winner!

Dripping with the sensuality, wit and neuroses under the honey-kissed Barcelona sun, Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a pitch-perfect comedy brimming with eye candy, in large part thanks to Penelope Cruz’s feral, sexy bisexual artist Maria Elena. Cruz is at turns hilariously unchained as a Spanish woman communicating in broken English to Scarlett Johannson’s wannabe bohemian and at times smoldering as when she pulls Cristina to her for a passionate dark room make-out session.

Julianne Moore – The Hours, 2002

Costar Nicole Kidman scored Best Actress gold for playing Virginia Woolf in the same film, but Julianne Moore’s 50’s housewife suffering from suburban ennui and near suicidal depression, became the heart and soul of the film. Fulfilling a longing that was more fleshed out in Michael Cunningham’s novel than in the film, Moore’s Laura Brown kisses her neighbor played by Toni Collette. In the continuum of the film’s women-centered relationships, Moore’s Brown can be read as a repressed queer character. Moore, who was also nominated for Best Actress that year for Far From Heaven, lost to Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago.

Kate Winslet – Iris, 2001 

Previously nominated for Sense and Sensibility and Titanic, Kate Winslet scored her third Academy Award nom for playing the young, bisexual writer Iris Murdoch in Iris. Dame Judi Dench, who played the older Iris, was nominated for Best Actress in the role. Winslet lost that year to Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind, but after several more Oscar noms, Winslet would go on to win Best Actress in 2009 for The Reader.

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