On Sunday morning in Los Angeles members of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics gathered at the Hancock Park home of producer Patrick Moran and writer Jordan Budde to celebrate the winners of this year’s Dorian Awards.
Booksmart director Olivia Wilde was honoured as the group’s Wilde Artist of the Year, which aims to recognise “a truly groundbreaking force in film, theatre and/or television”, while her movie was also awarded Unsung Film of the Year. Antonio Banderas delighted GALECA members by making a surprise appearance to collect his award for Performance of the Year in Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory, a role for which is up for an Academy Award.
Honeyland filmmakers Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska were present to collect their Dorian for Documentary of the Year, while star of Comedy Central’s The Other Two, Andrew Ridings, was presented with the Dorian Award for Unsung TV Show of the Year.
Olivia explained to the assembled guests how she’d chosen to use the name Wilde as an aspiring artist. “As I started being interested in theatre and literature I studied Irish authors and Irish playwrights and by the age of twelve I became completely in love with Oscar Wilde. I said ‘this is my everything! These are the parts that I want to play, these are the novels I want to read; the example I want to follow in terms of that individualistic spirit. That dedication to sticking to who you are regardless of the consequences.’ Then as I got older I learned more about Oscar Wilde. I went to the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin…I was in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and I said ‘this writer means so much to me, has become so much a part of why I’m doing this and what I believe in’ and my Irish heritage and so I took the name Wilde in honour of Oscar Wilde. Now the best part of that is that occasionally his incredible quotes are given to me, misquoted as my own! I love seeing teenagers on twitter giving me some of the greatest Oscar Wilde quotes. Yeah, sure I might’ve also said it!”
Talking about her experience directing Booksmart Wilde gave her take on filmmakers hiring intimacy coordinators: “We should not take away the responsibility from the director to be sensitive enough that it doesn’t necessarily require an external force, another crew member to come in and be the sensitive one. Can’t we change the way we all behave? It feels like outsourcing responsibility. So for Booksmart I wanted these young actresses to see what a real closed set felt like so that when they go forth in their illustrious careers they will say ‘actually no, I’m aware that a closed set means all the monitors on the entire set are turned off’…I just think that part of what I can do as an actor turned director is say I can speak for the experience of actors, and specifically actresses, and demand a different paradigm. I think as storytellers of all types, which everyone in this room is, we have that same responsibility to change the way that stories are told and to set a new paradigm and to say we can actually blast this open and have a new way of behaving, of being. It’s possible.”
GALECA, formed in 2009, aims to generate camaraderie and solidarity in an unsettling media environment, champion constructive film and television criticism and elevate the craft of entertainment journalism. Via panels, screenings and the annual Dorian Awards, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics strives to remind at-risk youth, bullies and bigots that the world looks to the Q eye for leads on great and unique movies and TV. And how would we all fare without knowing what’s campy? Follow GALECA on Twitter and Facebook @DorianAwards and on Instagram @Dorian_Awards
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