Another Year, Another Fabulous Actress & Gay Icon Snubbed By The Oscars

From: Queerty

Octavia Spencer received a well-deserved 2017 Academy Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actress, thanks to her excellent performance in Hidden Figures, as NASA computer genius Dorothy Vaughan. But all the hype surrounding Spencer overshadowed another actress who shared time with her on the big screen: Kirsten Dunst (above) as NASA supervisor (and Vaughan’s racist adversary) Vivian Mitchell.

Although she did not receive the critical accolades of her fellow cast members, Dunst certainly deserves praise for a performance that was deliciously nuanced, effortlessly hateful and unfortunately realistic portrayal of how someone could be so hateful yet still human. Playing a passive-aggressive racist could have easily fallen by the wayside into the waters of caricature, but Dunst tossed insults over her shoulder as she walked out of the room, the effect lingering long after she was out of the scene. RuPaul would applaud Vivian’s shade, if the character wasn’t being a bigot of course.

This isn’t the first time Dunst has delivered brilliant work; Melancholia, The Virgin Suicides–even way back to when she was just 11 years old in Interview With The Vampire–she enriches her roles beyond the words in the scripts, the mark of a great actor. Her role in camp classic Drop Dead Gorgeous, and then later as the star of Bring It On, elevated her to superstar status amongst the gays, who may sometimes forget how good she is as a dramatic actor. But she has never been nominated for an Oscar (although she did earn a Golden Globe nomination for Interview With The Vampire).

Dunst isn’t the first gay icon to be ignored by the Oscars committee.

Let's takes a look back at some of the most famous, perhaps infamous, occasions when actresses beloved by the LGBTQ community were snubbed by the Oscars…