It is her first Academy Award. The outcome was expected but historic nonetheless as the 31-year-old actress becomes only the second Latina to nab an Oscar. The ...
DeBose is also the first openly queer star to win an acting Oscar. So to anybody who has ever questioned your identity — ever, ever, ever, — or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: There is indeed a place for us. Ariana DeBose becomes the first openly queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar.
Actor Ariana DeBose has made history as the first Afro Latina and first openly queer woman of color to win an Academy Award for acting.
She means a lot to the Latino community and to the entertainment industry at large.” “She means a lot to me,” DeBose said of Moreno in a previous NBC News joint interview. Their rivalry intensifies when Tony, a Jet, falls in love with Maria, the young sister of Sharks leader Bernardo. And that's what I believe we're here to celebrate," DeBose said in her acceptance speech. It is highly emotional. It is loud.
During her acceptance speech, the actress thanked the film's director Steven Spielberg and Rita Moreno, who originated the role in the 1961 movies, saying they ...
“After West Side Story “I couldn’t get a job except in gang movies, lesser ones.” Moreno made history 60 years ago when she became the first Latina to win an Oscar, which she won for the same role of Anita. But Moreno told “60 Minutes” last year that it wasn’t the starting off point for her career as she hoped. Actress Ariana DeBose made history Sunday as the first Afro Latina and openly queer actor of color to take home an Oscar with her win for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in “West Side Story.” In her acceptance speech, DeBose said “dreams do come true.”
DeBose is the first openly queer woman of color to win an Oscar for her acting.
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DeBose is also only the second Latina woman to win an acting Oscar... after Rita Moreno, for West Side Story.
Rita Moreno for West Side Story. (She’s also only the second actor born in the 1990s to win, after Jennifer Lawrence, but that’s more just weird, and not “deeply infuriating.”) Tonight’s ceremony is actually only the first time in 20 years that an openly queer performer has even been nominated for an acting award (Kristen Stewart, who’s up for Best Actress for Spencer, is in a similar boat to DeBose). The most “recent” was Ian McKellan’s nomination for his performance in The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. And while we’re cataloguing baffling information, let’s also consider that DeBose is now only the second Latina to have won an acting Oscar, after... DeBose won, of course, for her performance in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, where she took on the role of Anita. (DeBose was quick to namecheck both fellow Anita Rita Moreno in her acceptance speech, as well as Spielberg, who she reminded was now “stuck with her.)