Sony Pictures Entertainment

Alexandra Shipp and Hadley Robinson as Claudia and Halle in Anyone But You
Alexandra Shipp and Hadley Robinson as Claudia and Halle in Anyone But You

SUMMARY

Considering the quality, quantity, and diversity of films distributed under the Sony Pictures Entertainment banner, GLAAD has given Sony Pictures Entertainment a INSUFFICIENT grade.

There were some standouts in Sony Pictures’ slate this year; including interracial lesbian couples in blockbuster romantic comedy Anyone But You and the based on a true story dramedy Dumb Money, which both painted their worlds as casually inclusive. However, Sony profoundly missed the mark with the deeply offensive ¡Que viva México!, which was overtly transphobic, in both the casting and the story of its trans character. 

Sony Pictures Classics included queer women of color in leading roles in Shortcomings and The Persian Version, which was exciting to see as API and MENA women often don’t have the opportunity to shine in queer narratives. There were once again no LGBTQ characters in Cruchyroll releases. 

It is exciting to see the indie tentpoles of Sony Picture Classics and the broad comedies of Sony Pictures including LGBTQ stories–specifically those of LGBTQ women. GLAAD hopes to see this same respect and inclusion in Sony’s portrayal of trans women. 

HISTORY

The film studio, founded in 1918 as Cohn-Brandt-Cohn Film Sales, was renamed Columbia Pictures in 1924. By the 1920’s, the studio began to build prestige by association with director Frank Capra, producing some of the biggest films and stars of the classic Hollywood era. For a brief period in the ‘80s, the studio was acquired by Coca-Cola and launched TriStar pictures, which was its own entity until Sony purchased it in 1989. In 1992, Sony Pictures Classics was formed and has acquired, produced, and distributed independent, documentary and arthouse films since then. In 2021, Sony entered into multi-year deals with Netflix and The Walt Disney Company to host films on their streaming platforms, Disney+ and Hulu, after their theatrical runs. The following year, Legendary Entertainment reached a distribution deal with Sony to distribute its future slate of films, excluding Warner Bros.’ Dune and MonsterVerse movies. Sony currently distributes films from its many imprints including Columbia, TriStar, Sony Pictures Classics, Sony Pictures Animation, Screen Gems, and Affirm.

Columbia’s political thriller Advise and Consent (1962) and TriStar’s neo-noir Basic Instinct (1993) were denounced by LGBTQ groups, including GLAAD, for their vilified portrayals of lesbian women and bisexual men. Sony Pictures Classics has released numerous high-profile LGBTQ-inclusive films, notably including the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995), based on GLAAD co-founder Vito Russo’s book of the same name, which explores the rich history of LGBTQ representation in cinema. Additional inclusive films from Sony Pictures Classics consist of GLAAD Media Award winners Call Me By Your Name (2017), A Fantastic Woman (2017) and Parallel Mothers (2021); GLAAD Media Award nominees Pain and Glory (2019), and I Carry You With Me (2021); as well as My Life in Pink (1997); Kill Your Darlings (2013); Pedro Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited! (2013); Love Is Strange (2014); Grandma (2015); The Meddler (2016); Greed (2020), Hytti Nro 6 (2022), The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile (2022), and Return to Seoul (2022). Sony has also released Our Ladies (2021), GLAAD Media Award nominee A Man Called Otto (2022), and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022).

OF THE 7 LGBTQ-INCLUSIVE FILMS,

5 WERE SONY PICTURES

2 WERE SONY CLASSICS

0 WERE CRUNCHYROLL

Considering the quality, quantity, and diversity of films distributed under Sony Pictures Entertainment and its labels, GLAAD has given Sony Pictures Entertainment an INSUFFICIENT grade.

SONY PICTURES

Anyone But You

Widest Release: 3,055 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: PASS

Anyone But YouThis romantic comedy, based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, follows bickering duo Bea and Ben as they attend the wedding of their friends Claudia and Halle. Claudia and Halle are a lesbian couple who, though not the main focus of the movie, are very significant to the film, as their wedding is the entire reason that the main couple are forced to be together. Claudia and Halle’s queerness is never questioned and all the surrounding characters are rooting for them. In fact, the motivation of the main characters to get along is so that Claudia and Halle can have a peaceful and loving wedding. This lesbian couple’s inclusion in this mainstream blockbuster romantic comedy will hopefully lead to queer couples leading their own big studio films in the genre.  

Dumb Money

Widest Release: 2,837 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: PASS

Dumb MoneyDumb Money is based on the true story of the GameStop stock squeeze in 2021, led by Keith Gill. Many of the characters in this film are ordinary people from across the country who follow Keith and take his advice. Two of those people are Riri and Harmony, college students in Texas who buy and hold GameStop stock. The two are first shown at a party when Harmony is dared to put her hand in Riri’s pants, yet over the course of their scenes it becomes clear that the two become a couple, sharing easy affection and pet names. Including a lesbian couple in this ensemble film showed that this cultural moment spoke to people of all walks of life, including queer people. Additionally, one of the investors is a Pennsylvania nurse Jenny, who is often seen confiding in her coworker Chris, a gay man.

Love Again

Widest Release: 2,703 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: FAIL

This romance follows Mira, a woman whose husband died two years ago, who still texts his old phone number. Her romantic interest is Rob, whose phone receives the texts, unbeknownst to Mira. One of Rob’s coworkers is Billy, who he confides in about his situation. Billy is gay, at multiple times showing interest or going home with men. While it is good that Billy’s sexuality is explicit, he only exists as Rob’s confidant, without having a character arc of his own, falling into the “gay best friend” trope.

No Hard Feelings

Widest Release: 3,208 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: FAIL

This comedy follows 32-year-old Maddie, who is hired by 19-year-old Percy’s parents to date him. There are no explicitly LGBTQ characters in the movie, though there are some references to the community. When Maddie first meets with Percy’s parents, she asks if Percy is gay and his parents say they looked at the content of his porn, and he’s definitely straight. Later, when Maddie is at a party with teenagers, she sarcastically suggests that two boys sleep with each other. The boys then call Maddie homophobic because she used the idea of two boys sleeping together as an insult. Maddie backtracks saying, “I’ve been with girls, I’m not homophobic.” The interaction as a whole is a comedic commentary on callout culture and how Gen Z deploys homophobia less often than older generations. GLAAD did not count Maddie as bisexual from this interaction, as it was an offhanded defensive remark, and her only love interests are men during the movie.

¡Que viva México!

Widest Release: 90 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: FAIL

This film follows protagonist Pancho, who returns to Mexico from 20 years in the US, due to his grandfather’s passing, hoping to receive an inheritance. When Pancho arrives, the audience meets Pancho’s extended family, including his sister Jacinta, who is trans. Jacinta exists solely for other family members to mock and to portray her trans identity as something that makes her different and odd. Jacinta is constantly deadnamed, is abused by her husband, and invalidated by her family. There are no consequences for how others treat Jacinta. Even when her husband is killed, her uncle mocks her for crying at his funeral by pulling off her wig. No one learns a lesson in this film. Furthermore, this character is played by a cisgender male actor, reinforcing harmful and deadly lies that trans women are simply men in dresses. This film not only portrays rampant transphobia; it actively encourages it.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Widest Release: 4,313 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: FAIL

There were no LGBTQ characters in Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse. There is a brief shot of a flag in Gwen Stacy’s room that says “Protect Trans Kids,” a positive message to have in a superhero film. Some fans have read this as Gwen being trans herself, but there is nothing in the film to confirm that. Hopefully, future iterations of Spiderverse franchise include LGBTQ characters.

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Freud’s Last Session

Widest Release: 634 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: PASS

Freud's Last SessionThis film follows a fictional meeting between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, where the two men sit down to philosophize and debate over their differing viewpoints. A key component of the character of Freud is his relationship with his daughter Anna. Anna lives with another woman, Dorothy, and is open with her father about Dorothy being her lover. Freud is very much in denial about his daughter’s sexuality and refuses to meet Dorothy. In his conversation with Lewis, he remarks that lesbianism is caused by women having issues with their fathers. Much of Anna’s character is in relation to her father, and she is rarely granted her own agency, except for toward the end of the film when she brings Dorothy to Freud’s house against his will. The film ends with text that says Anna and Dorothy lived happily in Freud’s estate after he died. It is good to see that the sexuality of Anna was not erased from real life, but the film could have gone further in showing Anna as a character with her own agency, and countering some of Freud’s more harmful theories about sexuality.

The Persian Version

Widest Release: 480 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: PASS

The Persian VersionThis film follows Leila, an Iranian-American woman, who is a self-proclaimed lesbian, and starts the film by sleeping with a man and gets pregnant. She is attracted to Max, the man in question, because she assumes he is a drag queen, but he is just in a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The majority of the film revolves around Leila and her mother Shireen, and their strained relationship. This strain is due to many factors, including Leila’s queerness, as she used to be married to a woman and calls herself a lesbian for the majority of the film. By the end of the film, Leila chooses to keep the baby and stay with Max. This brings her and her mother closer, with Shireen helping Leila with the birth of her child. Though there are many factors in this relationship being repaired, it is frustrating that Leila getting together with a man and having his baby helped repair this. While it is very exciting to see a queer Iranian woman lead a film, and her ending up with a man does not erase her queerness, she self-identified as a lesbian for the majority of the film, and her sexual orientation was never meaningfully unpacked.

Shortcomings

Widest Release: 404 Theaters

Vito Russo Test: PASS

ShortcomingsBased on the graphic novel of the same name, Shortcomings follows Ben, a Bay Area film enthusiast, and his relationships with several women. His best friend is Alice, a lesbian, who spends the first part of the film single, but then moves to New York and falls in love with Meredith, and they begin seriously dating. Alice is very comfortable with her sexuality, though she does use Ben as her fake boyfriend when she has to see her parents, who she is not out to. It’s refreshing that her not being out to her parents does not monopolize the story; it’s more a footnote.

One of the women Ben dates is Sasha, who he meets at a queer party Alice brings him too. Sasha is bisexual, with Alice calling her a “fence-sitter.” Though this has the potential to dip into biphobia, when Sasha and Ben break up, she makes it very clear their breakup has nothing to do with her sexuality, it has to do with Ben himself. Overall, though a straight man was the protagonist, this film introduced several flawed and fleshed out queer women living their own stories outside their identities.

OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD

Space race comedy from out director Greg Berlanti Fly Me to the Moon was released in July of 2024 and features out actor Jim Rash as Lance Vespertine, a gay director who they bring in to help shoot a fake moon landing. The based on real life film Saturday Night is set to feature MUNA member Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian, the first out musical guest to appear on Saturday Night Live. Sony will be adapting the iconic game Street Fighter into a film. Many players have read characters Eagle and Juri as queer, which presents an opportunity for inclusion in the film.

Sony has a number of superhero properties with the opportunity for LGBTQ inclusion, including the Venom series, which many fans have read as including queer subtext between Eddie and Venom. The upcoming film Kraven the Hunter will feature queer actor Ariana DeBose as Calypso, and presents an opportunity for her character to be queer as well. The next film in the Spiderverse series, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has the chance to expand upon the trans rights posters on Gwen’s wall in the previous film, and include out LGBTQ characters in a franchise that focuses on young adults, an increasingly LGBTQ population.

For the purposes of this study, GLAAD is counting films distributed under Sony Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, as well as Sony’s anime-focused subsidiary Crunchyroll as one overall brand. All of these releases were theatrical this year.

Summary of 2023 Findings

31

Total films released in 2023 under studio and official imprints

7

Total number of LGBTQ-inclusive films

23%

Percent of LGBTQ-inclusive films of studio total releases

5

Number of films that pass the Vito Russo Test

STUDIO RATING OVER TIME

2023

INSUFFICIENT

2022

INSUFFICIENT

2021

INSUFFICIENT

2020

N/A

2019

POOR

2018

INSUFFICIENT

2017

POOR

2016

FAILING

2015

ADEQUATE

2014

FAILING

2013

GOOD

2012

ADEQUATE

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The GLAAD Studio Responsibility Index (SRI) maps the quantity, quality and diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) characters in films released by eight major motion picture studios during the 2019 calendar year. GLAAD researched films released by Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, STX Films, United Artists Releasing, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros., as well as films released by four subsidiaries of these major studios. The report is intended to serve as a road map toward increasing fair, accurate and inclusive LGBTQ representation in film.

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