GLAAD Awards Honor Charlize Theron

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) held its 17th annual GLAAD Media Awards Saturday in Hollywood, and has bestowed its Vanguard Award on Charlize Theron. The Vanguard Award is bestowed on someone for increasing "visibility and understanding in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community."

The Los Angeles portion of the GLAAD Media Awards was held in Kodak Theatre, where Charlize Theron had, two years prior, accepted her Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the movie, Monster. Theron was quoted by the BBC as saying "This is very surreal for me because two years ago, I stood right here and won my Oscar for Monster."

In a statement made after the ceremony, Charlize Theron said, according to Forbes, "I feel so fortunate that I am in a relationship with a wonderful man. I find it incredibly unfair that because of our sexual preference, we have the rights that we have, and that, because of someone else's sexual preference, they don't have those same rights." Indeed, according to the BBC, Theron "reportedly said on TV that she would not wed boyfriend Stuart Townsend until gay marriage is legally recognised in the US."

As GLAAD, the leading gay organization to monitor the media in the US, honored Charlize Theron, who came firmly into the spotlight after portraying the serial killer Aileen Wuorons in 2003's Monster, others received awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Felicity Huffman's transsexual journey film, Transamerica won the award for Outstanding Film in Limited Release, though Felicity Huffman was not at the ceremony. As for a television series, the honors went to the Showtime/Showcase TV series, The L Word for Outstanding Drama Series, and NBC's Will & Grace won for Outstanding Comedy Series.

The venue proved to be very enlightening for fans of Will & Grace, as they began to tease fans about their final season, and about the last episodes. USA Today reported that Will & Grace creator, Max Mutchnick said " We made one last attempt to get Barbra Streisand to come on the show as Karen's sister, but there was just no love there for us." Actress Megan Mullally, who plays Karen Walker on the show, added "And then they went after Meryl Streep, but (Bernadette) is amazing."

The other major award presented Saturday night was the Stephen F. Kolzak Award, which is given to "an openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for our community." This year, the award was presented by actress Laura Dern (I Am Sam, Jurassic Park 3), to Grammy-Award winning singer, and breast cancer survivor, Melissa Etheridge. Past recipients of the Stephen F. Kolzak Award include Ellen DeGeneres, Todd Haynes and Sir Ian McKellen.

Other winners at the Los Angeles round of the GLAAD Media Awards included Brokeback Mountain winning for Outstanding Wide-Release Film, TransGeneration winning for Outstanding Documentary, and a tie in the Best Original Episode category, between the pilot of NBC's My Name is Earl and CBS's Cold Case's episode "Best Friends".

The awards have been split in 4 parts to distribute their 41 category awards. The first ceremony took place in New York on March 27th. Miami will host its ceremony May 25th, and San Francisco will host the final leg of the awards on June 10th. VH1 will air the Los Angeles event on April 16th.

[Additional Sources: BBC, Forbes, USA Today]