The Dorian Awards are film and television accolades given by GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, founded in 2009 as the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association. GALECA is an association of professional journalists and critics who regularly report on movies and/or TV for print, online, and broadcast outlets in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. As of March 2023, GALECA listed approximately 420 members, including those on its advisory board. The awards recognize the best in film and television, with categories ranging from general to LGBTQ-centric.
The Dorian Award is named in honor of the writer Oscar Wilde, in reference to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the graphic for the awards features a picture of Wilde.
In 2019, the award was redesigned to mimic a cue card. Since the group's first televised awards special, Dorians TV Toast 2020, presented on the LGBTQ streaming platform Revry on September 12, 2020, winners have received a small illustrated portrait of themselves or a memorable scene from their project. During GALECA's Dorians Film Toast 2021 special (airing April 18, 2021), actress Carey Mulligan, in accepting the group's Best Film Performance—Actress award for her work in Promising Young Woman, said her Dorian "might be the coolest prize I've ever seen".
Format
The Dorian Awards honor film and television at separate times of the year. Dorian film nominees and winners for the previous calendar year are announced in January and February, while TV nominees and winners for the previous television season are typically announced in June and August. In addition to more traditional categories such as Film of the Year and Best TV Comedy, the Dorians include more novel categories, including Unsung TV Show, Visually Striking Film, Wilde Wit, and Campy Flick, an honor that has generated amusement from The New York Times.
Rather than present an official awards ceremony, GALECA typically hosts its annual "Dorian Awards Winners Toast", an informal day party in Los Angeles for members, winners, nominees, and associates. For the 2020 Toast, Antonio Banderas, the group's choice for 2019 Film Performance of the Year—Actor, and actress-director Olivia Wilde, named "Wilde" Artist of the Year, were among the honored guests.
In 2018, the group separated its film and TV awards' timelines, with Dorian movie award winners revealed each February and TV honors in August.
In September 2020, GALECA presented its first televised awards, Dorians TV Toast 2020, a pre-recorded two-hour special with appearances by performers and producers such as Hugh Jackman, Janelle Monáe, Billy Porter, Margaret Cho, Josh Thomas, Regina King, Dan Levy, Laverne Cox, John Oliver, Chad Michaels, Thomas Roberts, Fiona Shaw, Annie Murphy, Alex Newell, and Damon Lindelof. The program, shown on LGBTQ+ streaming platform Revry, was hosted by broadcasting veteran and LGBTQ rights activist Charles Karel Bouley, and included segments where he and other GALECA members discussed the merits of the contenders in various categories.
Bouley, known simply as Karel, also hosted the group's Dorians Film Toast 2021, this time a three-hour special on Revry featuring Carey Mulligan, Daniel Kaluuya, Chloé Zhao, Lee Daniels George C. Wolfe, Radha Blank, Lee Isaac Chung, Cynthia Nixon, Gabourey Sidibe, Rachel McAdams, Isabel Sandoval, Colman Domingo, Rafael L. Silva, Harry Hamlin, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Deven Green, Leslie Jordan, Emerald Fennell, California governor Gavin Newsom, Charo, Cox and Michaels, and other stars. "Wilde Artist" recipient Dolly Parton did not appear in the show to accept that special award ("to a truly ground-breaking force in film, theater, and/or television"), but said in a statement: "I'm not sure I'm as edgy as past winners (in the Wilde Artist category) like Todd Haynes, Kate McKinnon, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Jordan Peele — but I am honored and humbled. I appreciate all of you entertainment journalists who are so passionate and are working so hard. Keep up the good work!"