Celebrity Watch: Lady Gaga, 'Smash' Creators Win GLAAD Media Awards

Friday, July 12, 2013

Lady Gaga, 'Smash' Creators Win GLAAD Media Awards

'Dancing with the Stars' also wins big at 23rd annual show celebrating the LGBT community.
By Gil Kaufman

<a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/lady_gaga/artist.jhtml"_blank">Lady Gaga</a> was one of the big winners on Saturday night at the 23rd annual <a href="http://www.glaad.org/blog/dancing-stars-oprah-lady-gaga-among-glaad-media-award-recipients-new-york">GLAAD Media Awards</a>, taking home the prize for Outstanding Music Artist for her <a href="/news/articles/1665374/lady-gaga-born-this-way-billboard.jhtml">Born This Way</a>  album. The show honors various branches of the media that represent the LGBT community. The show was hosted by "Glee" stars Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera and included guest spots from Dakota Fanning, "Jersey Shore" nice guy <a href="/news/articles/1672152/vinny-jersey-shore-bullying-disconnected.jhtml">Vinny Guadagnino,</a>  talk show host Wendy Williams, "Top Chef" star Padma Lakshmi and Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir. <center><embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:731259/cp~vid%3D731259%26uri%3Dmgid%3Auma%3Avideo%3Amtv.com%3A731259" width="460" height="260" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" base="."></embed></center> Broadway veteran Bernadette Peters and TV star John Stamos presented the Vito Russo Award to Craig Zadan and Neil Meron for their work on the NBC musical series "Smash." The Russo award is presented annually to openly LGBT media professionals who have made a difference in promoting equality. In accepting the award, Meron said the pair, who were also behind the Oscar-winning movie musical "Chicago" and "Hairspray," have spent a long time trying to "fight, persuade and manipulate" Hollywood into including LGB characters in their work. Also on hand was openly gay 17-year-old high school student Katy Butler, who received a special award from Weinstein Company co-chairman Harvey Weinstein for her work in launching a Change.org campaign last month to argue for a <a href="http://act.mtv.com/posts/bully-needs-more-sigs-so-join-justin-bieber-demi-lovato-ellen-more-in-the-rating-fight/"_blank">PG-13 rating</a> for the upcoming documentary, "Bully." Other winners included: "Dancing With the Stars" (Outstanding Reality Program), for including the story line of transgender dancer Chaz Bono last season, the HBO film "Cinema Verite" (Outstanding TV Movie or Mini Series), a film focused on the life of a black lesbian teenager, "Pariah" (Outstanding Film -- Limited Release), "Battle Against Bullying" from ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (Outstanding TV Journalism Segment) and the "Batwoman" comic book by J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman (Outstanding Comic Book). More awards will be handed out on April 21 in Los Angeles and June 2 in San Francisco.

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