Jon Stewart, Maren Morris, ‘Fire Island’ Among 2023 GLAAD Media Award Winners

Fire Island, Jon Stewart, We’re Here and Maren Morris were among the winners and honorees at the 2023 GLAAD Media Awards in New York Saturday, an event that doubled as a show of solidarity with the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.

Fire Island and Anything’s Possible both shared the Outstanding Film – Streaming/TV award, with the former’s star Joel Kim Booster adding in his acceptance speech regarding the writers strike, “I hope that you’ll stand in solidarity with us as we move forward in this. Labor issues are queer issues.”

The winners at the New York show Saturday joined those who won in different categories (including Bros, What We Do in the Shadows and Jennifer Coolidge) at the GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles in March.

While the Tony Awards were forced to postpone after not receiving a WGA exemption, the GLAAD Media Awards continued on as GLAAD is “a nonprofit organization powered by your contributions” and “not a WGA show,” host Harvey Guillén explained (via The Hollywood Reporter).

However, some honorees — including Jon Stewart, whose The Problem With Jon Stewart won Best Variety or Talk Show — still declined to cross the picket line. “Jon is a member of the WGA. He would be here otherwise,” Alex Schmider, GLAAD’s director of transgender representation, said while accepting Stewart’s award on his behalf. “GLAAD, of course, stands with Jon and all the WGA writers. Fair pay, fair working conditions and queer representation in writers rooms are urgent and necessary issues facing this industry.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who also presented at the event, said, “Nights like these are the reminder of stories and the importance of treating storytellers with dignity, respect and the value they deserve. I sincerely hope the writers strike gets resolved and the writers are given a fair deal they deserve as soon as possible. We need all writers and workers and everyone involved to tell the stories of our nation and the stories of all of us.”

Other awardees included Maren Morris receiving the Excellence in Media Award, Dove Cameron being named Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist, A Strange Loop winning Outstanding Broadway Production and HBO’s We’re Here, starring three former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants, taking home Outstanding Reality Series.