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Nominees for the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards, which honor fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of the LGBTQ community in the media, have been announced. Both Hallmark Channel and Lifetime picked up nods in the outstanding TV movie category for their holiday flicks featuring LGBTQ-focused storylines. 

Hallmark Channel earns second GLAAD Media Awards nomination  

Brad Harder as Jack and Jonathan Bennett at Brandon pose with their two young children in a scene from 'The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls'
Brad Harder and Jonathan Bennett in ‘The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls’ | ©2021 Crown Media United States LLC/Photographer: Allister Foster

Three of the five GLAAD Media Awards nominees in the outstanding TV movie category had a holiday theme. 

Hallmark got a nod for The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls, which is a sequel to its 2020 movie The Christmas House. That movie earned a GLAAD Media Award nomination last year, losing to Prime Video’s Uncle Frank. In The Christmas House 2, Brandon (Jonathan Bennett) and his brother Mike (Robert Buckley) face off in a brother-vs.-brother Christmas decorating showdown. Brandon and his husband Jake (Brad Harder) are parents to two young children.

Lifetime’s Under the Christmas Tree was also nominated. It stars Tattiawna Jones as a Christmas tree whisperer searching for the perfect tree for a big holiday celebration. She finds what she’s looking for in marketing whiz Alma’s backyard. Soon, sparks fly between the two women. 

GLAAD also recognized Netflix’s Single All the Way. In the movie, Peter (Michael Urie) asks his friend Nick (Philemon Chambers) to pose as his boyfriend when he visits his family for Christmas. But when his family decides to play matchmaker, it complicates their friendship.

Netflix’s The Fear Street Trilogy and the USA Network’s Nash Bridges rounded out the list of outstanding TV movie nominees. 

‘The Christmas House’ was Hallmark’s first Christmas movie with a gay couple

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The Christmas House marked the first time Hallmark Channel aired a Christmas movie featuring an LGBTQ couple. The movie’s premiere came after the network came under fire for a lack of diversity in its programming. Critics also slammed the network’s controversial 2019 decision to pull an ad featuring two women kissing. 

Since the premiere of The Christmas House, Hallmark has featured a same-sex romance on its now-canceled series Good Witch and included LGBTQ characters in supporting or ensemble roles in movies such as An Unexpected Christmas, Every Time a Bell Rings, and Mix Up in the Mediterranean. But it’s yet to air a movie with a front-and-center LGBTQ romance. 

HBO, Netflix lead 2022 GLAAD Media Awards nominations 

Lifetime and Netflix each walked away with a single GLAAD Media Awards nomination for 2022. But Netflix and HBO dominated the list of nominees. 

HBO and HBO Max earned 19 nominations, including three in the outstanding new TV series category for Hacks, The Sex Lives of College Girls, and Sort Of. It’s a Sin, Love Life, Station Eleven, and The White Lotus were nominated in the outstanding limited series or anthology category. 

Netflix snagged 17 nominations, including for the limited series Halston. Other Netflix nominees include Pray Away in the outstanding documentary category, and tick, tick… BOOM! in the outstanding film, wide release category. 

The 33rd GLAAD Media Awards will take place on April 2 Los Angeles and May 6 in New York City. 

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