2013 GLAAD Media Awards: NBC’s ‘Smash,’ ‘The Amazing Race’ among winners

The GLAAD Media Awards know how to throw a good party; while other awards only have one night to celebrate the best of their given field, the gay rights organization has three. The first event was held in New York City on Saturday, and it recognized specifically a trio of programs or personalities that have produced strong content that also celebrates the group’s goals to promote equality and representation of the LGBT community in popular culture.

The first of the winners happened to be a show in “Smash” (for Outstanding Drama Series) that has certainly gone through its fair share of hard times as of late. The series was recently shelved to Saturday nights on NBC, and while some cast members are doing their best to rally fans, the writing is on the wall that the 17-episode season 2 will be the end (unless someone pulls a “Veronica Mars” and starts up a Kickstarter campaign).

Meanwhile, “The Amazing Race” scored the Outstanding Reality Program prize one season after having an openly gay team win in Josh & Brent. The show has always been very representative of the same-sex community, and there is typically at least one person on every season who is representative of this demographic.

Finally, the prestigious Vito Russo Award was handed down to Anderson Cooper for some of his exemplary work. The CNN journalist only came out in the past year, but was honored at this awards show by pop legend Madonna, who sported a Boy Scouts uniform in protest of the group’s policy of not admitting young scouts who are gay.

What do you think about these winners? If you want to read some more scoop pertaining to “Smash” season 2, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: NBC