{"id":145192,"date":"2026-03-22T10:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T10:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/145192\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T10:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T10:05:18","slug":"how-bruce-springsteens-streets-of-philadelphia-won-an-oscar-amid-the-aids-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/145192\/","title":{"rendered":"How Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ Won an Oscar Amid the AIDS Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 21, 1994, Bruce Springsteen<\/a> won an Academy Award for “Streets of Philadelphia,”<\/a> one of his most emotional and haunting songs. Unlike his songs such as “Secret Garden,” “I’m on Fire,” or “Growin’ Up,” which were used in different films, he wrote “Streets of Philadelphia” specifically for the 1993 film Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Seven days after it was released as a single, it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song. Two months later, it reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100<\/a>. No one was more shocked than The Boss.<\/p>\n

“I would never have thought in a million years it was going to get radio airplay,” he admitted to the Asbury Park Press<\/a> in 1996. “But people were looking for things to assist them in making sense of the AIDS crisis, in making human connections. I think that is what film and art and music<\/a> do; they can work as a map of sorts for your feelings.”<\/p>\n

At the 66th Academy Awards<\/a>, he was up against Neil Young (whose song “Philadelphia” had also been written for the film), “Again” from Poetic Justice, “The Day I Fall in Love” from Beethoven’s 2nd, and “A Wink And A Smile” from Sleepless in Seattle<\/a>. When Whitney Houston read his name, he looked surprised and happy.<\/p>\n

“Thank you. See, this is the first song I ever wrote for a motion picture, so I guess it\u2019s all downhill from here,” Springsteen joked in his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

Directed by Jonathan Demme, it starred Tom Hanks<\/a> as Andrew Beckett, a gay man and lawyer who is fired from his job after they learn he’s contracted AIDS. Denzel Washington<\/a> plays Joe Miller, the lawyer who agrees to represent him. Over the course of the movie, Joe overcomes his homophobia to care for Andrew and to see him as a person just as deserving of understanding and compassion as anyone else.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Springsteen received his second Oscar nod. He wrote “Dead Man Walkin” for the film Dead Man Walking, starring Susan Sarandon<\/a> and Sean Penn. Unfortunately, lightning didn’t strike twice, and he lost<\/a> to “Colors Of The Wind” from Pocahontas.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Mar 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On March 21, 1994, Bruce Springsteen won an Academy Award for “Streets of Philadelphia,” one of his most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[66255,66254,66252,7080,66256,66257,69,71,70,66253,11324],"class_list":["post-145192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-academy-award","tag-andrew-beckett","tag-asbury-park-press","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-haunting-songs","tag-joe-miller","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-poetic-justice","tag-streets-of-philadelphia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}