Don't know if this has already been posted, but I have never read it. It's right on the money as far as I'm concerned.
A Harrowing Affair: Commentary From a Brokeback Mountain Fan
by Mark Salamon, March 13, 2006
During the run-up to the Academy Awards Tony Curtis told Fox News
that he hadn't yet seen Brokeback Mountain and had no intention of
doing so. He claimed he wasn't alone in the sentiment and other
Academy members felt the same way.
Furthermore, Curtis contended, his contemporaries no longer alive to
speak for themselves wouldn't have cared for the highly acclaimed
Best Picture nominee either." Howard Hughes and John Wayne wouldn't
like it," Curtis said in an interview.
I am not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
but I have seen Brokeback Mountain, and I did like it tremendously— as
did millions of others. Our bewilderment over its defeat at the
Oscars has been misinterpreted. Would you humor us by considering the
following analogy that better explains our position?
Let's simply recast Brokeback Mountain as the story about the
intolerance faced by a white woman and her black husband in rural
Wyoming in the 1960s. At the end of the film, her husband is murdered
in a brutal hate crime because of others disgust over miscegenation.
Now imagine that, before this film even premieres, it is the butt of
racist jokes. Conservative news commentators decry its very existence
as a mistake, calling it a profane plea for acceptance of the sin
that is a mixed marriage. They repeatedly predict--and hope for--its
failure at the box office.
The movies opens and critics rave that it is an exquisite, poignant,
and supremely-well crafted film. The actors are ideally cast in their
parts and play their roles with pitch-perfect honesty and
involvement. The screenplay is sublimely spare and genuinely
evocative of the American west of the recent past. The
cinematography, the musical score, the landscapes, the set-pieces:
together, they achieve perfection, or something close to it.
Nonetheless, all during its cinematic run, talk show hosts, humorists
and live comedy-ensemble network programs can't seem to let a day go
by without satirical reference to that "jungle fever cowboy movie."
Black and white celebrities play out creepy parodies of "BrokeBlack
Mounting." Often these skits are done in whiteface and blackface.
Award season commences and Brokeback Mountain wins almost every
precursor "Best" award bestowed by the most prestigious film
institutions. It also has the greatest box-office take of all the
likely Best Picture nominees, and, by most accounts, is the best
reviewed film of the year. And when the Oscar nominations are
announced, Brokeback Mountain receives the highest number of
nominations for all of the Best Picture nominees.
Shortly thereafter, an Academy member proudly proclaims he has no
intention of watching the film because he and his contemporaries
don't care for mixed marriages. Their reasoning is,"D.W. Griffith (or
insert the name of a famously racist Hollywood Golden Age actor here)
would be rolling over in his grave." Consider, too, it is also likely
that a significant proportion of Academy members are silently acting
out this same bigotry by failing to see Brokeback Mountain before
marking their own ballots.
No one objects to these glaring violations of the Academy's own
rules, or the institution' s ethics. Nonetheless, it is widely
predicted Brokeback Mountain will win Best Picture. Even Las Vegas
odds-makers make it the overwhelming favorite.
Then Brokeback Mountain loses to Crash in what, almost everyone
agrees, is one of the—if not the —most shocking upset ever. Is it
unreasonable that some might ask if racism had been a factor?
This example is not an overstatement of the abuse that has been
hurled at Brokeback Mountain, nor have its accolades been
exaggerated. Merely substitute "gay male relationship" into the
analogy provided above and you will have an accurate picture of the
scathing climate Brokeback Mountain has had to endure.
Consider another scenario. Imagine the gay themes of Brokeback
Mountain were received with benign acceptance and treated with quiet
respect during its run in the theaters. Reviews were mixed and it did
so-so at the box-office. Meanwhile, the issues of race relations in
Crash were the subject of daily derision, culminating in an
announcement by a prominent Academy member he would not be viewing
the movie because it was about "colored people."
Then, suppose that leading up to the Oscars, Crash received
more "Best" awards, not only among all pictures in 2005, but among
all movies in history.
Don't you think there might have been a tiny tempest if, under those
circumstances, Brokeback Mountain had then won "Best Picture" over
Crash? Wouldn't questions of racism within the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences be asked legitimately? Accusations of
unfairness within the Academy's voting procedure and the uproar would
continue until heads rolled and changes occurred. Spike Lee and the
NAACP might well be in the forefront of the campaign.
But Brokeback Mountain is a tale of the love between two male ranch
hands. Mr. Curtis--and who knows how many other Academy members--
flouted the long accepted conventions of their own guild by
dismissing Brokeback Mountain without ever screening it. Is there
really a problem with that? Or are those homosexuals just "sore
losers," who are "pushing an agenda?"
Homophobia-- yes, there's that "h" word--is still so ingrained in
Hollywood and within American culture that disdain for gay
relationships is accepted as "normal" and "natural". So much so, that
the Tony Curtises of this world express it as if by right, feeling no
shame and fearing no censure from their colleagues or the public.
[Note from jayiijay: Tony Curtis wasn't the only one. Ernest
Borgnine's equally unacceptable quotes are in Entertainment Weekly,
there are more from less famous people]
In his column entitled "The Fury of the 'Crash'-lash" Roger Ebert
concludes by writing: "The nature of the attacks on Crash by the
supporters of Brokeback Mountain seem to proceed from the other
position: Brokeback is better not only because of its artistry but
because of its subject matter, and those who disagree hate
homosexuals. Its supporters could vote for it in good conscience,
vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it
and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials
for shunning what Crash had to offer."
Let us overlook the fact that Ebert succumbs to the slippery
temptation to misrepresent our point, and then finds fault with that
misconstruing of our position. What he seems to be suggesting is
that "supporters of Brokeback Mountain" are "attacking" Crash because
we failed in our attempts to turn the Oscar for "Best Picture" into a
competition for "Worthiest Oppressed Minority".
I, and those who agree with me, will freely admit to being Brokeback
Mountain supporters, yet let us please speak for ourselves. Few of us
have argued Brokeback Mountain deserved the Oscar because it is about
gay love. That has nothing to do with it.
What's done is done. Crash won this year's Best Picture Oscar and
there is no taking that back. Nor should it be. But given the facts
outlined above, is it really asking too much to admit that homophobia
may very well have played a part in that outcome?
