In the wake of Crash‘s upset of Brokeback Mountain for best picture at last night’s Oscars, Glenn Reynold linked to a post by Mickey Kaus claiming that the members of the Academy were not voting their consciences on the matter of homosexuality, rather, that they are afraid of their mainstream audience and, in an effort to be seen as something other than out-of-touch coastal Liberals, voted for Crash to avoid being called on the carpet on their support of “gay rights” and thus potentially losing ticket sales by the truckload. A good theory, that; if only the Academy hadn’t chosen such an obviously strong, heterosexual male for their Best Male Actor award this year and… I’m sorry, what? Oh, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman won for his portrayal of Truman Capote in Capote? Great Liberace’s corpse on a rocket-powered pogo stick! The Academy must be full of closeted homophobes!
(Cue ensuing discussion that the Academy wasn’t afraid of homosexuality, per se, but rather the romanticized “Western” cowboy variety presented in BBM. Perhaps Academy voters sought to invoke the Homer Simpson homosexuality rule (HSHR) – they like their beers cold, their TVs loud and their homosexuals fah-laming.)
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But I guess an Academy stupid enough to nominate Munich and Crash would also be stupid enough to give the award to one of them. Read Queering the Apparatus, Towleroad, The State of …, Brokeback Blokes, The Envelope (LAT),Literal Barrage, Molly Saves the Day, Celebrity Wonk, Deadline Hollywood for more coherent thoughts.
I didn’t see ANY of the movies in the top movie category, so I can’t speak for their content. All I can say is that the Academy has ALWAYS been a little iffy on their choices for best picture, and sometimes they just are a little loopy. Sometimes they get caught up in a movie (Hello…Titanic? Are you there?), and sometime they backlash against a favorite on purpose (way to many examples here). In short, I think it’s hard to pin it on anything, especially in the political arena. After all, when did anyone out there give a darn about what others THOUGHT? They only tend to get involved in what others are or are not DOING.
They are heterophobic! See: http://magyartruth.blogspot.com/2006/02/heterophobia.html
And they are completely out of touch with a majority of Americans.