Saturday, March 11, 2006
GoatBoy's Rant-a-riffic Week of 3/6-10 Pt IV: Brokeback Fatigue
ITEM! A friend of mine pondered why BOREBACK didn't win Oscar (or Felix). He suggested that people suffered from "Brokeback Mountain Fatigue" or "BM fatigue." I replied...
I would say "BM fatigue" (an hilarious phrase, given all that it suggests) had a lot to do with it. BROKEBACK swept everything else, and there was just a combination of, "enough, already," with "too often we forget movies that don't get released in November/December." Add in a good dash of, "it's just a better movie."
And it is just a better movie. You'd love it. Honestly. Many good dramas are Great Films, but they're chores to watch. CRASH is invigorating. For me, it was a movie ten times more supercharged than SITH.
I am sorry, but I am pretty much officially now a Liberal. I never thought it would come to this, but Donald Wildmon and Dubyah have left me no choice. I'll never get in bed with Michael Moore. (Would there be room?) I believe in the all of the first ten amendments, including numero 2. I'm not uncomfortable with removing really evil dictators who hate us and replacing them with less evil dictators who temporarily like us. But if it takes voting for Hillary to get the pendulum to move back, I'll do it. And I shudder at having typed that.
I say this simply to qualify what I am about to say.
If there is one place where there is no bias against gays, it's Hollywood. The implication that Hollywood is a place that is conservative in terms of gays is laughable. The other awards that BM won all came out of Hollywood and/or its affiliates. There is no significant Hollywood/New York ideological schism. The damned thing won everything else. Does it have to be Prom Queen, too?
What's really funny about this instance is that it's not a case of Hollywood fluff beating out some movie of political weight. It's not as if GLADIATOR or TITANIC beat BM. It's not as if WALK THE LINE beat out BM. It's not even as if SIDEWAYS, a movie about the frustrations of *hetero*sexuality, beat out BM. It's a movie about the challenges presented by racial bias and assumptions, with no easy answers. It was already a PC movie! (Although some challenge that, as Roger Ebert has noted. I guess some white people have to explain the black experience to producer/star Don Cheadle. Maybe Ang Lee can enlighten him.)
Gay culture is enjoying a huge, post-AIDS renaissance. And that's wonderful. I think we're twenty years (a relatively short time) away from legal gay marriage. We'll have it before pot or prostitution are legalized. Gay culture is adding positive flavor to mainstream culture the same way that black culture did in the Fifties. It's genuinely exciting, in the way that black culture (via Elvis, etc) was a very exciting addition. A gay cultural influx doesn't mean rampant same-sex sex or analphilia. It just means that things once arbitrarily enjoyed by just one gender (cooking, sports, childcare, fashion, art) can now be enjoyed by both. It's also an understanding that love and sex are not confined rigidly. This doesn't condone irresponsible, abusive, or deceptive behavior. It just says that maybe we should rethink our definitions of victimless activity beyond what was strictly necessitated by a formerly agrarian culture. Advanced societies have always loosened up about "the gay thing" not because they somehow slide into iniquity, but because there is enough distance from agrarianism that economies are not based on how many fieldhands you can birth.
ITEM! A friend of mine pondered why BOREBACK didn't win Oscar (or Felix). He suggested that people suffered from "Brokeback Mountain Fatigue" or "BM fatigue." I replied...
I would say "BM fatigue" (an hilarious phrase, given all that it suggests) had a lot to do with it. BROKEBACK swept everything else, and there was just a combination of, "enough, already," with "too often we forget movies that don't get released in November/December." Add in a good dash of, "it's just a better movie."
And it is just a better movie. You'd love it. Honestly. Many good dramas are Great Films, but they're chores to watch. CRASH is invigorating. For me, it was a movie ten times more supercharged than SITH.
I am sorry, but I am pretty much officially now a Liberal. I never thought it would come to this, but Donald Wildmon and Dubyah have left me no choice. I'll never get in bed with Michael Moore. (Would there be room?) I believe in the all of the first ten amendments, including numero 2. I'm not uncomfortable with removing really evil dictators who hate us and replacing them with less evil dictators who temporarily like us. But if it takes voting for Hillary to get the pendulum to move back, I'll do it. And I shudder at having typed that.
I say this simply to qualify what I am about to say.
If there is one place where there is no bias against gays, it's Hollywood. The implication that Hollywood is a place that is conservative in terms of gays is laughable. The other awards that BM won all came out of Hollywood and/or its affiliates. There is no significant Hollywood/New York ideological schism. The damned thing won everything else. Does it have to be Prom Queen, too?
What's really funny about this instance is that it's not a case of Hollywood fluff beating out some movie of political weight. It's not as if GLADIATOR or TITANIC beat BM. It's not as if WALK THE LINE beat out BM. It's not even as if SIDEWAYS, a movie about the frustrations of *hetero*sexuality, beat out BM. It's a movie about the challenges presented by racial bias and assumptions, with no easy answers. It was already a PC movie! (Although some challenge that, as Roger Ebert has noted. I guess some white people have to explain the black experience to producer/star Don Cheadle. Maybe Ang Lee can enlighten him.)
Gay culture is enjoying a huge, post-AIDS renaissance. And that's wonderful. I think we're twenty years (a relatively short time) away from legal gay marriage. We'll have it before pot or prostitution are legalized. Gay culture is adding positive flavor to mainstream culture the same way that black culture did in the Fifties. It's genuinely exciting, in the way that black culture (via Elvis, etc) was a very exciting addition. A gay cultural influx doesn't mean rampant same-sex sex or analphilia. It just means that things once arbitrarily enjoyed by just one gender (cooking, sports, childcare, fashion, art) can now be enjoyed by both. It's also an understanding that love and sex are not confined rigidly. This doesn't condone irresponsible, abusive, or deceptive behavior. It just says that maybe we should rethink our definitions of victimless activity beyond what was strictly necessitated by a formerly agrarian culture. Advanced societies have always loosened up about "the gay thing" not because they somehow slide into iniquity, but because there is enough distance from agrarianism that economies are not based on how many fieldhands you can birth.
# posted by Doctor Lao @ 1:10 AM 
