Why Brokeback didn't win
2006-03-06 11:32
Los Angeles - The Oscars opened the closet door to gay-themed films but shut it almost as quickly.
Brokeback Mountain, the much-ballyhooed favourite about
two gay cowboys, won best director for Ang Lee on Sunday but
stunningly lost the best picture prize to race drama Crash.
Additionally Philip Seymour Hoffman won best actor for playing
gay novelist Truman Capote in Capote.
The victory for Crash suggested Oscar voters were more
comfortable with a tale that exploited the seamy underbelly of
racial conflict in contemporary Los Angeles than with a
heartbreaking tale of love between two married men.
"Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don't want cowboys
to be gay," said Larry McMurtry, 69, who shared an Oscar for
best adapted screenplay with Diana Ossana for Brokeback.
Too taboo
No overtly gay love story has ever won a best picture award
and, as of Monday morning, none has. The big question going
into the Oscars was whether Hollywood, often in the forefront
of social issues, would break another taboo.
"Film buffs and the politically minded will be arguing this
morning about whether the Best Picture Oscar to Crash was
really for the film's merit or just a cop-out by the Motion
Picture Academy so it wouldn't have to give the prize to
Brokeback Mountain," said Washington Post critic Tom Shales.
Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan saw Brokeback's
failure as a sign that Hollywood was not yet ready to grant the
topic of homosexual love mainstream respectability.
"Despite all the magazine covers it graced, despite all the
red-state theatres it made good money in, despite (or maybe
because of) all the jokes late-night talk show hosts made about
it, you could not take the pulse of the industry without
realizing that Brokeback Mountain made a number of people
distinctly uncomfortable," he said, adding:
"So for people who were discomfited by Brokeback Mountain
but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel
like they were good, productive liberals, Crash provided the
perfect safe harbour."