Brokeback Mountain is Robbed

The academy may believe they have engineered the upset of the ages in the choice of "Crash" over "Brokeback" but one has to wonder why they'd be proud of it. Let's take a look at the history of the Oscars and see how it works. A friend on another forum asserts that the academy is operating out of homophobia. The danger here is that we might make the wrong accusation. After all, couldn't the academy just believe that "Crash" is the better movie? Here's his analysis...

For those who doubt that denying Brokeback Mountain was a blatant act of homophobia, let me tell you why it 100% was. I have been an avid Oscar buff for 30 years since I was 10. I follow the awards closely, I've known them all by heart since that age (photographic memory). Precedent means everything to the Academy.

First, until now, no film that had won the Writer's Guild, Director's Guild and Producer's Guild Awards had ever lost Best Picture.

Second, no film that was the most nominated, won the Golden Globe and Director's Guild awards had ever lost.

Third, Brokeback was the most honored film critically EVER prior to the Oscars. More Picture/Director awards than Schindler's List and Titanic combined. The only award that Crash had won was Chicago, because Roger Ebert & Richard Roeper pushed and pushed and pushed for it; Brokeback was the runner-up there, whereas Crash was nowhere to been on ANY other major critics polls. In fact, Entertainment Weekly and Premiere published critical consensus for the year, Brokeback was #1, 3 other Best Picture nominees were in the top 5 or 10 in each poll, and Crash was 30-something in one poll and 50-something in another.

No Oscar Best Picture ever finished so low.

In fact, Crash now becomes only the second film without a Golden Globe nomination for Picture to win the Oscar (the first being The Sting in 1973, but that was only because there was category confusion as to classify it as a drama or comedy, so that almost doesn't count).

Fourth, Brokeback was the highest grosser at the box office by over 50% more than #2 Crash, which the Academy always cares about, since the lowest grosser has never lost. It also won international awards like the BAFTA and Venice Film festival.

Fifth, there has been non-stop buzz in Hollywood the past month that Crash could pull what all admitted would be the biggest upset ever, for one reason - homophobia. For example, Tony Curtis publically stated he refused to see Brokeback on account of the subject matter, and that he knew tons of other people in the Academy who felt the same way. I didn't believe it when I first read it, but it was just the beginning of coments like that. I still didn't believe it on account of the unprecedented number of precursors Brokeback had won, it's position in the culture as "the" movie event of the year (more than just a movie, in fact) to the point that a month ago, when Crash director Paul Haggis was asked if anything could overtake Brokeback, he replied (and I'm paraphrasing closely) - "no, nothing should, Brokeback deserves to win".

He was right - most cinephiles like myself will tell you that Crash was a very mediocre film. But since then, the homophobia talk kept spreading and spreading, to the point where I was nervous all night, despite the "math" that Brokeback was 99% to win.

Not to sound racist, I am not, but can you imagine if the late night comedians seized on Crash or another African-American themed film and joked it to death? I used to find a lot of the {BBM} jokes funny when they first started, but then some turned mean-spirited, and suddenly everybody was publically afraid to embrace Brokeback, which no doubt helped lead to the Oscar loss. Again, sickening behavior. But no doubt Brokeback will live on as a magnificent film and cultural milestone, the Oscar notwithstanding. It just would have been nice to have the validation in front of the world audience, the Academy disgraced itself.

Besides this torrent of facts, I have some other thoughts. I believe that there may also have been some "insider" versus "outsider" voting going on here. BBM took seven years to find a production company willing to risk making the film. They ended up with the independent house "Focus Films." They hired actors all in their twenties, the two leads known but not as A listers. Jake Gyllenhaal is the most well-known of the cast in L.A. The supporting females were known for their teen followings, not adult movie-goer fans. Ang Lee is Taiwanese, an outsider in Hollywood.

Crash, on the other hand, is a movie that showcases the acting talents of many loved and well-known Hollywood actors. They executed a superb Oscar campaign both in interviews and in getting their film into the hands of the academy. And for some reason, there was a thrill in thinking they could turn an upset (and not comply with all the other critical awards that preceded the Oscars).

Lastly, Crash features Los Angeles in her racist subthemes and it appears to me that the movie industry likes to think of itself as addressing racism in a meaningful way (did you notice the montage where all the clips had to do with racism?).

Homosexual rights and the acceptance of the gay lifestyle as on par with heterosexuality is still not a generalized concern in America. The success of Brokeback Mountain is nothing short of monumental in that struggle, given the conservatism of most Americans. In fact, as I tallied in my head my friends who have gone to see the movie (both on and off line) I discovered that I only know one friend who went to see the movie, despite my endorsement, despite my reassurances that this is a movie to see.

One.

How is it doing so well when I can't even think of any friends who would dare see this film?

So it appears to me that Brokeback was denied the Oscar for Best Picture because of a combination of self-congratulations between industry insiders and a desire to not endorse as the chief achievement in Hollywood, a film whose primary theme is delicate culturally. Racism is a rallying cry and no one minds a good racism-exposing movie. It gets us to cathart.

I would so much prefer a movie that gets us to rethink and discover our own shame. Homosexuality is still taboo and gay rights are not a driving concern for most Americans.

To conclude, here are a few links to anti-gay violence for your consideration.

Roanoke Times: article about the recent stats related to gay crimes

SF Chronicle on Hate Crimes

WV: CPR denied to gay man

USA Today article - 18 year old murders two gay men