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Oscars 2007: To Watch or Not to Watch
Sheriff Roland:
What part a "Hell No" don't ya understand!
dot-matrix:
Nope not watching, came across this blog on yahoo recently which offered and interesting perspective on the whole thing and makes some nice points. I especially like the highlighted paragraph...
I hear that one of the reasons "Brokeback Mountain" didn't win Best Picture this year is that "Crash" is about Los Angeles, which all the actors and writers and directors who live out there can relate to, and none of the characters in "Brokeback Mountain" ever come close to setting foot in a big city.
I can sort of understand that. Now, I don't live in wide open country, and I don't live in a big city either. I grew up in a small town of under 100,000 people, and now live in an even smaller village of about 5,000 (about 10 minutes away from the small town). The small town, Racine, was once portrayed in the Goldie Hawn - Mel Gibson flick "Bird on a Wire" as having a Chinatown in it; I can assure you that it doesn't. But the people who make films live in cities that do have Chinatowns in them, and perhaps they can't relate to a city without one.
So anyway, as a gay man, I'm supposed to have liked "Brokeback Mountain" for the gay content alone. I'm supposed to like "Will & Grace" for the same reason, even though I have a really hard time relating to its characters. I understand the dynamic between Will and Grace, and perhaps once upon a time between Will and Jack; but most of the time, I can't figure out why these characters hang around each other at all. And yet, in spite of the shallow one-dimensional characters and the substitution of attitude and name-dropping for wit, "Will & Grace" managed to win an Emmy.
Was Hollywood's snub of "Brokeback Mountain" a way of making up for the overhyping of "Will & Grace"? Were the voters telling us "You're here, you're queer, get over it"? Well, maybe. Or maybe the Academy would have prefered a movie in which Jack Twist went to Hollywood, got all famous and went to fabulous parties and did cocaine and completely left Ennis Del Mar pining sadly away back in Bumfuck, WY until some tearful reunion scene as Jack, dying of AIDS, returns to his roots to die. Or better yet, Ennis shows up at Jack's palatial estate, because that would be in L.A.
Well, I'm sure "Crash" is a very fine movie. I wanted to see it when it was in the theatres last year, but it wasn't here in East Boondocks, WI very long, and my partner wasn't interested in seeing it at all. None of the best picture nominees were on local screens for more than a week (I don't think "TransAmerica" played here at all). The only Oscar nominees we've seen have been "Brokeback Mountain," "King Kong" (technical awards), and "Capote."
And, being from East Boondocks, I can't say I really care all that much about what film gets the Academy Award For Best Picture. A couple of years ago, we saw both "Saving Private Ryan" and "Shakespeare In Love," and do you remember which film won Best Picture?
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/1131/archive2.html
ednbarby:
Yes, he does have a good point, there. What's sad is that Will & Grace doesn't begin to portray gay characters that most gay men can relate to. So if the folks who pick the Emmy winners think they were being really forward-thinking and accepting, they were fooling themselves. I wonder if the gay men who do like Will & Grace might just be a tad homophobic themselves - they seem to be buying into that whole idea that all gay men are impeccably dressed and fastidious, don't like watching or playing sports, and love to shop - are basically girly-girl women in men's bodies.
I basically think that most people in the Academy looked at it this way: "Brokeback got its nomination, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Musical Score. That's enough." Or moreover, "That's all they're gonna get."
I still think they punished Heath specifically, as did all the other major award-giving bodies, because they couldn't get their tiny little minds around the idea of basically an American icon being gay. So much so that most wouldn't even watch his performance. How ironic that the person they bestowed the award on instead played a gay man who happened to be a prancing queen. And I don't care what anyone says (even Heath himself), I still think he didn't do it all that well.
Sheriff Roland:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on February 04, 2007, 10:06:26 am ---Yes, he does have a good point, there. What's sad is that Will & Grace doesn't begin to portray gay characters that most gay men can relate to. So if the folks who pick the Emmy winners think they were being really forward-thinking and accepting, they were fooling themselves. I wonder if the gay men who do like Will & Grace might just be a tad homophobic themselves - they seem to be buying into that whole idea that all gay men are impeccably dressed and fastidious, don't like watching or playing sports, and love to shop - are basically girly-girl women in men's bodies.
I basically think that most people in the Academy looked at it this way: "Brokeback got its nomination, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Musical Score. That's enough." Or moreover, "That's all they're gonna get."
I still think they punished Heath specifically, as did all the other major award-giving bodies, because they couldn't get their tiny little minds around the idea of basically an American icon being gay. So much so that most wouldn't even watch his performance. How ironic that the person they bestowed the award on instead played a gay man who happened to be a prancing queen. And I don't care what anyone says (even Heath himself), I still think he didn't do it all that well.
--- End quote ---
Gotta Disagree with yer first paragraph
It's humour & I can laugh at the humour of the first ever successful gay comedy in tv history. That it got repetitive in it's humour was part a it's charm. Just like there are all kinds a straights out there, there are a lot a different gays too (mor a em are like Will than Ennis, but ya didn't hear that from me). Words like "fag, homo & queen", gay men have been reclaimin fer years, so they don't hurt as much as they useta. Not everyone's all a those things, but I for one am not any kinda handy man, and I don't watch sports (exceptin bullridin). Bryan is interested in how he dresses (usually expensively!) and even buys all kindsa shampoos. He loves shoppin, and eatin well at restaurants. OK so he's not a prancin queen, but his best friend in Winnipeg's a cross dresser - and we cant ease each other (ta some extent) like they do in the series. All I'm sayin is there are all kinds - that kind (as portrayed in Will & Grace) happens ta be the funnier variety, taken ta the extreme. Swishy does exist in the gay community, it's just not the only existin thing.
ednbarby:
Oh, I know Swishy exists in the gay community. And I have no problem with it - some of my best friends are swishy, in fact. ;)
Seriously, I know that there are all kinds of gay men. I work with several and have been around several more, and of course they run the gamut from Ennis to Carson Kressley. (Don't know any cross-dressers or transsexuals personally, but I know they're out there.) My problem is that I don't think the mainstream media know that there are all kinds of gay men. Or if they do, they don't choose to portray them in more than one way. I don't count HBO and Showtime among the mainstream media. And they're the ones who got it right. David on Six Feet Under is more effeminate than not, but his partner Keith is a cop who could (and does) kick anyone's ass. Queer as Folk and The L Word have managed to show us a whole spectrum of gays and lesbians, too. These are the groundbreakers. Not Will & freakin' Grace. Every character on that show is nothing but a caricature of a real human being.
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