Brokeback Backlash

It's been a while since I've written, and a vertible ballet of topics is prancing in my head: gender in the workplace, the decline of the American work ethic, the decline of my GPA, the first blush of spring... the list is nearly endless. But today, I've decided to comment on the alleged Brokeback Backlash.

Yes, I dutifully watched the Oscars. While I've not seen it, I have a hard time believing Reese Witherspoon turned in a better performance than Felicity Huffman -- a performance I did see -- but, sadly, I believe that the best actress category really comes down to a rating of the female most likely to get a boner from a fifteen year old boy. On very rare exceptions has this criteria been broken. I think the last one was Susan Sarandon -- and not because the woman isn't gorgeous, but because she played a nun.

However, I did see both Crash and Brokeback Mountain, and I have to agree with the academy's decision on this one. First, and foremost, Crash is a superior film. Even the supporting characters are vividly drawn. The leading characters have dynamic and unexpected archs. The audience takes a journey with that film that extends past the rolling of the final credits.

Brokeback Mountain is an exquisitely filmed work. The cinematography is breathtaking. While Crash can receive a satisfactory viewing in a video presentation, Brokeback will not. But more importantly, the story of Brokeback Mountain is trite by almost any standard. Forbidden love is a very old theme, and gay forbidden love is not new to Hollywood. The lovers are misunderstood and miserable and one of them ends up dead. Seen it all before. And, frankly, the performances are undergraduate-earnest at best.

Still, Brokeback is an important film for the gay community. Homosexuality is still the love that dare not speak its name and anything that raises the topic for discussion, no matter how crudely, should be commended.

In my own experience, the majority of my personal friends are straight. I go to see a lot of movies with them. Whenever the topic of movie selection comes up and Brokeback is suggested, almost to the person, the suggestion is discarded in favor of another film. Never mind the significance of the film to the gay culture, or the fact that it might be significant for me as their gay friend to see the film. What's more, I can't name a single straight friend of mine who has seen the film to even offer a discussion of it. When the topic comes up -- and I've consciously not been the one to mention the title, or suggest it as a movie-going option -- the comment is always a brusque, 'haven't seen it,' and we move on. I saw it alone, and the most extensive discussion I've had about it has been here.

Still, I think Crash is a more important film. If homosexuality is the taboo subject of conversation, racism is a concept that can't even be thought through. Crash is a brave film, and a very important one because it dares to take racism on in all of its permutations and discuss it, not only as an individual character flaw, but as a social sickness. The characters are not wholly good or bad and the performances are beautiful reflections of human beings, not pastel versions of Hollywood myth.

It was more than thirty-five years between Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Crash. The film that frankly examines the fear of homosexuality in the same way that Crash looks at racism is the one that I ache to see. It will be made. But, if that film is snubbed by Oscar, then we'll have something to talk about.