OSCAR
COUNTDOWN
Nathaniel
R
Did y'all read the Oscar Symposium? If not read those 10 pages first. That's the kickoff to the TFE's Obsessive Oscar Countdown. But here we go... The Daily Oscar Countdown
(there's also supplementary goodies at the blog each day)
1 Day After Oscar Monday, March 6th, 2006
"Dazed but not Confused"Warning: This may get messy. Trying to exorcize the after-taste of this experience.
In a scene apparently repeated across the world last night, this Oscar obsessive was just merrily enjoying his annual favorite holiday (Oscar Night) with a bunch of friends. Suddenly a foul spirit swept through the room leaving the collected revelers slack-jawed, nauseous, and with the wind completely knocked out of them. Twenty people laughing, drinking, whispering, smiling transformed into dead eyed abandoned children with one sucker punch from an elite group of 6000. The moment of which I speak will live in infamy: Jack Nicholson announced that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were bucking tradition--or rather "traditions" (yes all of them) to deprive that big beautiful gay breakthrough, Brokeback Mountain, its expected and deserving prize. Not for the Academy their 77 year tradition of going with the flow.
a modern classic. a true landmark.The response to my article two weeks ago in which I detailed my theories on what a Brokeback loss would indicate has been very illuminating. There were really only two types of reactions:
The first were people unwilling to even consider what I put out there (accusing me of gay ghetto thinking if they had a bone to pick but mostly just attacking and moving on) the second were frequent messages of support. This two-toned reaction was repeated after the Oscar loss. Messages of support, condolences, and gratitude mixed with gloating notes and petty bombs dropped.
About this last thing; Sadly it only proves my point surrounding the poison of homophobia which afflicted this film's final fortunes. I have been writing about the Oscar race for seven years. In only one of those years has my favorite film won. I am extremely familiar with disappointment. But this is the first time ever in which I've experienced people enjoying the suffering of others within the context of the Oscar races. I never got any 'you lose!' taunts when Moulin Rouge! or Sideways lost. I am suddenly reminded of childhood's "smear the queer" games and high school bullying. Kick people while they're down. Nobody ever felt the need to attack me for loving films about French courtesans, penniless writers, or wine lovers. So why the gloating at the sorry fates of gay cowboys? I think it's a valid question. But one that the gloaters would be hard pressed to answer without looking deeper inside themselves.
Which brings me to the dazed part.
the alternate -lifted up film. to avoid those light-in-the-loafer fellas.Disappointment is an unavoidable part of the Oscar game. It's a one winner activity and you're bound to disagree more often than not. What surprised me last night --even more than the violent departing from all traditions-- was how seismic the sadness which swept over me felt. To put it in context: I have loved many many films more than Brokeback Mountain but never once did I feel so betrayed while watching the Oscars. No, not even when La Pfeiffer, my favorite actress, lost her Oscar in 1989 after winning armfuls of prizes before the big night.
I know.
Just let that sink in for a minute.
.
.
.
So, yes. Stunned I may be but confusion I do not feel. Brokeback Mountain lost because it was gay. I know that sounds simple. I know it sounds like sour grapes. But it's the only explanation that doesn't crumble under a spotlight. Homosexuality makes people uncomfortable --even supposedly liberal people like the Academy. I've been trying too make the point for years in my work analyzing the Oscars that the Hollywood community is nowhere close to the liberal/progressive enclave that the media often describes them as. Reactionary politics like Forrest Gump or wing nut friendly efforts like Braveheart are just as likely to rake in gold trophies as any 'liberal' effort. In all the talk you've been reading and will read people will try to tell you that it's about other things.
Don't believe it.
People will say it's about the SAG Award or the huge ensemble cast correlating with the actors branch block of votes. The SAG Award did not turn the tide for The Birdcage, Sideways, Gosford Park, or The Full Monty. Magnolia, a film from which Crash steals shamelessly, couldn't even win the SAG ensemble despite its criss- crossing narratives and large casts. These things: large ensembles and crisscrossed narratives. They do not automatically equal actor branch love. If they did Robert Altman and PT Anderson films would have had better fortunes with AMPAS.
People will say it's because Brokeback was over-rewarded and Oscar does not like to be "told" how to vote. This is the most patently false of all statements you will hear. If you find yourself agreeing with this (it seems logical, right? Hey, I admit that it does to me) you need only look at the past 77 years of history to see how much of an anomaly it is. They are not accustomed to breaking cycles of unanimous support. Whichever film is the leader going in is the one that wins UNLESS there has been significant precursor battling for pole position going on. Shakespeare in Love vs. Saving Private Ryan for instance: A horse race is a horse race is a horse race. The Oscars are not usually a horse race in the top category. Brokeback Mountain had, statistically speaking, no competition for the main prize. Certainly not Crash... which received only 6 nominations (very low for a BP winner historically and if the actors loved it so much --see false point previous paragraph-- shouldn't there have been more acting nominations? The precursors managed to give it more acting nominations. So we know there was room) and no Golden Globe BP attention --another usual death knell.
So homophobia becomes the logical scapegoat. Even if you despise the argument, as many do without truly investigating it within the context of this particular awards season, it would be the compassionate Crash-like idea to consider that that's what it might be; Uninvestigated barely-acknowledged but insidious prejudices preventing people from connecting with others (or certain works of art, *ahem*).
But again, I wondered why I was taking it so personally.
I guess I needed it.
I only speak for myself but I also believe that the gay community needed it. We've been under siege for so many years that any nugget of acknowledgement can feel like ice water in the desert. For six years the right-wing has been wielding anti-gay prejudices with great clubbing force, turning citizens against each other in a very personal way. In many states we've lost health insurance for our families, domestic partnership benefits, adoption rights, with no end in site for a retrograde civil rights movement.
The response to Brokeback Mountain was, in this context, a revelation. Suddenly people were talking again about love and the right of everyone to love and be loved. The expandable tragedy of repression and the closet which poisons more than just the homosexual was illuminated for all to see in this film. Straight people and gay people have been responding to the movie beautifully. So, if you believe big media, the only group that did not respond was the group they repeatedly hold up as progressively liberal. That's a sham of course. They aren't progressive. (They're centrists if they're anything.) But it's a sham that people believe. Which makes their very visible and uncharacteristic shunning of a landmark mainstream film another weapon for the right wing to beat the GLBT community with.
In the context of the Academy Awards it feels like a gilded knife in the back. After all, who loves the Oscars more than gay people? That may read as a joke. But it's also a truth. Last year's Oscar host even made a joke about this. In my thirty+ years on this planet I have met hundreds of people who are obsessed with the Oscar race and Oscar night itself. Most of those people were gay. So for those readers who've bravely made it this far but are still scratching their heads wondering why all the drama? hair-pulling? tears? Picture this: The man/woman who you love. They don't love you back. In fact you've just discovered that they'll bend over backwards to avoid acknowledging your existence; the bending over backwards being the breaking with 77 years of past voting habits. Your existence being this film, the only gay specific film ever so nominated.
And one final thing. If you find yourself still in astonishment at the sorrow of many Oscar watchers...if you find yourself muttering "IT'S ONLY A MOVIE". Consider this. Repeat it: "It's Only a Movie". Is this really the response and fallback motto that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, that Hollywood itself should prompt us to embrace?
The point: It's not only a movie.
P.S. 1 Comment on the blog if so moved
P.S. 2 If you're here for the first time as many seem to be, please look around. There's lots more besides this year's Oscar battle.
P.S. 3 The Oscar Show Itself?
A rare glimpse inside my apartment: This visual surprise was hanging in my bathroom
so that my 20+ party guests could enjoy when they took their pee breaks.
The Good
The Host: Jon Stewart. I hope they invite him back. Good job on the toughest showbiz gig.
Best Gag: The political ads for Best Actress. I was laughing my ass off.
Best Musical Performance: Dolly Parton 'Travelin' Thru"
Best Presenters Duo: Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin presenting Robert Altman's Honorary Oscar. Very very funny and perfectly in tune (and on the subject of that Oscar: it's about frikking time.)
Best Presenter Singular: Ben Stiller. He hasn't been that funny since the days of the Ben Stiller Show.
Best Speech: George Clooney. Really smart, proud speech. Too bad the Academy retroactively disproved his point. This Academy is not a progressive one. It's just more of the same old prejudices (even if they try to disguise it by voting for a film starring prejudice)
Best Speech Long Form: Robert Altman. What a filmmaker! Mccabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Gosford Park, Three Women, The Player, M*A*S*H...does it getter any better?
Most Improved Dress: Reese Witherspoon. And congrats girl from Tennessee.
Best Dressed: Keira Knightley (by far)The Bad
Worst Dressed: (Tie) Charlize Theron's shoulder tumor dress needs to make mutant babies with Naomi Watt's tummy tumor dress. Now.
Idiot: Gil Cates. Constantly trying to find ways to silence the stars's speeches but never once considering that the reason the show is so freaking long is those inane montages. I understand one or two. But four? And that's not even including the dead people clip. THIS Mr Cates is the time-waster. Is the video montage person your secret mistress or something?The Ugly
Worst Musical Performance: Bird York "In the Deep" Those slow-motion crash survivors were the most horrifically inappropriate camp thing I've seen at the Oscars since maybe Snow White dirty dancing or that Saving Private Ryan interpretative dance. Is Debbie Allen back but working under a pseudonym?
Worst Win: Crash's win in both screenplay (the worst of the five nominees) and in Best Picture (the true travesty -considering the landmark sure-to-be-classic film it had to unseat to get there).
earlier on the countdown.
