Mar 6th, 2006
Crash is Deserving of Best Picture
GLAAD’s President released a statement stating he’s disappointed “Brokeback Mountain” didn’t win Best Picture last night.
I’m expecting a week of rumblings of similar sentiment. I think folks in the LGBT community — particularly white gay men over the age of 40 — are surprised. I would also make the completely non-scientific never-to-be-tested hypothesis that the majority of the white gay men crossing their fingers for “Brokeback Mountain” did not see “Crash” or walked away from it scratching their heads going, “whoa, what was that?”
Yes, “Brokeback” will forever be crowned a landmark film. Its release has caused a ripple effect for dialogue across the U.S. and that is a very positive thing. But a film that finally brings the heart-wrenching experience of the closet to the mainstream does not a Best Picture make.
It’s one thing to love a film because it’s brilliantly acted, written, filmed, or directed. It’s quite another to love a film because you can finally say, “Hey, that’s just like me!” I think many of the men who saw Brokeback Mountain were so focused on the hey-that’s-just-like-me factor, they lost perspective on how the actual movie — rather than the issues it represented — measured up to the other nominees.
As much as I have heard gay men gush about how amazing and important “Brokeback Mountain” is, they are all white. (Yes, yes, I know the director is not white, but the film expresses a white sensibility through and through.) I think it’s a white male entitlement mentality (albeit gay white male entitlement) to presume that a film that resonated with white gay males would win. They are mostly talking about it and seeing it over and over again with like-minded gay white males, creating these little bubbles of people who love the film.
Outside of the white gay-boy bubble, “Crash” was winning hearts and minds. And rightfully so. Brokeback was important, well-acted, and has some nice “big sky” shots. “Crash” was important, well-acted, geniusly interwoven, smart, and if measured strictly by demographics, is a movie more people in the U.S. can connect with on some level.
I do remember, however, wondering after viewing “Crash” the first time: “Are there no queers in L.A.?”
As a white 40-something gay male I am a little offended by some of the assumptions you make in your blog re: Broke Back Mountain not winning an Oscar for best picture. For one, I saw the movie and did not think then and do not feel now that it was worthy of even being nominated for an award — any award. I found it heavy-handed and stilted, especially in the first half of the film. For every step forward the film seemed to want to take, it took several steps back. The film did feature some very good acting, but the story, screenplay and direction was hardly outstanding. In fact, the story felt cliched to me. That said, not all of us 40-somethings are bemoaning the picture not winning. It seems more straight people are bemoaning the fact that is lost than white gay males. The reason — because the PC part of every straight person bemoaning the films loss wants to wear the fact that they actually saw the picture as some big red badge of courage — ooh — men kissing “gee, how progressive of me” this is a landmark film. But the movie is not that revolutionary, at least not in the eyes of most gay males. As for your assumption that we (white gay men) would walk out of Crash scratching our heads… whaaat? Are you saying we are stupid? Unable to identify with the themes of racism dealt with in the film? Are you also saying then, that because I am white I am not able to appreciate a film with an all black cast, an all Asian cast? I find it ironic that in trying to expose some type of assumed ‘white male entitlement mentality’, you spout some pretty offensive assumptions yourself. Maybe you should go see Crash again… I think you missed something. In fact, I have a feeling you missed a lot! — mhk (scratching my head)
mhk, I think you skipped over one important part of what Abigail said. She did not say that all white gay men over 40 did not see crash or didn’t get it, she said that she believes the majority of white gay men who were upset that crash won over brokeback probably didn’t see crash or didn’t get it. That’s a big difference.
Also, it’s essential to breaking down racism that we are allowed to analyze the ways in which white privilege might affect people’s actions. It’s all too easy to see such analysis and condemn it as perpetuating stereotypes, generalizations, or god forbid, “reverse racism.” But that’s not what it is. Occasionally people, especially those dealing with oppression, might generalize an entire group of people with privilege, such as saying that ALL straight people respond to brokeback the same way. That might be a bit problematic, but it’s not a big problem, and very frequently people try to focus on small things like that to draw attention away from the homophobia that exists on an institutional level.
Anyway, I really appreciate this post. Crash did some amazing things for advancing the consciousness of race politics in the mainstream. Though it can be very annoying to see people play “oppression olympics,” and with two films representing different minority communities up for the same award that’s bound to happen.
That being said, we still need to critique both films and press for more. It’s still really hard for any film to incorporate more than one minority issue at a time. The perfect example in this case is that crash didn’t have any LGBTQ folks despite being in LA and brokeback, I’m assuming (I actually haven’t seen it yet. I will, I will. I just haven’t had time yet) probably didn’t have many people of color despite the fact that historically there were A LOT of black cowboys.
[...] Let’s also not forget that Ang Lee did win Best Director for Brokeback, and Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for his portrayal of gay author Truman Capote. Yes, it would have been a coup for the LGBT community if Brokeback had won as well, but, as Abigail Garner cautions us, let’s not let the personal relevance and groundbreaking nature of the movie blind us to what should be the real criteria for a Best Picture. (I haven’t seen Crash myself, so I don’t want to get into an argument about the respective merits of each film here; but I do agree with Abigail that we should keep some perspective in our judgements, whichever film we think should have won.) For Brokeback, getting distribution to mainstream theaters around (most of) the country is a not insignificant achievement. A Best Picture nomination and Best Director award are icing on the cake. Let’s celebrate that, and hope that LGBT-themed movies continue to contend at next year’s Oscars. by D | posted in Politics, Entertainment [...]
You bring out a very important point about “the gay community”. Brokeback, while important and a well made film, represents a small part of a community which is made up of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgender, intersex, gender-queer, same-gender loving, questioning folks of many races, ethinicities and classes. (In fact, we function as multiple communities very loosely connected by oppression)
The shock by some of my fellow white gay men (yes over 40) at Crash getting the top prize over Brokeback demonstrates the competition some folks feel over issues of oppression. All sorts of people are oppressed. Yes, white gay men experience a mesaure of oppression, no doubt. But rarely are we asked to consider the power and skin privilege we experience as white men in America.
I hear far too many white gay men talk negatively about the black church referring to black homophobia being worse than white homophobia because members of black churches know what oppression feels like. “Surely they should be on board in regards to a civil rights issue like same-sex marraige.”
Before I start poking around in another’s eye, I need to sort out my own stuff, my own issues of privilege and not be afraid to admit that I have been tainted by a society that is racist and sexist as well as homophobic.
Sadly I hear little from the Brokeback crowd in regards to the tragedy that Felicity Huffman did not get best attress and that Transamerica did not get more recognition. I mean I love me some Reese Witherspoon, but a woman from TN playing a woman from TN does not compare to the incredible performance by Huffman.
Within white gay male circles, we need to look at our own issues around gender, racism, transphobia and of course privilege.