I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain. But after reading 70-year-old author Annie Proulx's rant against the Academy Awards for not giving the movie the Best Picture Oscar, I don't think I ever will. No, not because it's about gay cowboys, but because her attitude is so incredibly rude and ungracious.
To be honest, I couldn't even read her entire article, because it was so gaggingly bitter. Her sense of contemptuous superiority is truly nauseating, and I can tell that she and I would probably never hit it off over tea. We might end up hitting each other, though.
Now THAT might make for some interesting cinematic fare, wouldn't you say? "Fractious Frogg Faces Off with Growling Grandma." WWE, here we come!
But anyway, Proulx actually made me want to see Crash because she trashed it so badly. To borrow a line from the also-non-Academy-Award-winning film Happy Gilmore: "Talk about your all-time backfires."
And I take extreme exception to her phrase, "dim L.A. crowd." I am a part of that L.A. crowd, gosh darn it, and I'd say I am an 80-watt bulb at the very LEAST.
Finally, I have to say that for someone who doesn't think much of the Academy Awards, she sure is angry about not getting one. Geez.
Yes, Ms. Proulx. Sour grapes is EXACTLY what it is, and you left a bad taste in MY mouth. Bleah.
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I totally agree. I read some of her rant yesterday online and was stunned by her lack of diplomacy and tact. What, crash wasn't a good movie because you didn't make it? I was also confused by her logic, which had something to do with the academy voting for crash because it was more flashy, when, hello, brokeback mountain with all it's press etc., could be categorized the exact same way.
I saw brokeback and thought it was boring and generally a slow movie. It had beautiful scenery, and did attack some topics not generally broached, but frankly I think it could have been better. I saw about half of crash (on the flight home from england) and thought it was shocking and rather amazing. I didn't feel like I could really even capture it in that tiny aiplane tv and so switched to something else. But I think the correct movie won. Annie Proulx needs to take a deep breath, or perhaps a xanax!! ;)
"Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver." I think that it was because of utterly racist, back-alley statements like these that Crash was created. Does she really think that the theme of racism depcited in Crash is as archaic and outdated as debates over free silver? How dare she reduce racism to the history books.
Thank you, Ms. Proulx, for once again reinforcing the underlying prejudice that is still salting our social wounds. Thank you for pretending like it is a thing of the past. Thank you for treating it like it doesn't exist anymore.
It's nice to know that she is downplaying racism for the sake of her own ego, her film.
I'll be the first to admit that I am woefully staunch about my anti-LA sentiments (I live in San Diego, after all), but if voting for Crash makes me a dim ruffalump, then I will join the Los Angeles masses on this one (but ONLY this one).
And one more thing...she fronts her story with that choice narrative about the gay-haters (which inevitably makes the reader think that everyone that voted for Crash was in on the hating too) and then retraces her steps later when she talks about Phil Hoffman winning an Oscar for his work in Capote (a gay historical figure). She says nothing about the homophobia that sensationalized the first part of article. Knowing that her homophobia argument just watched its last wheel wobble off the interstate, she makes a weak argument about Brokeback containing much more difficult and abstract characters. Did you catch that? Boooooo!
i mean, i can understand being shocked that your movie didnt win when it seemed to win every other award leading up to the oscars, but that doesn't mean that the other movie that DID win is automatically "trash" and everyone who voted for it is a closed-off, out of touch, idiot buffoon ('scuse me, heffalump) who isn't sophisticated enough to get the humor of jon stewart. give me a break.
the best part was when she starting talking snidely about the "provincial flavor" of the ceremony, and how it was something like a "rather small-town talent-night show." that's particularly amusing coming from a woman who lives in...wyoming.
anyway, i don't have a problem with her critiquing the establishment, but it was her way of doing it that completely turned me off and made me uninterested in anything she had to say.
and onefingerraised, you touched on a point that i was dying to bring up, thank you: how racism is apparently not relevant to the Los Angeles scene anymore, and should be relegated to the issues that have been happily resolved and dealt with. are you kidding me???
she obviously hasn't heard about the latest hot reality tv show, "black.white." ha.
Oh Annie. We can quit you.
Saw Crash, didn't see Brokeback Mountain. With that, Crash was good, thought-provoking, and the scene with the father and little girl brought me to tears.
Even without seeing Brokeback, Crash dealt with issues more of us deal with more frequently, and so probably rang true to a larger audience.
Proulx has underscored her citizenship in the art-snob elite crowd.
OneFinger, nice analysis. On Proulx' homophobia charge, hard to believe that the academy is guilty of that. A much more valid critique I've heard of Brokeback (if one were to argue a values-based snub) is that it champions an extramarital affair, with the underlying value being to follow your "love" at the expense of preexisting lifetime commitment (regardless of sexual orientation).
Love is a force of nature...
i wonder if that is true. i know that lust is...but so are many things. for example, so is peeing, but most people can restrain themselves when the occasion/circumstances call for it.
and love? well, i think that real love is a force of God, and of grace. and so i'd say that there is nothing natural about it.
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