James Bowman sees the real message behind the Oscars

By Aussiegirl

Oh, this is a wonderfully insightful article -- bears rereading. He is absolutely right - having knocked down all the moral barriers long ago Oscar longs for the good old days when they could make themselves feel good by rebelling against "society" -- that mean and narrow-minded thing which kept beautiful people like them from expressing themselves in all their glory and humanity. Having already knocked down the barriers to adulterous sex in the sentimental bathos of "The Bridges of Madison County", which had middle class matrons swooning with the unbearable romance of the whole thing, while missing the point that it was all about finding your only happiness in life by cheating on your husband, they had to move on to repeating the same theme with Brokeback Mountain, adding in the bit about gay sex, and throwing in a few graphic sex scenes (from what I hear), just to inure us to the visual image. When society lies in ruins around you, there's nothing more left to protest against and to feel good about.

The American Spectator

Did Hollywood wimp out by not giving the Best Picture Oscar to Brokeback Mountain? Were the electors of the Motion Picture Academy quaking in their Gucci loafers at the thought that red-state America would rise up in fury at the insult to traditional American popular culture represented by a couple of gay cowboys -- or, more accurately, sheep-boys?

[...] This sounds improbable to me. Not that I have any very high opinion of the movie industry's courage and daring in tackling the hard subjects or rewarding those who court controversy. But the controversy about Brokeback was mostly hype. [...] In fact the gay theme is really incidental to the more mainstream (and pernicious) message about following your bliss, especially when it comes to sex, regardless of the damage to spouses and children.

[...] In Crash, as much as in Brokeback Mountain, they want "society" back so that they can have something to rebel against. Until then, they have to play at being rebels and revolutionaries as well as serious moralists and political activists. Each pose is as false as the others, but by handing out awards to themselves for their serious-mindedness, the progressives of the movie community are able to sustain themselves -- and quite a lot of other people too -- in the illusion for just a bit longer.