Kenneth Turan on why Brokeback was beaten out for best picture by Crash. Turan feels the answer is homophobia:
More than any other of the nominated films, Brokeback Mountain was the one people told me they really didn’t feel like seeing, didn’t really get, didn’t understand the fuss over. Did I really like it, they wanted to know. Yes, I really did.
In the privacy of the voting booth, as many political candidates who’ve led in polls only to lose elections have found out, people are free to act out the unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices that they would never breathe to another soul, or, likely, acknowledge to themselves. And at least this year, that acting out doomed Brokeback Mountain.”
He whines about Crash ‘s being positioned to be a spoiler:
I think it is simpler than that. Brokeback Mountain was recognized for its courageousness — that is why Ang Lee got the director’s award — but Crash was, dramaturgically and cinematographically, just a better, more complicated and ultimately more interesting and more satisfying film. Does that make me a homophobe? If you’ve got a pet issue, you are always going to accuse those who don’t share your passion of (a) not getting it; (b) being prejudiced against it; and (c) being pretentious and superficial for championing a competing issue. It is just not that often that issues are pitted against one another competitively (as the Oscars are wont to do; or should I say, as pundits commenting on the Oscars are wont to do?). We don’t get anywhere debating the relative merits of striking blows against homophobia or racism, and let’s not confuse values with artistic merit (as the Oscars, or the critics, are wont to do). Furthermore, isn’t it after all reductionistic to distill either of these films down to their emblematic issue? A given film looks at human complexity, pathos and motivation more or less successfully regardless of which scenario is the occasion.
