Fenton Bailey writes:
I’m not only a chocoholic I’m also an Academy member, so my ears pricked up when I heard how charmingly I was described in last weekend’s Guardian:
Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good.
Who, I wondered would say such a thing? Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain, of course!
And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash – excuse me – Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline.
Annie, I hate to break it to you but Focus Features didn’t neglect to send out Brokeback Mountain. To proulx-atize it, my mailbox was penetrated, nay, gang-raped by copies of Bareback – excuse me – Brokeback Mountain. Annie hated everything about her night of glamour… The show…
From the first there was an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance emanating from “the show”…. a kind of provincial flavour to the proceedings reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night.
The other actors who won awards…
Hollywood loves mimicry.
The audience…
The somewhat dim LA crowd.
And of course a dollop of scorn for the rappers we achingly hip (er, hip-replacement, Annie, not hip-hop) Academy members rewarded with best song.
Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this. There came an atrocious act from Hustle and Flow… a favourite with the audience who knew what it knew and liked. This was a big winner, a bushel of the magic gold-coated gelded godlings going to the rap group.
Annie is clearly anti-bling. She just has no idea how hard it is out here for a pimp.
The hours sped by on wings of boiler plate.
You know for a moment there I thought she was talking about her own movie. I know its heresy to say it, but I found the movie kind of stereotypes-as-usual: the gay (Jake) must die and the gay-inclined (Heath) lead a miserable, bitter, lonely life. Bottom line: Don’t be gay! I was also put off by the actors’ protestations that they weren’t gay, and the insistence of everyone around them that this was more than a gay story, it was a love story.
And that was it, three awards, putting it on equal footing with King Kong.
What’s wrong with Kong? You know, Annie, that’s so much more than a story about an ape – it’s a love story. (Read her rant in full)
– Fenton Bailey
