The Oscar and Homophobia
Lisandro Otero
Rebelión
March 19, 2006
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=28443
A few days ago, a friend commented that the paraphernalia surrounding the Oscars is the favorite frivolity of intellectuals. And so it is. Those who delve into the deep texts of Heidegger, or meditate on the reaches of suicide and the values of Kierkegaard, set it all aside to predict who will be the winners of the Academy Awards.
Each winning movie is certain to receive dollar incomes of hundreds of millions. Each winning actor or director steps into a distinguished category which will allow them to demand future sums of $20 million dollars per film. Many other interests move around the event. Fashion, for example. Designers like Versace, Armani, Boss, Dolce & Gabbana, Cerrutti, Gucci, Valentino and Calvin Klein compete to dress the stars and introduce their models. The publicity generated is worth billions. Jewelers like Harry Winston or Tiffany lend fabulous diamonds, rubies, and emeralds for a one-night exhibition between the alluring breasts of beautiful movie actresses. The next day, security guards will collect the jewels and return them to the safety vaults. A real army of tailors, hairdressers (or stylists as they are now called), manicures, cooks, musicians and dancers is mobilized to add splendor to the celebration in the many banquets and balls which follow the award ceremony.
The Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences was founded in May 1927 and its first president was Douglas Fairbanks senior. It had 36 members. Today it has 600. Membership to the Academy is only granted by invitation of the Board of Governors, the highest directing body of the Academy. They cast their votes in advance and the results are kept secret until the night of the ceremony. Today, the Academy has a magnificent seven-story building in Beverly Hills. For a long time the event was exclusively American. The power of cultural globalization has forced the admittance of candidates from many other countries.
The millions of dollars produced by the event are not only measured by the festivities in Hollywood. Ladbroke, one of the most active betting houses in the world, with its Main House in London, receives hundreds of millions of pounds Sterling from bets placed on the results.
This year, the Academy awarded the Oscar to Crash, a slow and dense film on racial violence in Los Angeles and disregarded Brokeback Mountain, about two homosexual cowboys, a film which, according to many, deserved the award. The judges did not dare break a long standing taboo.
Quite recently, Pope Benedict barred the enrollment in seminars of homosexual applicants, and thus showed an unexpected Vatican homophobia. In the midst of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Washington banned the adoption of a Resolution submitted by Brazil and co-sponsored by European countries and Canada condemning the discrimination of homosexuals. Washington considered the UN was not the right forum to discuss the issue. Even the Muslim countries supported the Resolution. Not long ago, in Egypt, twenty one human beings were sentenced to two years in prison charged with homosexual practices. Despite some progress made in the acceptance of sex preferences, there are still important remnants of puritan prudishness and irrational homophobia.
At the Republican Convention that nominated Bush, when a gay delegate took the floor to defend the rights of his peers many delegates took of their male-chauvinistic hats and started praying to repel Satan, who was embodied in the alleged preaching for a free sexual choice.
The recent pedophile scandals have tarnished the image of the Church and hurt the Catholic teaching establishment. Now the Pope is trying to win back the lost prestige by restricting with Draconian limitations the access to positions of religious influence.
But all this does not explain why a film of excellent quality as the one directed by Ang Lee was discriminated by a clumsy and bashful homophobia. This year’s Oscars will remain as a landmark in the prudish Puritanism of the Academy.