I guess we really have come a long way in re-thinking the place of queerness in society. I certainly never thought it would come so fast, but I guess life really is like a box of chocolates! Who knew people would want to see us on screens, want to see our stories portrayed by straight actors, and want those straight actors to get Oscars and continue to have successful straight careers unstigmatized by playing gay? Now if we could only remove the stigma of being gay...

Surely some of the stigma is gone, though, right? I mean, Heath Ledger's performance is Oscar worthy. We should be so happy with our new Hollywood status. Sympathy for queerness is a cause to be championed by (and capitalized on) by straight actors, just like mental illness was (still is, really). I mean, when else was it so right on to pair queerness with mental illness?

I think it was pre-1973 in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual-II.

Okay, look, I'm not pissing on this movie. I'm just saying we queers should take a breath before letting it's buzz and popularity go to our heads. These people are being awarded for being brave individuals who dare to play the stigmatized, the troubled, and the deviants of society — people you only want to see on a movie screen, not in your living room. They are not getting awards for playing everyday folk who happen to be gay, and they certainly aren't being awarded because American society now thinks it's okay to be gay.

If Mr. Ledger is as great in the movie as everyone says, then yay! Give the big man a little gold man. But if it's an award for bravery, then give that statue to Matthew Shepard or Larry Kramer or hell, find a real gay cowboy and give it to him. It takes a lot more balls to be gay than it does to play gay.