Oh my god! Ang Lee reads my posts on Big Queer!

Okay, probably not. But in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, it was nice to hear that after the conspiracy of silence regarding Brokeback Mountain and all things queer at the Globes, Mr. Lee actually referenced gay men and women in his Oscar acceptance speech.

Of course I don't take back anything I said - the greatest allies of queer people in America's current political climate are and will be out, thinking, and active queer people - but it is still nice to be acknowledged. Besides, Ang Lee and the rest of the Brokeback crew whatever their sexualities were on the gay end of the prejudice stick last night. Not recognizing Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture was without question the result of homophobia, and while queers felt that sharp, sharp pain deep in our hearts in ways that perhaps they could not, I'm sure Ang & co. felt it to some degree, too.

So thank you, Mr. Lee for the movie and your words from one small voice (with one big mouth) in cyberspace.

Because this post is in large part a reaction to this Times article (like the real Times in the UK), read this first:

Golden Globe winners spark righteous anger

So first let's talk irresponsible journalism, shall we?

In the article, Chris Ayres makes a direct link between the "leftist" agenda of the current crop of films and the decline in Hollywood box office. Anybody who has had their flip-flop peel off on a sticky megaplex floor, has discovered Netflix, has figured out that it costs $16 to buy a DVD if you get it the week it's released, or just likes their homestyle $1 bag of popcorn more than the $6 movie theatre heart attack knows that this is just not the case. Take a look at this article from the New York Times (Summer Fading, Hollywood Sees Fizzle) and this one on the ABC News site that originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor (No Happy Ending in 2005 for Hollywood). Movie ticket sales have been on a three to five year decline (depending who you ask and how they're interpreting the increase in ticket costs) and it has nothing to do with queer content.

Mr. Ayres decision to reductively blame this industry wide phenomenon on Brokeback Mountain, Capote, TransAmerica, and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association belies one of two things: 1) he's a lazy hack or 2) he's a loser homophobe. Do you want to ask him which one it is? If so, send a letter asking the Times: letters@thetimes.co.uk.

What do you say? Apparently, nothing specific. Just a lot of highly general things about generalness being generally heart-warming and universal for the general population in a kind of general way.

Generally, speaking.

To preface, I actually liked Brokeback Mountain a whole lot, a lot more than I thought I would (as you can read here). But when all the awards hype was starting  - Golden Globe this! Oscar that! - I had some misgivings about the "favor" straight Hollywood was doing for queers (as you can read here). So while I am, on the one hand, happy as a pig in shit scoping out all the farmyard cocks at the four Globes Brokeback took home, I'm also a little peeved by the conspiracy of silence that seemed to envelope the Beverly Hilton.

Was it completely and utterly impossible for a single person in that room to talk directly about Brokeback Mountain and use the word "gay?" The film was called everything from universal to controversial to a Western - all of which it of course is. But it is also gay. Not exclusively gay, not even primarily gay necessarily, but gay nonetheless. And considering the amount of straight animal husbandry shown in the montage clips and the amount of queer shenanigans that were well...not, the word, the subject, the very issues the movie was supposed to be bringing down were being held up onstage by Ang Lee, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry, Gustavo Santaolalla, Bernie Taupin, and Steve Carrell's wife Nancy (just kidding).