IMDB: Crash 8.4 BM 8.0

That's right numbers don't lie. The author of this article just needs a tissue.

Arguements like this onlu exist for a few members of the Academy. But... didn't Ang Lee win best director.

The easy answer is because Ang Lee is straight, but of course it is not that simple. Each race takes on its own personality; however, I do believe people (again, not all, but for some) think differently when regarding voting for director comparing to voting for a film.

And because...It's Ang Lee. He robbed for Crouching Tiger, they're not going to give him the title of 2 DGAs and 0 Oscars. And, it was kind've a pity win for Brokeback Mountain, as Kill said a while back.

It is a FACT that homophobia played a part in the Crash win... It is a FACT just by the statements from some of the Academy that they refused to watch BM.

It DID play a part, how big of a part though? We may never know... but eventually I'm sure somebody in the Academy will write a book or something.

Oh, and concerning Ang Lee winning... There could be many reasons for that, like him being robbed times before.

And a vote for Ang Lee wasn't necessarily a win for BM... mostly a win for Ang Lee himself

What if only 1% of the Academy didn't vote BBM because of homophobia, but BBM lost by 5%? I wouldn't say it played a part then.

What if 5% of the Academy didn't vote BM because of homophobia, and BM lost by 1%...

I'd say it played a HELLUVA part then

See... I can play the numbers game too... biotch

But since you DON'T KNOW, you should not say FACT.

I'll say whatever I want... just because you don't think it's true doesn't mean it's not...

You also thought Crash was good...

Pwned!!!

No it's not fact, it's your opinion.

That's your opinion...

I was talking to Lecter about this today and thought I would chime in even though I'm on a bit of a leave...

...it doesn't make sense to me that a "homophobic Academy" would have jumped from one liberal issue to another. I would have an easier time thinking that the more conservative Academy would go for the still-liberal-but-more-stingy Good Night, and Good Luck. or the more neutral Munich. The cries of homophobia seem more like a knee-jerk reaction... indeed, my knee-jerk reaction to the evening is that the Academy is at least 21% full of absolute morons. But then that wouldn't be new... I mean... they did call out The Day After Tomorrow in their montage of films with "important messages".

One could also potentially argue that for anybody who would vote against Brokeback Mountain, there would be one person who would vote FOR Brokeback Mountain because it was "progressive".

My reaction isn't necessarily tied to Brokeback Mountain, just tied to the idea that, in my view, the worst of at least 4 films (I haven't seen Capote) was the one that won.

Crash is inspiring really, really aggressive debate about its quality. You have grown 60+ year old movie critics calling each other names over it. It didn't win song and two other categories, despite the weak year. Brokeback didn't win in all of its categories (5 of them!) either. I just don't think there was any momentum behind any of the films, I could easily see Crash winning Best Picture with only 30-ish percent of the vote.

Let's play numbers... let's say it was really close. Crash with 35%, Brokeback with 32%, the others split with 11%... Let's assume 6000 members (for ease)... that's only 60 votes per percentage point.

My theory: Bottom line... I don't necessarily think there's evidence of "foul play" when it comes to BBM's loss. It's one of those things were I believe, if the Academy was based out of New York Crash would have never won, and probably never would have been nominated (but Scorsese would have won by now!). I think the Crash campaign is purely to praise/blame for this outcome. They played it melodramatically and aggressive and the Brokeback Mountain campaign played it low-key and prestige to avoid controversy. I can't physically make the connection, but I also believe Katrina and New Orleans may have played a part in a movie about racism being mroe topical this year.

Wow, your just full of shit aren't you.

Right up until I take a shit... yes, I am

ok stop.

Just listen to you guys. You ar eliterally arguing over something that may NEVER be settled, so just let it be.
It's all differing opinions now. Until some Academy figures are released (probability: very slim) then nothing is fact and you can't say anything either way. You can balieve what you want.

Actually it is a fact that homophobia played a part in the Crash win. It's not a fact that it was the reason for the win, but as long as there was at least 1 member who didn't screen BM(which there was) or 1 member who decided not to vote for BM because of personal reasons, homophobia added to the Crash fire. It gave at least 1 more vote to the Crash side, which is contribution.

It's not that simple either, Shack. For every vote that someone refused to see Brokeback Mountain because he/she is homophobia, there equally could be someone who refused to see Crash because he/she is racist. I do believe the former group showed up in bigger force. But anyway, one thing I agree that is each person voted for a movie for different reason. Some may have voted for Brokeback just because he is gay, and some may have voted for Crash just because he is black; similarly, some may have voted against Brokeback just because he is straight, and some may have voted against Crash just because he is white. Or maybe gays could've enjoyed Brokeback more because they could connect to it, and same for blacks and Crash. People don't develop their tastes out of vaccum. It's all very intricate. However, that's the case for every award group; every voting body has secret racists and homophobics in them, but only Oscar turned out to give Crash the win. That tells me homophobics united better or had better vote turnout or for any other kind of reason, they tilted the favor to Crash. I would also argue that it's easier or more likely that a racist is a homophobic than a homophobic being a racist because homophobic is a form of a racism, not the other way around, so it's likely that Crash got more votes from people voting against Brokeback than Brokeback got from people voting against Crash.

James Berardinelli weighs in on this whole mess:

http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/reelthoughts.html



Berardinelli's issues with the quality of both films aside, I pretty much agree with him. I just find all this "obviously Brokeback lost because Hollywood is homophobic and that's the only reason it lost, duh!" complaining to be annoying.

These claims of homophobia being the reason Brokeback lost are completely unfounded. "Reports" surface that academy members refused to watch it, and all of the sudden people here are trying to claim this to be a "fact"? I think that speaks volumes and completely discredits the person who tries to make such a silly argument. Can anybody name names and give the number of academy members who said this? Surely you can, as I can do that very thing with any FACT that exists.

I'm homophobic. I've said that at the forums before. (lesbians are cool, though) I don't care what anybody does with their life, that's their business, but I find the thought of a guy licking another guy's sweaty balls to be quite gross. The more flaming the gay guy is, the more I prefer distance between myself and him. It makes me uncomfortable, but it's nothing against gays as human beings. So here's a homophobic person (me), yet I had absolutely no problems going to see the film, it was my 2nd favorite of all the nominated movies, and I said I would have had no problem if it won.

A HOMOPHOBIC person said that??? It can't be, because we have to paint everybody with a broad stroke and blame our own
insecurites on the cruel world, I guess, right?

Give me a freakin' break...

There is an excellent movie that deals with painting stereotypes with a broad stroke and judging people by our own misconceptions instead of on an individual basis. You may have heard of it, as it just won the Best Picture Oscar for 2005, and deservingly so! It's called Crash. Notice how none of the Crash supporters cried about it not even getting a nomination for a Golden Globe? Oh, goodness, the Hollywood Foreign Press must be prejudice, huh?

Phillip Seymour Hoffman played a flaming gay named Truman Capote, yet he won best actor over Joaquin Phoenix, who played Johnny Cash, who's as manly a man as you'll find. Hell, Heath Ledger was even "reportedly" ahead of Phoenix. It was HETEROPHOBIA, I tell ya!!! How dare they! Not only that, it was racist. Funny how Jamie Foxx won for playing a black man, but Joaquin Phoenix plays a white man and doesn't win. Oh, the bigotry of it all...

Does anybody see how completely ridiculous they are sounding? Whatever happened to showing class in the face of defeat? If this was about homophobia, why would Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhal, the Brokeback Mountain screenplay, and even Felicity Huffman have been nominated, and even win on a few occassions? This is nothing but sour grapes. They liked Crash better. It was a better film. Deal with it without making up "facts" about conspiracies to refuse to see the movie. Those refusals must be why all of the above noms and wins happened, right? It must be why Tom Hanks won for portraying an aids victim in Philadelphia, huh?

Crash won, fair and square!

What's next, are people going to complain that the ballot was confusing and people meant to vote for Brokeback Mountain but accidentally voted for Crash?

Berardinelli rules. That just proves it once more. I agree with him.

And good post there, Mav.

Oh well, I'm tired, because people obviously still don't get the argument. It's not about whining and showing class. It's about debating why Crash could have overcome such odd, an odd that hadn't happened in 77 years. People keep using examples of overwhelming favorites, which are not counter-examples at all. Hoffman was leading all the way, Hanks was leading most of the way. Angels in America swept almost all awards a couple of years ago. Those are all true, but that's because their leads were huge all the way. Has there been a case where a gay character or movie came from behind and won? No, I only saw a few examples of them leading but lost at the end. I'll say it again, if people in academy truly prefer Crash more than Brokeback, then it is really surprising that they didn't show that feeling more a month before the ceremony. It's possible, but it just somehow had never happened ever before.

Anyway, I think the topic has been debated to death and is probably good to just let go now. People are going to believe in what people believe with this discussion.

Mind.

In.

Gutter.

Excuse my inner child....but this is sig-worthy!

haha, that's...hmm...interesting.