Thank you for replying Maeglian, and with passion. I should have been clearer that my main sorrow has been that so many attacks against Crash should have been focussed around accusing voters of being anti-gay, rather than sticking to the facts (well, I think they are the facts): that Brokeback is a great film that deserved the Academy's highest recognition. I think it did the cause no good to chastise the voters for not voting for Brokeback, esepecially by making perceived prejudices on the part of voters, which we cannot know but only surmise, the basis for the invective. What I would have preferred to see would be articles focussing on how Brokeback was a better film, period, and leave all the stuff about voter motives for behind-the-scenes venting.
Any comparison of Capote and BBM, moreover, rings hollow to me in terms of proving that the AMPAS was not out to put down gay themes specifically. Granted I have not seen Capote, only clips and trailers, and in those the titular figure comes across nearly as the ultimate effeminate *parody* of a gay man; - confirming the stereotypes instead of challenging them and moving beyond them into the universality of human emotions the way BBM does.
I did see Capote and thought it was excellent. And, I would say, groundbreaking even in gay issues. The real Truman Capote was extremely eccentric as well as effeminate, mincing and lisping like the worst charicature imaginable. That Hoffman pulled off the portrayal the way he did: leaving in all the very affected mannerisms that SCREAM "faggot/queer/pansy/queen", yet manage to produce a portrayal of a man to be reckoned with: brilliant, perceptive, ambitious, powerful (as well as immensely vain, capable of ruthlessness, and privately miserable), was a very fine thing.
I don't think it was a parody, the sort of thing that makes uncomfortable-about-gay-issues people more comfortable. That, to me, would be films like The Birdcage (aren't the gay people so funny and cute? I find them so endearing!) or that one Hoffman was in as a down-and-out but noble drag queen with Robert DeNiro (aren't the gay people so sad and tragic? I feel so sorry for them!). The Capote film was very straight-up, very uncompromising in its portrayal. We got Capote, the best and the worst. Finally the film is about a fascinating, real man for viewers, not about a an outrageous NYC/Deep South pansy who made it big writing a crime thriller.
It's a pity if gays can only be "accepted" as long as they "act stereotypically gay".
If you are applying that to Hoffman's Capote it won't work. I don't think audiences coming away loving him, or even liking him (which they do the BBN characters). But they respect him -- in spite of all those mannerisms, not because of them.
I think it is the sort of honesty about character shown in the portrayals in Capote that makes BBM so good. The two men and their families -- their characters -- are so real. They are up there for us to see and love and identify with and be furious at in all their best and worst. Viewers respond to that. And, because the people in BBM are so much more accessible than those in Capote, they respond with love. I do.
Golly, Maeglian, I'd like to say more but I have to go to work. Drat!
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Any comparison of Capote and BBM, moreover, rings hollow to me in terms of proving that the AMPAS was not out to put down gay themes specifically. Granted I have not seen Capote, only clips and trailers, and in those the titular figure comes across nearly as the ultimate effeminate *parody* of a gay man; - confirming the stereotypes instead of challenging them and moving beyond them into the universality of human emotions the way BBM does.
I did see Capote and thought it was excellent. And, I would say, groundbreaking even in gay issues. The real Truman Capote was extremely eccentric as well as effeminate, mincing and lisping like the worst charicature imaginable. That Hoffman pulled off the portrayal the way he did: leaving in all the very affected mannerisms that SCREAM "faggot/queer/pansy/queen", yet manage to produce a portrayal of a man to be reckoned with: brilliant, perceptive, ambitious, powerful (as well as immensely vain, capable of ruthlessness, and privately miserable), was a very fine thing.
I don't think it was a parody, the sort of thing that makes uncomfortable-about-gay-issues people more comfortable. That, to me, would be films like The Birdcage (aren't the gay people so funny and cute? I find them so endearing!) or that one Hoffman was in as a down-and-out but noble drag queen with Robert DeNiro (aren't the gay people so sad and tragic? I feel so sorry for them!). The Capote film was very straight-up, very uncompromising in its portrayal. We got Capote, the best and the worst. Finally the film is about a fascinating, real man for viewers, not about a an outrageous NYC/Deep South pansy who made it big writing a crime thriller.
It's a pity if gays can only be "accepted" as long as they "act stereotypically gay".
If you are applying that to Hoffman's Capote it won't work. I don't think audiences coming away loving him, or even liking him (which they do the BBN characters). But they respect him -- in spite of all those mannerisms, not because of them.
I think it is the sort of honesty about character shown in the portrayals in Capote that makes BBM so good. The two men and their families -- their characters -- are so real. They are up there for us to see and love and identify with and be furious at in all their best and worst. Viewers respond to that. And, because the people in BBM are so much more accessible than those in Capote, they respond with love. I do.
Golly, Maeglian, I'd like to say more but I have to go to work. Drat!