I started to read that thread but only read a few posts before I quit. I don't really want to go there. So, sorry if this has already been posted and discussed.
The idea of a Best Picture really is subjective. And I agree it's just a movie. But the Brokeback loss really did bother me, mostly because I, as well as other people, see it as hollywoods homophobia rearing its ugly head. It's difficult for me to not come to that conclusion when you have quotes from Academy members like this out there:
Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences member who requested anonymity, when asked at the big shoo if she had voted for or against the defeated Brokeback Mountain: "[Several Academy members] didn't see it. We won't vote for a movie like that."
http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Awful/Daily2006/060308.html
Plus articles like this (Like I said, better picture is subjective, but the facts stated below are interesting):
The Brokeback Mountain Oscar Snub
by Michael Jensen, March 7, 2006
Sunday night, Hollywood spent over three hours congratulating itself for its tolerance and progressiveness. But when it came to awarding the Best Picture, Hollywood's cowardly actions proved louder than its pretty words.
Two days after Crash's history-making upset over Brokeback, a debate rages over why the upset happened. Was it homophobia? Was Crash simply a better movie? Did the far right's attack on Hollywood's morals frighten the voters? Or did Brokeback simply peak too soon?
First, the facts.
During the awards' season leading up to Sunday night's Oscars, Brokeback Mountain became the most honored movie in cinematic history. It had more Best Picture and Director wins than previous Oscar winners Schindler's List and Titanic combined. Just to name a few, Brokeback won various awards at the Golden Globes, the BAFTA's, Venice Film Festival, NY Film Critic's Circle, LA Film Critics, National Board of Review, and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Meanwhile, of the major awards, Crash managed to win only the SAG Award (for its ensemble cast), the Chicago Critics award, and an Image Award. And Crash won the Chicago honor mostly because Chicago-area film critic Roger Ebert relentlessly pushed it. Even then, Brokeback was the runner-up. How did Crash fare in all of the awards Brokeback won? It mostly didn't, rarely even showing up as a nominee. In fact, before the SAG awards, Crash barely merited mention as an Oscar contender.
Before Sunday night's upset, no film that had won the Writer's Guild, Director's Guild, and Producer's Guild awards did not go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Additionally, the film with the most total Oscar nominations almost always wins the top prize; only four times in the past twenty-five years has the Best Picture winner not also been the film with the most nominations. This year Brokeback had the most nominations
Along with all these awards, Brokeback had also won the Golden Globe, all but assuring that it would win at the Oscars too. Only once, in 1973, did a film not even nominated for the Golden Globe's Best Picture go on to win the Academy Award (that movie was The Sting, and it wasn't nominated because of a mix-up at the Golden Globes). Crash did not receive a Golden Globe nomination.
Like most eventual Best Picture winners, Brokeback Mountain was by far the highest grossing film of the five nominees. It has earned $120 million worldwide, while Crash has taken in less than half that. Box-office performance has always been a factor in how the Academy votes.
One other fact: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a conservative institution. It is not necessarily conservative in the political or religious sense of the word, but rather in that its members are firm believers in tradition and precedence. By every measure of previous Oscar winners, Brokeback should have been the movie announced by Jack Nicholson. Since it wasn't, there must be a very compelling reason for Crash to have won instead.
Was it Crash's critical acclaim? To be fair, Crash did come out quite some
time ago and it is common knowledge that Oscar favors, or at least remembers, movies released late in the year. Was it possible that Crash's earlier critical acclaim had been overlooked by virtually every others arts organization that dispenses awards? Perhaps once Academy voters were reminded of Crash's critical acclaim, they felt compelled to give it the Best Picture.
Turns out that can't be the case. Here again, Brokeback was clearly the frontrunner. Every year, both Premiere Magazine and Entertainment Weekly rank the year's movies according to the reviews they received. Brokeback came in first on both lists. Three other Best Picture nomineesGood Night, and Good Luck, Capote, and Munich also placed in the Top Ten on both lists. Meanwhile, Crash ranked number thirty-six on Premiere's list, and down in the fifties on EW's. A half-dozen critics even gave it outright pans, saying it was a movie to be avoided.
Not exactly a critical darling, eh?
That means that in order for the Academy voters to have chosen Crash over Brokeback, they had to overlook the fact that Brokeback was the favorite by almost every measure the Academy has used for seventy eight years. And they had to be willing to overturn decades of Academy tradition as well. Let's be clear about something else: this disregard for tradition and precedence didn't happen because of a changing of the guard. It's not a case of new, fresh blood forcing the Academy to change their old, tired ways. Indeed, it is the old guard that upended their traditions in order to propel Crash past Brokeback.
Nor is this a discussion about the merits of Brokeback Mountain versus Crash. Art is subjective, and a Crash fan's opinion is every bit as valid as someone who loved Brokeback. What isn't subjective are the facts stated above.
The question remaining then is why did they Academy pass over Brokeback for Crash? Given the facts, there seems to be only one answer: good old-fashioned homophobia, or at least Hollywood 's fear of being perceived by Middle America as too tolerant of gay people, which is another kind of homophobia. Or perhaps it was some combination of the two things. But nothing else seems to fit the facts.
If rank homophobia was the reason, it seems Tony Curtis apparently spoke for many voters when he said he had no intention of seeing the movie and that it offered nothing unique. Since he hadn't seen it, it's hard to know on what basis Mr. Curtis made his claim. But clearly many Academy voters did not see anything particularly unique about it either.
Everyone watching knew this was a chance for the Academy to take a stand on what is arguably one of the most controversial issues of our time. Battles are being fought at ballot boxes, in courtrooms, schools and homes all around the country. Sunday night offered a chance for Hollywood to weigh in with their support.
Up until Jack Nicholson opened that envelope virtually everyone -- even the Las Vegas odds-makers, felt it a near certainty Hollywood would do just that.
But at the last second, the Oscar voters blinked. Or perhaps like a white person publicly professing their support for a black candidate, only to then vote for their white opponent in the privacy of the voting booth, Academy voters never intended to vote for Brokeback.
Some Crash supporters have argued the Academy had to choose between honoring two very worthwhile movies, one confronting racism, one homophobia, both subjects the Oscars have overlooked in the past. And while it was a difficult choice, they argue, it was a fair decision.
Hogwash. Hollywood has already honored numerous movies that confront racism. In the Heat of the Night won back in 1967, nearly forty years ago.
Schindler's List won in 1993. Other previous winners depicting racism have included Gandhi, Driving Miss Daisy, and Westside Story. And Halle Berry's Best Actress win was supposed to be the final nail in Hollywood's racist past. The point isn't to argue that racism is no longer worthy subject-matter, only that it is not groundbreaking, especially not nearly enough to overcome Brokeback's reasons for winning.
Indeed, a gay story, much less a love story, has never even been in serious contention for an Oscar. Hell, there hasn't even been a mainstream movie about a gay love story. Given just how groundbreaking Brokeback is, its being passed over for Crash -- a movie few cared about until six weeks ago -- only heightens the fact that homophobia is one of the obvious reasons for
the Academy having done so.
Professional awards analyst Tom O'Neil thought he saw something unusual brewing in Hollywood over the past several weeks. Something weird is going on among Oscar Voters, O'Neil wrote in The Envelope, an online site run by the Los Angeles Times. "Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck have their passionate supporters who gush their honest love of those best-picture nominees, but most non-Brokeback votes I hear from Oscar voters are really anti-Brokeback." And that translates to anti-gay.
Kenneth Turan, also of the Los Angeles Times, sees something similar in the aftermath of Crash's upset. So for people who were discomfited by Brokeback Mountain but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, Crash provided the perfect safe harbor.
In retrospect, it's hard not to feel a little stupid for hoping that Brokeback would emerge victorious. America truly seemed to be changing on the issue of homosexuality. For every joke that ridiculed the gay cowboy movie, there was a joke mocking the guys who wouldn't see it. Only things haven't progressed as much as thought.
Some argue Hollywood can't be antigay since the top acting prize went to Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. But I put that right up there with Tom Hanks' wins for Philadelphia (as a dying gay man) and William Hurts' win for Kiss of the Spiderwoman (arguably not even gay, since Hurt's character says he wants to be a woman). This is not meant to take anything away fromHoffman, but nonetheless it sure appears that Hollywood, like America, has a much easier time accepting gays when they confirm all their stereotypes of effete, lisping, asexual men. But a movie about two masculine guys in love? That's apparently a different story.
Some might even argue that not giving Hoffman the Oscar would have been a travesty, given that he had won virtually every other Best Actor award leading up to the Oscars. How could the award be denied to the man who was so clearly the frontrunner?
But that certainly didn't stop Academy voters when it came to selecting the Best Picture.
There is a second, more nuanced explanation for the Brokeback snub. As the presenters made clear during the telecast, Hollywood is feeling defensive about declining box-office revenue. And since the nominations were announced in January, much has been made about Hollywood supposedly being out of touch with mainstream America. Indeed, the day of the Oscars, CNN ran a piece called Out of Touch wherein a reporter visited a small town in rural America to ask if anyone had seen, or would see, Brokeback. The answer for most, of course, was an indignant, No!
Folks in Hollywood may fear the competition presented by today's varied entertainment choices. Perhaps they were feeling uncomfortable with being seen as so different from the heartland. Or maybe it is the confluence of the two. Whichever the reason, it was Brokeback and the gay community they sacrificed to save themselves.
No doubt, had Brokeback won, the media would be reporting that Hollywood had proven they were wildly out of touch. Now the story is that even Hollywood isn't crazy enough to give an Oscar to that movie. For gay men, that makes us damned if we'd won and damned that we didn't.
What's so disappointing about this for so many gay men is that Brokeback was our movie. For years, we've been presented as prancing, mincing stereotypes, pathological killers, or suicidal depressives. Mel Gibson even threw us out of a tower in Braveheart. But with Brokeback, we had finally been given a movie that reflected the real experience and emotions of many of our lives, even if those reflections weren't happy. And we were even led to believe that our movie had crossed over and would be honored as Best Picture.
In retrospect, it's arguable that winning final prize was never really an option, at least not at this time and place in history.
But the story isn't likely to end here. Like the Democrats trying to negotiate the tricky waters of gay rights, Hollywood 's snub of Brokeback is likely to please no one. Fundamentalist Christians are unlikely to suddenly decide Hollywood does share their values. And by selecting Crash, Hollywood alienated legions of fair-minded Americans who know a cop-out when they see it.
Rick, feel free to delete if not appropriate. Thanks all!
On a brighter note, however, there really are a lot of straight people taking up for us these days and that is just plain wonderful! 
It does my heart good to see it. Especially since my 14 year old daughter is also a lesbian. I really want the world to be a better and kinder place for her. When people like Chattyaholic make such comments, it really upsets me. A year ago I was able to let it roll off me more than I can now knowing that my gay daughter could have read that nonsense. 
Give us another try. I too found "Sugar" way over the top. Now a gay pimp would really put her over the top!!!!! 
I tried to read some of that thread, but could not get thru Spoons post. Yikes!!! Imagine having to listen 
to that in person. UGH!!! 
