A look at why "Brokeback Mountain" didn't change Hollywood...
I'll never forget the shock backstage at the 2006 Academy Awards when "Brokeback Mountain," already the winner for best screenplay and best director, lost the best picture prize to "Crash." Now "Crash" was a fine film, but really? Which film will stand the test of time? It's no contest.
Anyway, Adam Vary, who I have worked many an award show with, writes a very interesting article in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. Here is a piece of it with a link at the end:
...Brokeback was more than a movie. It was a phenomenon that commanded the cultural conversation for months, from Jay Leno to YouTube to the cover of The New Yorker. More important, it proved that straight audiences would snap up tickets to a same-sex romance. Since then, a few gay-themed films have been released (e.g., Notes on a Scandal). But seemingly no studio — nor any studio art-house division — has greenlit a film with a gay lead character. ''I don't think any studio responded by saying, 'Quick, dust off whatever gay dramas we have!''' says one former studio head. As surprising as it seemed that Brokeback could lose the Oscar to Crash, the real shock is just now setting in: Brokeback may have changed nothing.
Click HERE to read the rest of Adam's article.
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About Out
in Hollywood
Greg Hernandez authored Out In Hollywood for the Daily News from June 2006 to February 2009. He can now be found at Greg In Hollywood: www.greginhollywood.com
I think what was supposed to happen was it was (in the public eyes) supposed to open the door for Hollywood performers and people in entertainment to come out in droves and achieve some sort of equality and it hasn't.
If anything people have gone back in. The debate rages on about A Listers coming or not coming out. I honestly think if it had wo the Best Film Oscar that night the dorr would have opned for actors to step out a good bit more. I think Hollywood knew this and that's why it let it down on the night. Hollywood is still running scared after all this time.