Clearly, the Academy slammed the Hollywood closet door shut, and put a deadbolt on it, too! The peoples' backs they broke were the gays and lesbians worldwide. Also, AMPAS has generated an affirmation for me personally. I personally thank all those associated with the development of Brokeback Mountain: the film is pivotal in American history and film. I would like to thank the Academy and Tony Curtis for inadvertently opening the door to this forum of discussion. I would like to thanks those who died before me that I might live, and I would like to thank those who tortured me so that I might become storing. I would like to thank those who hate me that I might be open to love. I would like to thank the radio dj's and the late-night talk show hosts who laugh about me, and the cartoonists that mock me, that I may stand as tall as this mountain and proudly state, "I isn’t queer." I am a homosexual man who has been promised "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." --And I don't need a trophy to validate my existence or my success.
Brokeback Mountain is "The face [of gays] that launched a thousand ships," or shall I say keyboards? This is a film that provokes thought and discussion, brings bashers' anger to the printed word, such as the anger displayed by bloggers who proclaim "get over it, and voices of old Hollywood AMPAS members' defiance to view the film.
This is the film that has triggered true-life recollections of abuse and alienation by many gay men in America; it shows the hatred toward gays such as Matthew Shepherd and others who remain nameless and forgotten, killed for being gay "in the wrong place at the wrong time." [We’re dead]. Brokeback Mountain provides a glimpse of gay life and suffering in a Red State, and shows Blue Hollywood's hypocrisy. [Here I could insert a litany for the dead that I have known in my life]. This film, thanks to Ang Lee, Annie Proulx, the producers, and the actors, shows a rigid belief system that American homophobes don't want others to see--yet, it stands as a Mountain of Triumph for gays who have been mocked by caricatures such as Capote, Jack McFarland, Paul Lynde, and other gay stereotypes. Though these portrayals show the comic mask of gayness, the characters of Brokeback Mountain show the heart of gayness--a sexual orientation based on love, not on affected witticisms or clever costumes of flamboyance. Annie Proulx's direct and pointed comments to AMPAS conceal nothing and hide no truths behind Hollywood's facade. Just as Brokeback Mountain revealed "a love that dare not speak its name," Annie's words lay out the truth about Hollywood.
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