I fully intended to ignore the Oscars last night. Best intentions to the wind! Following a delightful phone chat with the woman I love in which she described the performance of the Merry Widow by Chicago's Joffrey Ballet she attended Sunday afternoon and the conclusion of a disappointing parody of Donny Brasco by the Simpsons on FOX 32, I surfed south to Channel 7 - Oscars.
The two hosts a tall gawky dark- haired babe and some monosyllabic monotone teen heart-throb gushed some nonsense about the Oscars. The tall gawky babe gushed out "It's been a great year for lesbians, not just in general, but in movies!"
Well, hell, I'm a lesbian!
From Sacheen Little Feather to Mack the Dyke - Oscar You come a long way baby!
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And the Hollywood Swingers worry that geese get corn stuffed down their gullets to make fois gras? Cor Blimey! - my Homage to The King's Speech!
I took the woman I love to see both The King's Speech and True Grit and both were exceptionally good films. My daughter Nora saw Black Swan and said that it was really creepy. The last ballet movie that I went to see was at gun point - my late wife Mary twisted my ear all the way into the movie theatre in Marycrest Shopping Center in Kankakee to see Shirley McClain and Ann Bancroft kick the $hit out of one another.
There was a movie about how wonderful lesbian parenthood happens to be starring two actress who happen to not be lesbians. I witnessed the raising of children by lesbians and empirically speaking the kids were not alright - I taught one poor kid adopted by lesbians and he was a train wreck ( dope, violence, suicide attempts, and many trips to rehab); same thing with a relative who happens to be homosexual and her life-partner - they were lesbian pioneers and adopted a kid as early as the 1970's and that poor boy did not end well, God love him. It seems to me that gay/lesbian lifestyle is just that -not a way of living as a family. Much in the same way that an unmarried man and woman can not artificially declare themselves parents. I read an article last week beefing that such patronizing might be akin to Black Face minstrelsy Here's more hair shirt nonsense for Hollywood to chew on -
When compiling research for this post, there was an abundance of information and analysis chronicled about gay male characters who had been honored by the Oscars but less so about lesbians. This discrepancy is probably due to more gay male characters having been written and, more paramount, having been featured in films that garnered distribution and viewership. Hollywood’s sexism is no secret and that bias infiltrates queer representations as well. This is not to say that gay male characters have fared much better fates than their lesbian counterparts. Most if not all of those representations have also been largely troubled as well. But here I’d like to focus more specifically on the issue of lesbian representations at the Oscars as to avoid losing my point by ignoring issues of intersectionality.Whoa there Hoss! Intersectionality?
Why does this even matter? Aren’t the Oscars just, to quote Lindsay, “the ultimate pageant of Hollywood hegemony?” Aren’t homo award show enthusiasts generally relegated to the ranks of fashion correspondence and even then that’s only gay-male-inclusive? In many ways, yes, that is true. The Oscars are driven by capital and the problems that accompany forces capitalistically driven. But the Academy Awards do matter in their potential to serve as a vehicle for visibility, empathy, and insurance towards cultural relevance. If more lesbians’ and other queer folks’ stories are told, respected and honored, it will be easier to combat attitudes that drive institutionalized bigotry and ignorance. People make sense of their lives and the lives of others through art, including and especially movies and media. If stories aren’t told with sensitivity and accuracy then prejudiced representations of them will prevail.
Well, Lock Arms and Cross the Selma Bridge! No one wants homosexuals to be unhappy - that is their business. Happiness is very hard work. Live with your mate! Get the job you want. But same sex couples will not partner up and give birth. It will always be artificial. That's nature -not nurture.
I rented Winter's Bone - that was a great movie about a heroic whote trash girl fighting to keep her family together in contemprary Ozarks America. It centered on breeders and wildly dysfunctional they be - Meth Head dad, Crazy Mom, Criminal Uncle and Hillbilly Mafia cousins. However, the core element was natural preservation of the family. Not sex. That film, Winter's Bone was the best picture and there was no way that Hollywood would honor it beyond a nodding nomination or two.
Hollywood is no longer a reflection of America - it is an artistic plastic mold toy maker - like the gizmos at the Museum of Science and Industry.
This year it was cranking out plastic lesbians.
