Tolerance isn't enough for Hollywood's leftists
Salem News (MA) ^ | 03/14/06 | Taylor Amerding
I don't want to see "Brokeback Mountain."
Normally that would mean nothing. There are hundreds of movies I haven't wanted to see and nobody cares, which is how it ought to be.
But we do not live in normal times. According to the ultra-sophisticated movie critics who double as social engineers, I'm supposed to be consumed with guilt about being a homophobe.
I guess I'm in good company, or at least much more liberal company. Hollywood is about as welcoming as it gets for what we are required to call "alternative" lifestyles. You can be homosexual, bisexual, transsexual, transgender or just about anything else you can imagine having to do with private parts and Hollywood will celebrate you not just as normal, but better than normal since you're pushing the boundaries, and pushing the boundaries is always a good thing, especially if it insults the standards of traditional or conservative people.
But even Hollywood is being scolded by the all-knowing critic community for giving the Best Picture Oscar to "Crash", instead of "Brokeback". This, they declare, means that even Hollywood is forcing gays back into the closet--that even liberals harbor unspoken prejudice against gays.
The closet? Please. This is not forbidden love. As has been said for awhile now, this is the love that won't shut up. And all this ranting about it is coming from people who generally contend that nobody is allowed to say what is good or bad, right or wrong, because the only things good or right are what is good and right for you. You'd think they'd be applauding a bunch of self-absorbed people like them who decided what movie they liked better for whatever reasons.
These are the people who say if there is a single sin in this world, it is to try to "impose your values" on somebody else. Yet they are trying to impose their values on the majority of Americans and even Hollywood lefties.
And this is very much about values. Cinema is a notoriously subjective art form. After every Academy Awards ceremony, there is always debate. Some critics always like the losers better than the winners. But this is not just a debate about artistic merit, but about bigotry. There are guilt trips to be awarded: i.e., those who voted for "Crash" were just trying to hide their prejudice against gays by voting for a movie that explores the "safer" topic of racism.
That is not the only level at which there is the stench of hypocrisy. If we apply the critics standards for "Brokeback" to everything else out there, I've got a lot more to feel guilty about than just not wanting to see a movie about an affair between two men.
I also don't want to see "Nanny McPhee," "Date Movie", "Curious George" or "Dave Chapelle's Block Party". So I'm a nannyphobe, datephobe, monkeyphobe, and Davephobe. Or blockpartyphobe.
(snip)
Finally, the critics who are hectoring everybody from Middle America to Hollywood itself about how bigoted we all are--aren't they the same people who are always telling us that if we don't like something just change the channel, don't see the movie, or don't buy the book? Now they are telling us we must watch it. Not only that, we have to like it and give it awards. |
