Philip W. Chung is writing a couple of days after Ang Lee entered the history books as the
first non-white person to win the Academy Award for Best Director (for his work
helming Brokeback Mountain). Not only is Lee the first Asian to win in that
category, but he’s also the first director of color to ever win in the Oscars’
78-year history. No woman of any race has ever won.
On the one hand, this is a watershed moment that should be celebrated. But on
the other hand, it’s sort of depressing to realize how far the Hollywood
community still has to go when it comes to race. Does it make any sense that
Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest filmmakers who ever walked the earth, has
never won an Oscar for directing, while Kevin Costner has?
In addition to Lee’s victory, race also seemed to be on the mind of Academy
voters this year when it came to the surprise win for Crash as Best Picture.
Part of the problem with Hollywood and how it views race is evident in its
selection of that film. Crash purports to be a work that deals honestly with
racial tensions in Los Angeles — and by extension — America. I didn’t find a
single thing in it that felt real or even particularly insightful.
It’s not that I think the film exaggerates the severity of the racial
conflicts that exist in our society; if anything, I’m in many ways less
optimistic about things now than I’ve ever been before. I’m not even bothered by
the laziness of the narrative where amazing coincidences and melodramatic
confrontations drive the story over genuine craft and effective storytelling.
(Just watch the Matt Dillon-Thandie Newton storyline and tell me you don’t
agree.)
What I find problematic about the movie is that it feels like the work of
someone far removed from the actual realities of race was making a film about
the subject from some gated community up on the hill. And the moviegoing public
has been duped into believing that this shallow work — full of one-dimensional
stereotypes talking about and dealing with race in ways that real people never
do — has something enlightening or even remotely interesting to say.
Basically, the point of the film is that racism is bad and that, gosh golly,
racists are real people, too. OK, anyone who didn’t know that, please leave the
planet now.
To be fair, other films make very simple points. As multiple Oscar-winning
screenwriter William Goldman famously remarked — most Hollywood movies either
convey truths that everyone already knows (like racism is bad) or tell us
beautiful lies that we all want to believe (like love will conquer all). Very
rarely do they really challenge us in any meaningful way.
OK, that’s fine. But Hollywood’s selecting Crash as Best Picture is a major
cop-out. It’s well-meaning-but-clueless liberals patting each other on the back
for championing a supposedly hard-hitting look at one of society’s ills, but
it’s really a case of people applauding the emperor who has no clothes.
The film that Crash upset was, of course, the aforementioned Brokeback
Mountain. Before Brokeback was released, I wrote in these pages that it had the
potential to be a truly revolutionary film with its moving “gay love story.” I
still stand by that statement. I suspect part of the reason why that film may
not have won the top prize was the discomfort it may have caused some of the
Academy’s older and more conservative members, of which there are quite a few.
But the story of Brokeback is also tinged with racial controversy, which
surprisingly isn’t getting much attention.
I had never read E. Annie Proulx’s short story on which the film is based,
and recently decided to do so to see how it compared with the movie. Both the
film and story are very beautiful and moving. But there is one major difference
between the two.
The character of Ennis Del Mar (played by Heath Ledger in the film) is Latino
in the original story. The last name — Del Mar — should be the big tip-off. I
don’t know why the media hasn’t really picked up on this (I only found one short
piece in the L.A. Times about it) the way they did when white Jennifer Connelly
played the real-life Latina wife of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind but this issue
has gotten very little play.
Again, this fact doesn’t take away from the lovely work the filmmakers did
with their adaptation, but as with Crash’s surprise win as Best Picture, I think
it says something about Hollywood and race. And I’m not sure I like
it.