Is Hollywood Finally Coming Out of the Closet?

Upon realizing that I'm a social liberal from Los Angeles, nearly every homophobic asshole that I've encountered has proceeded to make some outrageous statement about the supposed inherently gay/liberal nature of what they like to refer to as "Hollywood." These have ranged from the absurd and offensive ("All gay people are actors") to the ridiculously absurd and ridiculously offensive ("Everyone wants to be gay. Being gay is trendy. I mean, just look at Hollywood."). There are so many things wrong with these statements that I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I'll start here:

1. People always use the word "Hollywood" as a synonym for the movie industry. This is wrong, because:

a) the vast majority of people from LA (such as myself) are in no way connected to the movie industry. This is why people who say that everyone in LA is "fake" or "plastic" are also wrong, since they are probably only referring to people in the movie business, who they haven't even met since they've probably never been to LA.

b) Hollywood isn't even the area of LA where the movie studios are located. All the major studios that I can think of are in Burbank, Studio City, and West LA.

2. "Hollywood," more accurately referred to as the movie industry, is not as progressive as conservatives make it out to be (just like how California, with its homophobic laws and Republican Governator, isn't the bastion of liberalism it's frequently portrayed as). While mainstream movies have at times been a very effective medium for addressing social change ("Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is the first example I can think of), mainstream movies are at heart a money-making effort, and as such will only support social causes that the filmmakers know aren't too controversial.

Which brings me to the focus of this post: the awkward interactions between the Academy Awards and the gay rights movement that have been occurring for the past few years. At the 2005 academy awards, Crash, a film about race relations in Los Angeles, won best picture, beating Brokeback Mountain, a film dealing with homosexuality. Now, this is just my opinion, but I think that Brokeback Mountain was a far better film than Crash. This is probably partly because of the fact that every film junkie I knew had been practically masturbating to Crash before I saw it, so it had been ridiculously overhyped for me, but I also thought that all of its characters were ridiculously stereotyped (some people have argued that this was intentional, but I still think it took away from the overall message of the film) and its takes on race were way too simplistic. I saw this movie when I was in high school and my own views on race were, in retrospect, overly simplistic, but I still thought Crash was too simplistic THEN. In comparison, when I saw Brokeback Mountain I thought that it was groundbreaking, had terrific acting, and that the characters were anything but stereotypical. In my opinion, Brokeback was far more deserving of an Oscar than Crash, and I will admit that I was nothing short of shocked when Crash won best picture. I mean, I at least thought that Good Night and Good Luck had a better chance of winning than Crash.

I don't think it's any kind of stretch to claim that Brokeback was snubbed because "Hollywood" didn't want to openly praise a film dealing with homosexuality. As stated before, movies can be progressive, but only when they can do so while making absurd amounts of money. Brokeback's loss occurred at a time when a conservative ran the country (damn it feels good to say that now) and only one state (not California) had legalized same-sex marriage. If the Academy had allowed Brokeback to win best picture, they would have opened the door for all kinds of homophobic criticism that would have, unfortunately, been listened to by lots of people. And by letting Crash win, they also likely managed to get rid of some criticism from liberals as well. "Yeah, we didn't give the best picture award to a movie about gay people, but we did give it to a movie about race! We're still progressive and open minded!" If you think that I'm just imagining the snub and that Crash was truly a better movie than Brokeback, just consider the fact that Brokeback was nominated for 8 awards, the most out of any movie that year, and while Crash was nominated for six, they both won three awards, as did King Kong, which was only nominated for four, and Memoirs of a Geisha, which was also nominated for six but received terrible reviews. Brokeback was statistically the most likely film to win the most awards, but it tied for first place with three other films, one of which beat it for best picture. It seems that the Academy wanted to recognize Brokeback, but were too afraid to do so.

Fast forward to last weekend. Milk had been talked about as one of the best films of the year, with people praising Sean Penn, Emil Hersch, and Gus Van Sant, and rightly so. Not only did it have a great message, but it was also an incredibly well made film, one of my personal favorites of 2008. And it couldn't have come out (no pun intended) at a better time. Not only was its message of equal rights desperately needed during November of 2008, but all the controversy surrounding Prop 8 in California probably helped it succeed at the box office as well. Because of its message and quality, Milk was nominated for 8 Oscars, just like Brokeback was. And it only won 2. That's one less than Brokeback. This must be a sign that "Hollywood" is regressing, right?

Wrong.

While Milk only won two awards, these wins had more of an impact that any of Brokeback's did. In the acceptance speeches for both awards (best original screenplay and best actor), both recipients explicitly and unapologetically talked about the film's queer themes and how they were especially important today, and received thunderous applause. This is HUGE progress, at least in terms of popular culture. Keith Olbermann noted that this was especially progressive since in 2003, Michael Moore made a political statement against Bush in his acceptance speech and was booed. I think it's especially progressive since the way I remember it (please correct me if I'm wrong), everyone kind of beat around the bush about Brokeback's queer themes during their acceptance speeches in 2006.

I've heard all kinds of explanations as to why people were so much more open this year than in 2006. I've heard some people say it's because liberals are feeling more outspoken about their political views now that Obama is president. I heard one critic say that the applause this year, as opposed to Michael Moore's booing, simply happened because Michael Moore is an asshole that nobody wants to listen to. I, for one, think it's because the "Hollywood" liberals finally realized that they have to take a stand. They played it safe when they had a chance to speak out against homophobia in 2006, and look what happened in 2008. The movie industry seems to finally be realizing that since, like it or not, they have the power to truly influence people's opinions, they can't just be complacent and go with the norm if they actually want to be progressive. I dunno, maybe I'm being too optimistic.

You could refute my claims by saying that, once again, the film dealing with queer themes was snubbed of an Oscar for best picture. I was even thinking along those lines for a little bit, since I've been hearing very mixed things about Slumdog Millionaire, which beat Milk. But I would hesitate to call Milk's loss in the best picture category a snub this time around. For one thing, I've only seen two of the films nominated for best picture this year (the other one being Frost/Nixon, which was surprisingly good. While Sean Penn certainly deserved his Oscar for best actor, I would've been equally happy if Frank Langella had won for his portrayal of Nixon.). So while I liked Milk better than the one other nominated movie I saw, I can't actually say if it was better than The Reader or Slumdog Millionaire (I'm willing to guess that it was better than Benjamin Button). Also, Brokeback's loss was largely considered a snub because the general consensus among movie fans at the time was that it actually WAS the best movie out of the five nominated, and everyone was expecting it to win. That can't be said for Milk. Slumdog was the favorite this year, so I wasn't at all surprised when it won. It seemed that in 2006, everyone thought the best movie was Brokeback, but they didn't want to make a real political statement, so they voted for Crash and made a fake political statement instead. This year, it seems that while people didn't vote for the movie that made the biggest political statement, it wasn't because they were afraid of doing so. To me, that is a huge step forward.

More Geeky/Random Web Clippings

I have a few (actually a lot) of my own to add:

 10 Video Games That Should Be Viewed As Modern Art

A History of Robot Vocals in Music

The Worst Song in the World

Weird Japanese Commercials Starring Oscar Nominees

One of the Weirdest, Most Fucked Up Extensions of Colonialism I've Ever Seen

A Synth on the Nintendo DS

Barack Obama Cursing

Did George W. Bush's Grandfather Steal Geronimo's Skull?

The Importance of Being Bilingual

One Reason I'm Nervous About Going to Japan

Geeky/Random Web Clippings (of the week?)

So I might make this sort of thing a habit, provided I actually find enough stuff in these here internets.

An animated image showing the definition of pi.

Space is fun. Oh, yes it is.

A bootable CD that cracks windows passwords using rainbow tables.

An awesome guide to speed reading.

Images that use the text of Obama's victory speech.

John Stewart's famous Crossfire pwnage.

Update: Wikileaks is back up

Just thought you might like to know Wikileaks is back up and running. Though for how long, nobody knows.

More Lulz of the Time

Substantive post coming soon. I promise. Click to enlarge (as if you're a fucking idiot. I don't know why, but I always have to let people know about thumbnails. I know it's 2009 and if you can't figure out how to enlarge a thumbnail then you probably don't deserve to see it, but I have this irattional fear that if I don't say, "click to enlarge" I'll get this huge flood of emails and people saying "OMG that pic is so small I can't see it" and I'll be arrested and if only I'd warned the public about thumbnails then none of this would have happened. Irrational I know, but I gotta do it, click to enlarge.)

Also on the picture, It doesn't make much sense, but I lol'd.

Lulz of the Time

 

 Notice under women in the bottom left: "delectable vegetarian cuisine." lol oxymoron.

Wiki of the Week: Wikileaks

Wikileaks is one of the best ideas for a wiki I've seen in a while. It allows users to anonymously publish leaks of sensitive information. This is awesome, browsing through the site you feel like a spy, there's a ton of stuff about crazy religious proceedings, under-the-table backhanded dealings. Email logs, manuals, membership lists, it's got it all.

There is one huge downside, though. Due to the shady nature of the content and people generally wishing it would go away, the site is not always up (like the last time I checked). During those times you can still browse most of it through google cache though, but it's a pain.

The site is responsible for a number of notable leaks including guantanamo bay operating procedures, a hack of sarah palins email account, and a bunch of scientology scandals.

Wikileaks main page (down)

Wikileaks main page, text-only google cache

Wikileaks on Wikipedia

TV Review: Dexter

For the past year or so, everyone and their mom has been telling me to watch the show Dexter. They would say things like, "It's so darkly funny," or "It's got such a great concept," or "It's got the coolest opening theme." Well, finally one of my friends sat me down and essentially forced me to watch a couple episodes of Dexter, and I was immediately addicted. That night, I downloaded the first two seasons, and about 3 weeks later I'm done with them and ready to write a glowing review.

Everyone and their mom is right about Dexter: it is, for lack of better words, absolutely fucking bomb. For those of you unfamiliar with it, its eponymous main character is a good-natured guy who cares for his girlfriend and sister and is well-liked by everyone in the Miami police department, where he works as a blood analyst. He also has a hobby that no one knows about: he's a serial killer. His adoptive father, a cop, taught him how to kill people when he realized that Dexter was not going to be able to control his urges. His complex moral code can essentially be boiled down to: "Don't get caught" and "only kill people who deserve it." At the beginning of the first season, Dexter is able to successfully keep his outward appearance and his huge secret entirely separate from each other and lead two lives that influence each other but never mix together. That's the back story.

The TV series was based on a series of novels, and as a result the seasons are structured like novels in a series; each season tells one story with the same characters, and each episode is like a chapter in that story, usually ending either on a positive note or with a cliffhanger. In season 1, the Miami police department is investigating a murderer known as "The Ice Truck Killer," who freezes his bodies before displaying them in elaborate ways for the police to find. Dexter senses that the killer is somehow connected to him and knows about his secret, and as the mystery comes closer to being solved more and more of Dexter's secrets come close to surfacing. Season 2 raises the stakes even more; it begins with scuba divers finding the bodies of all of Dexter's victims and the police investigating Dexter without realizing it, collaborating with the very person they're trying to catch. These stories put incredible twists on the genre of detective fiction. In most detective stories, we're trying to figure out who committed the crime and why they did it, and we want nothing more than for the detectives to uncover the entire story. In Dexter, however, we don't want Dexter to be found out; we want the detectives to be led down the wrong path, and we want to see how that ends up happening. Season 1 is a brilliant piece of detective fiction. When we first realize that the Ice Truck Killer knows about Dexter, we don't know who the killer actually is. We want to find out why the killer knows Dexter's secret, but at the same time we don't want the secret to get out. Because of this, rather than hoping for one explanation of the crime, the audience of Dexter is led to hope for two explanations: a real one for the viewers, and a fake one for the detectives. While the audience wonders what the Ice Truck Killer's real story is, they also wonder how the detectives will figure it out in a different way that doesn't involve Dexter. To make matters even more interesting, the Ice Truck Killer's identity is revealed to the audience (but none of the characters on the show) about halfway through the first season. So about halfway through the story our method of watching and solving shifts from trying to figure out who the killer is to trying to figure out how and why he or she (I wouldn't want to give anything away) is killing, and how the detectives will be led to the killer eventually. Season 1 is suspenseful, intriguing, and incredibly well-written.

But season 1 looks like nothing more than a classic whodunnit in comparison to season 2, which is more of a bizarre, fucked up psychological drama involving adultery, guilt, failure, a character with kind of a reverse Oedipus complex (I don't know if there's a psychological term for when a woman wants to have sex with her father), and an incredibly intricate web of lies that is simultaneously woven and torn apart by every single character. Season 2 toys with the audience's emotions; episode 3 ends with everything being seemingly resolved, but the last episode begins with the audience wondering which innocent characters' lives will be destroyed because of Dexter's actions. This is because, as stated before, season 2 revolves around Dexter's victims being investigated. It's another example of a murder mystery where we want to see what the fake solution will be; we want to see how the facts will point to someone else taking the blame. In the end, someone else does take the blame, and it raises a lot of questions about morality; while an innocent person's life and reputation are forever ruined, is it worth it for Dexter's sister and girlfriend to have their lives and reputations be saved? Ultimately Dexter is not the one we're worried about; we're worried about those who are close to him, and by the end we're wondering if it would be better for Dexter to turn himself in. Season 1 and 2 are very different; while I was incredibly satisfied with the end of season 1, the end of season 2 left me very uneasy. But that's the point. As said before, season 1, which is on its own very complex, looks like a straightforward murder mystery compared to season 2, which is a journey into the human psyche and a brutal look at morality.

But while Dexter is definitely heavily influenced by murder mysteries, it is also a very character-driven drama. In most detective stories, characters fit certain archetypes, and they don't have any purpose in the story other than leading the detective to find out who the killer is. This couldn't be farther from what Dexter is like. Some of my favorite stories are ones where the writers created a bunch of interesting, complex characters and put them all in some situation to see how they would interact with each other. Boogie Nights, The Watchmen, and to a lesser extent The Big Lebowski are all great examples of this type of storytelling, and so is Dexter. While on one level it fits the formula of detective fiction, it, like The Big Lebowski, also heavily revolves around the personal lives of its characters, which are all complicated in one way or another. A couple of my favorite characters are Angel Batista, an honest, kind detective whose good nature sometimes leads him to be taken advantage of by others, and lieutenant Maria LaGuerta, a political machine who craves media attention, but who is also shown to have a sensitive side at times. But my favorite character by far is sergeant James Doakes, a hardass, badass, no bullshit cop who is the only one that senses that Dexter is hiding something dark, since he has his own personal demons as well. As an added bonus, nearly every character on the show is absolutely gorgeous, and the cast is very diverse as well. We have white cops, black cops, Cuban cops, and one Asian American cop, all of whom have equally fucked up personal lives.

One criticism that I've heard about Dexter is that it's completely unrealistic. But who cares? It's TV. Every great show that I can think of (except for maybe The Wire) is completely unrealistic, and that's part of what makes them great. Despite the great writing and philosophical statements, that's all that Dexter really is: fucking great TV. It's full of witty one-liners and double entendres, ridiculously insane plot twists, and a cast of characters who are all sleeping with each other. But Dexter manages to be a little bit more than that as well. If you're in the mood for a great story with lots of great characters that sometimes manages to make you think about big ethical questions but always manages to entertain, then I'll be just one more person who tells everybody that they should watch Dexter.