When Crash won its surprise Oscar for best film instead of Brokeback Mountain, the critics’ reaction was generally that Hollywood was chickening out by preferring to air the age-old race debate rather than confronting the more now gay debate.
Annie Proulx, the writer of Brokeback Mountain, followed the Oscars by commenting in The Guardian that the 6,000 film industry voters were segregated from current issues, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates, out of touch with the shifting larger culture living in the 1970s. It is an interesting point of view when we consider our own reactions to the two debates, and wonder which we would prefer to discuss with our friends. Having said that, there is plenty in the film to kick-start conversations about the universal problem of human nature.
