Annie Proulx who wrote the story that led to the film “Brokeback Mountain,” spewed sour grapes at the Academy of Motion Pictures for passing over her gay cowboy-themed movie in the best picture category. Instead of accepting the fact that the Academy considered “Crash” a better film; Proulx pointed the finger at aging, conservative Angeleno voters:

“We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture, Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city, decide which films are good.

Given her comments, it is likely that Proulx never even saw “Crash” and thus is unaware that it is hardly a geriatric conservative film. She also failed to note the irony of a 70-something year old attacking voters for both being too old (“living in rest homes”) and for missing a “larger culture” when her own film’s theme could hardly be described as such.

She wrote a niche book that a talented director turned into a commercial success and a Best Picture nominee. To most people, these would be a reasons to celebrate. To others a chance to attack everyone not in lock-step with them. Annie is clearly in the second (classless) group.

Also commenting: BrokebackBlokes: Ms. Proulx has, in this moment, become that which she beheld. And the world is a little uglier for it.”

tags: brokeback mountain

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 8:14 am by Insider and is filed under Loons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.