Pity Party on the Mountain

It’s hard to believe that a successful, Pulitzer-prize winning author, who had her short story adapted and made into a movie, and then nominated for eight academy awards, winning three, and then win best picture at the Independent Spirit award, would have much to complain about. Well believe it. Annie Proulx, author of the short story that was adapted into the feature length film Brokeback Mountain, threw a verbal pity party in the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Despite all the success and attention (both good and bad) that she and her story have received over the past year, Proulx sounded like a spoiled little child that didn’t get the toy she wanted at her already extravagant birthday party.

During her tantrum she stated that the Academy is, “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.” (yea, “yeasty ferment”, that just sounds nasty)

She went on to say, “If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices." Of course, people that think like you and agree with you are geniuses everyone else is an idiot.

Continuing her whining she stated that “rumor has it that Lionsgate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline.” Can you believe that, the producer/distributor of the movie would actually want to promote their movie? Unbelievable! Especially since Crash, unlike ALL the other movies that wanted to be considered for Best Pic, was released in early 2005 as opposed to as late as possible in the year (Brokeback’s release date was Dec. 9th) , in order to be fresh on the academies mind during nominations.

It takes a real class act to not only whine and cry because you didn’t win everything but then, belittle your competition, nice. A writer like Proulx should know that what makes a Protagonist so great is the strength of the Antagonist. If the other films that were competing against Brokeback were “trash” as she put it, then to win Best Picture against them would have been meaningless.

Success can blind people. So can their obsession with other people’s perceived intolerances and prejudices. Brokeback has been successful both financially ($81,000,000US) and critically (8 Oscar nods, 3 wins). It also has brought the topic of homosexuality to the forefront of American culture. I’m not sure what Annie Proulx hopes were for her story but, if she is not happy with what it has done so far then she never will be.