You talking to me?... scene from the race relations drama Crash, one of the nominees for best picture
The culture wars returned to their favourite battleground - Hollywood - with today's announcement of the 2006 Academy Award nominations. Did the voters plump for such wholesome fare as Elizabethtown, Cheaper By the Dozen 2 or Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants? No, they did not. On the contrary, this year's featured films paint a portrait of America that is guaranteed to have the Bush crowd fulminating.
This is a land where the frontier is a hotbed of gay love (Brokeback Mountain), and where the cities are seething cauldrons of race hate (Crash). It is a country where the workplace is a site for sexual harassment (North Country), the heroes are pimps (Hustle and Flow) and the pioneer spirit is embodied by a pre-operative transsexual (Transamerica).
Who will win the best actor Oscar? The gay writer (Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote) or the homosexual cowboy (Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain)? Will George Clooney be named best director for his film about a crusading journalist who brings down a rightwing politician (Good Night, and Good Luck)? The Oscars traditionally sprinkle a little controversy amid their choice of nominees. On this occasion, the Academy appears to have turned almost radical.
The films in the running for the 78th annual Academy Awards are not the best pictures of the last 12 months. They never are. That said, this year's crop is a lot better than usual. Crash is pompous, Munich is portentous and Brokeback Mountain is perhaps a little too self-consciously classy for its own good. But like them or not, they all have something important to say about the world we are living in. In my book, that makes them significant films that deserve to be recognised and discussed, stood up or knocked down, and above all taken seriously.
