If You Thought Hollyweird Has No Agenda - THINK AGAIN!!

AndrewSullivan.com ^ | 2/11/03 | Andrew Sullivan

[Right Wing Co-Conspirator]

HOW GAY IS OSCAR?

I guess we wll know the answer to that, but this year's nominees are almost a hetero-shut-out. An unusually well-informed movie buff friend sent me the following email:

Today's Oscar nominations must set a record of sorts for gays in Hollywood. Best Picture nominee "Chicago" was produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, both openly gay, while another Best Picture nominee, "The Hours," had openly-gay Scott Rudin as producer. (The Pulitzer Prize winning book on which it is based was, of course, written by openly gay Michael Cunningham.) Two of the nominees for Best Director, Rob Marshall of "Chicago" and Pedro Almodovar of "Talk To Me", are openly gay. Nicole Kidman is nominated as Best Actress for her portrayal of bisexual Virginia Woolf in "The Hours," Ed Harris is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a gay man with AIDS in the same film, while Meryl Streep is nominated for Best Supporting Actress as his lesbian best friend. Selma Hayek is up for Best Actress for her portrayal of bisexual painter Frida Kahlo in "Frida". Pedro Almodovar is also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, where he is joined by openly gay Todd Haynes, who wrote and directed "Far From Heaven." Juliette Moore is nominated as Best Actress for that film, in which she plays the wife of a closeted gay man (played by Dennis Quaid, whose omission from the list of nominees will be noted as one of this year's Oscar gaffes). Another original screenplay nomination went to "Y Tu Mam Tambien," in which two young straight men end up having sex with each other. "Lilo & Stitch," whose co-director Dean DeBlois is openly gay, is up for Best Animated Feature. Kander and Ebb are up for Best Song (as is Eminem). And the Dutch film nominated for Best Foreign Film, "Zus & Zo," is a comedy about how a family deals with the news that the brother they all thought was gay decides to marry a woman. Stephen Daldry did not direct it.

Note that this is all related to people who are openly gay. The closet is crumbling - even in that most privately homophobic enclave, Hollywood

[expatpat]

What does he look like without his makeup? (or is he just playing himself?)

[CaliforniaOkie]

Did you have to ruin "pudding" for me?

Only Tapioca.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

"Lesbians... are ...12 times more likely to have had an oral infection from penile contact"

I would think that penile contact is that last thing lesbians would want "

---

I think it might mean the "artificial" variety.

With the way a lot of lesbians look...it must be the ugly virus they pass, too

[Eva]

Support a sin tax on movie tickets to help ameliorate the damage done to young minds by Hollywood and the entertainment industry. This tax would go along well with the other nutty sin taxes that Hollywood celebs are touting.

[ricpic]

Let's hear it for the missionary position!

[Jeff Chandler]

 

Andy Serkis

[3catsanadog]

Last year it was blacks; this year, gays. I reckon that next year the nominations will go to Muslims.

[3catsanadog]

Once upon a time, I had read that the Jar Jar Binks character was supposed to be gay.

[amused]

Once upon a time, I had read that the Jar Jar Binks character was supposed to be gay.

Somehow I knew the Jar Jar experiment could have been worse.

[PoisedWoman]

...in "The Hours," Ed Harris is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of a gay man with AIDS in the same film,

I haven't seen The Hours, but thought it was a period piece set in the 20s or 30s. At that time, there was NO HIV virus...are they rewriting history here or did they drag this old-fashioned story into post-HIV (post-1978) era?

[weegee]

May get some kind of "special Oscar" consideration. Walt Disney got one for Snow White and the 7 Dwarves. There have been others.

When one considers how much of modern "effects" movies requires animation, the "animated" feature category holds to some odd rules (I read them one time).

[Remedy]

bump

[Remedy]

Family Research Council: The Negative Health Effects of ...

Lesbians are at Risk through Sex with MSM

• Many Lesbians also have had sex with men. The homosexual newspaper The Washington Blade, citing a 1998 study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, reported that "the study’s data confirmed previous scientific observations that most women who have sex with women also have had sex with men."⁵¹ The study added that "sex with men in the prior year was common, as were sexual practices between female partners that possibly could transmit HPV."⁵²
• Lesbians have more male sex partners that their heterosexual counterparts. A study of sexually transmitted disease among lesbians reviewed in The Washington Blade notes: "Behavioral research also demonstrates that a woman’s sexual identity is not an accurate predictor of behavior, with a large proportion of ‘lesbian’ women reporting sex with (often high risk) men."⁵³ The study found that "the median number of lifetime male sexual partners was significantly greater for WSW (women who have sex with women) than controls (twelve partners versus six). WSW were significantly more likely to report more than fifty lifetime male sexual partners."⁵⁴
• A study in the American Journal of Public Health concurs that bisexual women are at increased risk for contracting sexually transmitted diseases: "Our findings corroborate the finding that WSMW (women who have sex with men and women) are more likely than WSMO (women who have sex with men only) to engage in various high-risk behaviors" and also "to engage in a greater number of risk-related behaviors."⁵⁵ The study suggested that the willingness to engage in risky sexual practices "could be tied to a pattern of sensation-seeking behavior."⁵⁶
• MSM spread HIV to women. A five-year study by the CDC of 3,492 homosexuals aged fifteen to twenty-two found that one in six also had sex with women. Of those having sex with women, one-quarter "said they recently had unprotected sex with both men and women." Nearly 7 percent of the men in the study were HIV positive."⁵⁷ "The study confirms that young bisexual men are a ‘bridge’ for HIV transmission to women," said the CDC.⁵⁸