Victimology triumphant

I saw this at Lucianne.com:

The post-Oscars debate: Why Brokeback lost
Reuters, by Arthur Spiegelman
Original Article

LOS ANGELES—The Oscars opened the closet door to gay-themed films but shut it almost as quickly. “Brokeback Mountain,” the much-ballyhooed favorite about two gay cowboys, won best director for Ang Lee on Sunday but stunningly lost the best picture prize to race drama “Crash.” Additionally Philip Seymour Hoffman won best actor for playing gay novelist Truman Capote in “Capote.” The victory for “Crash” suggested Oscar voters were more comfortable

Questions: How is nominating a homosexual-themed movie for Best Picture “shutting the door” on homosexual-themed movies? And how is awarding the director of that same movie the Academy Award for Best Director “shutting the door” on homosexual-themed movies? And how is giving the Academy Award for Best Actor to an actor who portrays a famous homosexual in another movie made that same year “shutting the door” on homosexual-themed movies?

It is remarkable how the premises of whining victimology—e.g., you didn’t give my favored minority group absolutely EVERYTHING you could have given them, therefore you are discriminating against them—have entered the very diction of modern speech.

As further proof of what I just said, some of the commenters at Lucianne.com accept Spiegelman’s basic premise; they see the fact that Brokeback Mountain failed to win the Oscar for Best Picture as proof that Hollywood is rejecting homosexual-themed movies! Their only difference from Spiegelman is that they feel cheered by this supposed fact rather than aggrieved by it.

A correspondent adds:

This is like when Muslims say, “We intend to change America (i.e., into a sharia state), but we intend to do it by nonviolent means,” and the conservatives say, “Oh, isn’t this great? This proves there are moderate Muslims after all!”

This is true. Today’s “conservatives” (who are, whether they realize it or not, liberals) think that anything short of a total leftist demand, anything short of a total and immediate victory by America’s enemies, represents a victory for “conservatism.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 06, 2006 09:21 AM | Send