Well, that’s that. “Carol” will not be our “Brokeback” after all because “Carol” got shut out of the Best Picture and Best Director nominations entirely for the Oscars. (Insert expletive here.) I felt it coming, but to have it realized is (insert another expletive here, make that a couple). I guess we should be happy the film got recognized for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay (all terribly deserved). But, yeah, no – we wanted more.
To buoy our spirits, here are some reminders of some other truly lovely lesbian films that also did not receive any award recognition. They may have been snubbed by academies filled with old white men, but they’ll always be huge in our hearts.
p.s. Yes, of course, this is a very incomplete list. So feel free to add your favorites in the comments.
13 comments:
Robbed.
DEBS will always be one of my favorites. Not Oscar worthy, but it always lifts my spirits.
Fried Green Tomatoes!!! Although not actually an out n proud gay girl movie... We all knew!!! Created a generation of ladies looking for their Idgie!!
Despite realising that the not-diverse-old-white-man's-Academy is way out of touch with the rest of the world, I'm still shocked that they chose to shut Carol out of Best Picture and Best Director nominations. How could they not notice all the rave reviews Carol has been getting? Seriously, WTF? Thanks for the trailers from of other snubbed lesbian films. The Imagine Me + You trailer was a tear-jerker for me.
http://www.full-brief-panties.blogspot.com/
Vanity Fair not happy about it either:
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/01/carol-shut-out-best-picture-best-director
While I understand the disappointment regarding Best Picture, I think it's useful to keep in mind a Best Picture win or nomination is more a bellwether of the current moment than enduring evaluation. Raging Bull lost in an Oscar race to Ordinary People, Pulp Fiction to Forest Gump, Fargo to English Patient, Apocalypse Now to Kramer vs Kramer. In each of those cases, I routinely teach the losers (in view of editing, narrative, mise-en-scene, and camerawork, respectively), and I have never taught the winners. Carol is an astonishing film. Todd Haynes is one of most interesting filmmakers working today. I fully expect to be teaching Carol in the future, for its mise-en-scene and its camerawork, for its treatment of melodrama, and in view of its intertextual connections with films by Douglas Sirk and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Brokeback Mountain is what I call a "well-made film," Carol is a work of art. Both films will probably be studied as cultural documents in humanities courses. Both are films I would recommend, but Carol is the one I'll be teaching in my film studies classes. My dearest hope is not for Oscar gold; it's for a Criterion Collection DVD.
Thanks, January. That made me feel a smidgen better.
A disgrace. At least give a nomination to Todd Haynes
January, I agree with most everything you've said, and I get your point, I really do, but the current bellwether (and thanks for spelling that right. It really ain't about bells and weAther. Uh-uh). Ahem, I digressed. The bellwether to consider here is Metacritic, which rates Carol best picture for the last 90 days, best picture of 2015, and (wait for it) 9th BEST PICTURE OF ALL TIME.
So no Best Picture nomination really is a shut-out. It can't possibly be anything else, because nothing else makes sense.
We're not upset and subsequently paranoid. We're upset because we're just plain RIGHT. And that sucks.
I finally got to see Carol in my country. And two things amazed me.
One, that it was projected in the biggest room of the cinema theatre, usually reserved for movies such as Hunger Games and Star Wars. So it was not being considered as a small indie film that only lesbians would want to see.
Two, the room was full... of straight people.
Basically Carol is being promoted as a very mainstream movie and I'm super glad about this.
That means my mom will perhaps go see it.
I'm disappointed about the Oscar snub of course but the fact that Carol seems to have reached that level of mainstreamness (?) is amazing enough I think.
Hello Florence, just curious, what is your country?
I went to see it yesterday in the United States (in Portland, Oregon, one of the most lesbian-friendly places in the country!) and it was not very full. It is also only playing in limited theaters. Granted, I went to a midday show, which is not as popular.
Have you read this?
http://www.hitfix.com/news/5-myths-that-prevented-carol-from-getting-a-best-picture-nomination
@Kira: I'm from Belgium
Post a Comment