Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
 
                 LESBIANS, GAYS CRASH OSCARS BASH
 
                        By Leslie Feinberg
 
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited.)
 
Tension was thick March 30 at the 64th annual Academy Awards--and
it wasn't just in anticipation of "the envelope, please." Lesbian
and gay activists--hot as hell over Hollywood's warped
representation of their love and lives--had vowed to crash the
bash. And they did.
 
Queer Nation/LA reports that at 7:05 p.m. Pacific Time, a block of
45 protesters stood up in the audience and shouted, "Out of the
closet and onto the screens!" They were hustled out by the
beefed-up security force of off-duty Los Angeles cops, held for an
hour and released.
 
But the audacious disruption of the awards ceremony was completely
censored by the media. The millions who watched the globally
televised event weren't aware that 500 lesbian and gay activists
engaged in running skirmishes with riot-equipped cops outside,
either. At least 11 protesters were arrested.
 
When police roughed up or clubbed activists, demonstrators chanted
"remember Rodney King," referring to the victim of a savage police
beating a year ago.
 
Streets surrounding the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion were barricaded
like a war zone to keep protesters far away. Police on horseback
tried to break up the demonstration, but hundreds slipped through
a parking lot and assembled right across from the entrance. Then
they chanted within earshot of those who arrived in sleek
limousines.
 
The movies "Silence of the Lambs" and "JFK"--both nominated for
Oscars--and the newly released film "Basic Instinct" were
lightning rods for protesters' anger.  All three films draw an
equal sign between same-sex love and murder.
 
Nominees for most offensive are:
 
Oscars for best film, best director, best actress, best actor and
best adapted screenplay went to "Silence of the Lambs," directed
by Jonathan Demme. If the Academy had categories for most bigoted,
gender-phobic and anti-gay, "Silence of the Lambs" would still
have swept the top awards, hands down.
 
The movie portrays a wanna-be transsexual serial killer who
murders women and skins them in order to sew a new body for
himself. The film turns reality upside down; it is actually
transvestites and transsexuals who have been the victims of grisly
murders.
 
This point was driven home by activists who disrupted the recent
National Film Society awards dinner and passed out fliers
highlighting the real-life murder of transsexual Venus
Xtravaganza, who appeared in the documentary "Paris is Burning."
Xtravaganza was murdered before the film was finished.
 
"Paris is Burning," Jennie Livingston's film about the drag balls
of Harlem, was wildly popular at the box office. But the Academy
snubbed the documentary.  It didn't even receive a nomination.
 
Basically bigotry
 
Oliver Stone's "JFK" won Oscars for film editing and
cinematography. The film courageously took on the
military-industrial complex's role in the assassination of John F.
Kennedy and the attempted coup d'etat. But Stone created a
gratuitous anti-gay sub-plot by focusing on the sexual preference
of two of the villains, Clay Shaw and David Ferrie.
 
Gay author John Weir wrote in the March 29 New York Times, "Shaw's
homosexuality is meant to signify nothing except the fact that
he's sinister, and capable of murder."
 
Last but not least, Sharon Stone, who stars in "Basic Instinct",
presented an Oscar. Her film portrays a lesbian and two bisexual
women as ice-pick-wielding, man-hating killer sociopaths.
 
Getting the theme? Once again, the audience is manipulated to
cheer as a lesbian or gay character is beaten to a pulp or pumped
full of lead.
 
Last year stormy protests during filming of "Basic Instinct" in
San Francisco escalated to near-rebellions and resulted in at
least 30 arrests. In March, the film's opening was met with
protests in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and
New York. The movie has been picketed, leafleted and stink-bombed.
 
The protests have been led by Queer Nation and the Gay and Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation, both national organizations, along
with Out in Film, a media protest group based in Los Angeles and
"Catherine Did It," a San Francisco group whose name cleverly
gives away the ending of "Basic Instinct."
 
So why would such a film even be made? Why not shelve it?
 
Free speech?
 
The media have portrayed the lesbian and gay community as trying
to "censor" individual movie-makers and violate their right to
free speech. In reality, the movement is waging a
David-versus-Goliath battle against a giant capitalist industry
that spews bigotry and reaps giant profits.
 
Entertainment, like any good or service in capitalist society, is
a commodity that can be bought and sold and therefore has exchange
value. The U.S.  entertainment industry now garners tens of
billions of dollars in profits. The industry, especially the movie
business, is a monopoly with a thousand and one ties to the big
banks. Movies can't even be made without vast infusions of capital
investment from the banks.
 
So it comes as no surprise that these giant corporations spew
racist, sexist, anti-gay and gender-phobic ideas--the same ideas
the ruling class always uses to divide and conquer.
 
                               ###
 
This article originally appeared in Workers World newspaper. A
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