Something I hadn't even thought of for a second sort of shocked me when reading Tom O'Neill's post announcing the trailer for Milk, the film starring Sean Penn as he plays Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America. In his opening 'graph he asks:

Ah, was it only three years ago that those queasy older dudes in the motion picture academy revealed they couldn't take a shot of the strong gay stuff? Now "Milk" may go down easier?

As I watched the trailer I knew the crux of the story were Milk's accomplishments as a gay man, but I never even considered the fact that may actually affect its Oscar chances. Actually, I never even thought about it outside of it being a part of the storyline.

In 2006 Crash somehow managed to steal the Best Picture Oscar in a weak year of film dominated by Brokeback Mountain and as O'Neill points out "Academy members like Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine weren't shy about saying why: they just refused to embrace gay cowboys." Brokeback as well as Capote were both nominated for Best Picture that year but still managed to lose to Crash following Brokeback's Golden Globe win.

O'Neill seems to think Milk may have a chance saying it "may be more to the (usually liberal) Academy's taste because it's fiercely political and stars macho straight past Oscar champ Sean Penn, who doesn't spend two hours roaming over romantic mountaintops aching for his cowpoke loverboy."

Doing an online search I was surprised to see how many headlines pegged Brokeback as the "Gay Cowboy" movie. If Milk causes critical waves through Oscar season will we begin to see the "Gay Politician" headlines? If so, will it affect Milk's chances at the Oscars?

I don't have a lot to say here, it just caught me off guard since the notion of "gay" never really crossed my mind as I watched the trailer. I just thought, "Damn, that movie looks good…" Am I being naive?

Check out the trailer below if you haven't seen it yet and tell me what you think.

Related post categories: Editorials, Kudos to You, Oscar Contenders : Milk

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