Dear Editor:

As a gay man and a filmgoer who saw both “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crash”, and who anticipated that “Brokeback” would win the Oscar for Best Picture largely because of the “buzz” and the theme, I was not disappointed that “Crash” was the “upset winner” in the “Best Picture” category because, quite simply, “Crash” was an incredible film and was every bit as deserving of its “Best Picture” Oscar as “Brokeback Mountain” would have been had it instead “won” the Oscar for Best Picture.

I do not believe that any form of so-called “homophobia” had anything to do with anything. In fact, part of the reason I anticipated that “Brokeback” would win was because I thought “The Academy” might WANT to “send a message” with a “Best Picture” nod to a film about a gay love affair. But I believe that if everyone will calm down a minute and consider the following simple facts, which are themselves unusual this year insofar as the Academy’s voting patterns, it’s not hard to see how one movie “edged out” an anticipated “front-runner”:

(A) No single film won more than three Oscars this year; (B) None of the six “major” awards (four acting awards plus Director and Picture) went to any one film (each of those six awards went to someone associated with a different film); (C) Both “Brokeback” and “Crash” took three Oscars each, and both took the Oscars for Screenplay (“Brokeback” won “Adapted” and “Crash” took “Original”), additionally, “Brokeback” took the Oscars for “Original Score” and “Best Director” while “Crash” took “Film Editing” and “Best Film”; (D) The “Best Picture” winner “Crash” was a film about a day in the life of Los Angeles which spun several characters’ story lines together and culminated in a devastating “surprise” ending while “Brokeback” was a film about two characters and their convoluted emotional and sexual relationship over the course of twenty years; (E) Most of the members of “The Academy” work and live in Los Angeles and deal every day with issues regarding the LAPD, racism, crime, etc., as depicted in the movie “Crash”, while most of the members of “the Academy” do not live in and around the mountains of Wyoming and are not gay or bi-sexual cowboys. In this context, as with any “voting competition” (be it an award or an elective office), the voters doubtless voted for the nominees with which they most identified.

And please don’t throw the “self-hating gay man” thing at me just because I think “Crash” deserved the Oscar every bit as much as “Brokeback Mountain” did – that would only further demonstrate the silliness of this presumed “controversy”.

Christopher Corbett-Fiacco

Dear Editor:

Talking with a friend recently about Juan Vargas, she mentioned a comment he made a few years ago (San Diego Union Tribune – Oct 28, 2000) in which he compared several Latino groups in the area to the Taco Bell Chihuahua, such as the Mexican American Business and Professional Association, the Mexican American Political Association, the ADELITA political-action committee, the American Association of Hispanic Certified Accountants, the Association of Latino Administrators, the Latino Business Owners of America, and the Latino Education Summit Committee. I couldn’t believe it until I looked it up myself. How can somebody like Juan Vargas, running for Congress in a district which is over 50% Latino, hope to earn our respect with comments such as that? I find his comment extremely offensive, bordering on racist. Does he really expect anyone to vote for him only because of the color of his skin?

Joel Campos