I recall a while back a writer friend of mine made the comment that it may be too late to change the country through politics and that a more effective tool might be art.
We are seeing a lot of that lately. Conservatives bash gays, the art community responds with Brokeback Mountain and lavishes it with rewards (8 Oscar nominees: best film, director, cinematography, actor, supporting actress, supporting actor, screenplay, score)
And lets not forget Good Night and Good Luck, also up for best film.
And Weds night Green Day wins best record of the year with Boulevard Of Broken Dreams.
(an award I honestly don't understand because the record was American Idiot)
Anyway, to quote from a hit single off that album, Holiday:
Zieg Heil to the president gasman
Bombs away is your punishment
Pulverize the Eiffel towers
Who criticize your government
Bang bang goes the broken glass and
Kill all the fags that don't agree
[when they play that on the radio it is one of the few moments I'm still proud to be an American (remember the Brits banned the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen")]
and lets not forget the title track, American Idiot:
Don't want to be an American idiot.
Don't want a nation under the new mania.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck America.
:
:
Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.
Kudos to the Grammys for giving Green Day a nod. I just wish Kanye West would have won best album!
And, personally, I'm not going to see Brokeback Mountain. My Mom saw it and loved it but she told me that neither of the cowboys were even slightly effeminate - I'm sorry, I just don't buy that. ;)