As a librarian, I look at authors with the deepest respect and admiration.
They create, when so many people in this world destroy.
There are those authors - at least the good ones - who attempt to tell the truth when there are so many who distort.
As a film critic, I look at directors with that same respect and admiration.
They are the auteurs of the films, and they create in many of the same ways authors do.
However, I am shocked to still read in the news about people's hatred for the Academy Awards on March 5.
Ang Lee, the director of the widely controversial film "Brokeback Mountain," has stated to the press that he was "shocked" and "devastated" when "Crash" won the Best Picture Oscar instead of "Brokeback Mountain."
Yes, much of America was shocked as well. However, most Americans were not devastated. Lee has not impressed most of America one bit with his continuing words about his devastation two weeks ago.
At some point, people have to understand that good sportsmanship should be practiced. It is not as if "Crash" was a horrible film; it was a decent film that some people believe was more worthy of the prestigious award than Lee's film.
Yet, the "Brokeback Mountain" legions have announced war on the Academy Awards and on "Crash."
"Brokeback Mountain" fans across the world seem like they might come close to the same type of violence the Muslim world has caused over those notorious cartoons everyone keeps hearing about.
Now, even the mild-tempered Annie Proulx - the 70-year-old author of the short story "Brokeback Mountain" - is writing horrific messages about the film's defeat in the British newspaper The Guardian.
Writing about "Crash" and its attempt to woo voters, she said, "Rumor has it that [Lionsgate] inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of 'Trash' - excuse me - 'Crash' a few weeks before the ballot deadline."
Yes, "Brokeback Mountain" might have been robbed, but America has never seen such a reply to a snub - especially in the Oscars: The Academy Awards are not a presidential election. Still, Proulx and several thousand of the film's fans have initiated a smear campaign on "Crash" over the Internet and in other media. The filmmakers of a movie about tolerance in an intolerant place and time are being very intolerant of the wishes of the film community.
Proulx even writes, "For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant, play it as it lays."
This does not sound like the person millions around the world admire for her short-story writing and extremely powerful novel, "The Shipping News."
She seems to be hateful and ignorant.
If "Crash" was a film that praised racism, bigotry, hatred, violence and mistreatment, I would be on the front lines attacking that film and those who created it.
But "Crash" is a film that promotes the inward dialogue about our own racism and intolerance - it is a film that will only help America and the rest of the world.
Still, it is being bashed by the very people who praised a film about the same topic.
Proulx has made herself as a hypocrite. She is not tolerant of a film about racism, and that ultimately hurts her image.
What she should do now is what every other Oscar snub has: Let the world audience decide which is the better film. She should also continue to fight the intolerance that she is now a part of, so that the world can forgive her for her racist comments.
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