On this last Monday night, January 16th, The Gloden Globe award ceremony was held. I wasn’t too much surprised by the movies and actors that won awards at that ceremony. Most of those films and actors that were up for awards were deserving of those awards, I felt. And the nominees in the various categories constituted some of the best-reviewed material of 2005.

Some Conservative and/or Christian Groups, however, are up in arms. Such groups have, apparently, been angered by the fact that allot of the Golden Globe award winning movies portrayed, in some form or another, homosexual themes. “Brokeback Mountain,� as everyone knows by now, centers on the homosexual affair between two cowboys. It won four Golden Globe awards: Best Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Song. “Capote,� about a period of time in the life of the homosexual author Truman Capote, also won a Golden Globe Award. Phillip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor (Drama) award in the title role of that film. Felicity Huffman won the Best Actress (Drama) award for her portrayal in "Transamerica" of a transsexual on a road trip with “her� illegitimate gay prostitute son.

So, what do you think? Does Hollywood have a twisted agenda? A perverted sense of moral values?

Stephen Bennett, host of Straight Talk Radio, declared that Hollywood is out to “homosexualize� America. "Hollywood,� he said, “has sunk to an all-time moral low. I guess 2006 will be known as 'The Year of the Homosexual' in Hollywood.� He further warned, "When Hollywood is pumping out anti-family movies with sexually explicit, twisted and perverse themes that glorify homosexuality, transsexuality and every other kind of sexual immorality - then awards itself for doing so - middle America better take note. Last night, Hollywood exposed its own corrupt agenda."

There’s one thing that struck me first and foremost when I read this - and it wasn’t a strong emotional reaction of any kind. Rather, it struck me as odd that Mr. Bennett didn’t mention, anywhere that I could find, the actual artistic merits, or lack thereof, of those films.

Then there was Janice Crouse of Concerned Women For America. “Once again, the media elites are proving that their pet projects are more important than profit,� she informed us. “None of the three movies — “Capote,� “Transamerica� or “Brokeback Mountain� — is a box office hit. “Brokeback Mountain� has barely topped $25 million in ticket sales. If America isn’t watching these films, why are they winning the awards?�

I don’t see any merit in that argument at all. If I am missing something then you all please fill me in on what it is. Since when is artistic value supposed to be measured in terms of commercial success? Such a concept strikes me as utterly senseless.

The overall approach of these complaints, I felt, was to deal with these films on a level other than their actual cinematic quality. These films were attacked on the basis of subjective moral values. And the attacks on these films were attempts to stipulate the superiority of the subjective moral values of the attackers.

What was it, I wondered, that motivated the complaints to be cast specifically in that manner? This is what I came up with. The conservatives making those complaints thought, consciously or not, that it was, in fact, Hollywood who had started the fight on that level. They thought that Hollywood had been trying to declare it’s own subjective moral values as superior. Rather than making good movies, these conservatives thought, Hollywood was taking part in a culture war.

So that is my guess as to why those conservatives quoted above reacted in the manner that they did. They thought that they were only responding in kind.

The question thus arises, were those conservatives right? Was Hollywood pushing its own liberal agenda and declaring it as a cut above a conservative’s vision of moral values?
If so then the conservatives were returning an eye for an eye. If not then, as I pointed out above, their criticisms may strike some as having been simply without basis.