Friday, March 03, 2006

Yeah, because playing it straight is worse

Actress Michelle Williams (nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), was recently castigated for playing the (straight) “long-suffering” wife of one of the two gay cowboys in Bareback Mountin’.

She had attended exclusive Santa Fe Christian School in San Diego, California, and has been blasted by the school’s headmaster as “offensive” for her performance. Jim Hopson has branded the Oscar nominee a poor role model, and hopes his education establishment won’t be linked to the film’s themes. He tells the San Diego Union Tribune, “We don’t want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie. Michelle doesn’t represent the values of this institution. Brokeback Mountain basically promotes a lifestyle we don’t promote.”

So playing the straight wife of a gay cowboy is somehow worse than playing the part of a Free Love lesbian doing the nasty with Chloe Sevigny? Or is it just the publicity they gain? (Because which, I’d never heard of them before, and I certainly wouldn’t have thought any the less of them just because a gifted actress once attended there than a decade ago. What, were they gonna change their name to the “Michelle Williams Used To Attend Here In The 1990s So She’d Better Not Do Anything To Embarass Us Christian School”?)