Bill Robinson: The Evil Backers of "Brokeback"[/b]
Yahoo March 1, 2006
In 1992, a lesbian documentary filmmaker, clutching her Oscar, told a billion people on live television to "boycott G.E." This Sunday night, when Focus Features' "Brokeback Mountain" wins Best Picture, its evil parent company, G.E., will have used their gays-as-victims film to win an Oscar of its own. Ah, the irony.
Debra Chasnoff's film "Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment", exposed G.E. for, among other atrocities, knowingly poisoning workers with asbestos and radiation at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, N.Y., resulting in birth defects and cancer. The documentary played a crucial part in the grassroots effort to get G.E. out of the nuclear weapons business. Adding salt to the wound, in her speech Chasnoff became the first homosexual to thank her "life partner," Kim.
That night, G.E. learned a lesson about the power of Hollywood's bully pulpit. Since the 90's, they're no longer content to bring us missiles and mediocre appliances. G.E, whose website refers to itself as "The world's most valuable and most admired company" acquired numerous entertainment concerns, including NBC, Universal, Bravo, and Focus Features. That means they Bring Gay Things to Life... like "Will & Grace", "Boy Meets Boy", "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," "Gay Weddings," "Outzonetv.com"-- and, yes, "Brokeback Mountain."
Apparently gay-themed entertainment is good business for a company that is infamous for only caring about the bottom line-- because there is certainly no evidence to support G.E.'s social conscience in this area. Most of their political donations go to Republicans, including over $2.5 million to anti-gay rights candidates in the last 5 years. G.E. only started offering U.S. domestic partner benefits in 2004, their networks being the very last majors to do so. But keep churning out the gay minstrel shows, guys, cuz they make money!
The G.E. hypocrisy is evident in the "fair employment practices" section of their code of conduct booklet, wistfully entitled "The Spirit and the Letter." There is absolutely no mention anywhere of sexual orientation. And you certainly won't be hearing any of Brokeback's all-hetero key players thanking their "life partners" on Oscar night, either. In fact, just this week, Universal Chairwoman Stacey Snider cited G.E.'s creepy corporate culture in her decision to go to Dreamworks for half the salary.
The G.E. code of conduct booklet doesn't mention that the company has been fined $1 billion for fraud in government contracts, or that 88% of it's $10 billion in Pentagon contracts were no-bid, or that G.E. attempted to overturn the Superfund Law, which allows the government to hold polluters responsible for cleaning up their toxic chemicals. Why would they? After all, they're the company responsible for 78 Superfund cites around the country; the same company that dumped PCB's into the Hudson for three decades and doesn't want to pay for the cleanup; the same company that designed 91 faulty nuclear power plants; and, yes, the same company that brought you "Brokeback Mountain" and its soon-to-be-radioactive Best Picture Oscar.
So memo to zealots like the American Family Association: forget about boycotting Ford for advertising in gay magazines. You think they really care about the slim profit margins on your redneck pick-ups? Start talking to G.E., who's churning out gay content every day, about their dishwashers-- then maybe you'll get some traction. And the rest of us will see just how comitted this ruthless company really is to bringing Gay Things to Life.
