Oscars, Identity, Crisis.

First Published: 7 March 2006

There is a striking commonality in the subject matter of the films that were nominated for best picture at Sunday night's Oscars. All the films tackle issues of tangible contemporary relevance, and are designed to inspire thought and insight, not to escape from it. These films eschew placidity and instead challenge society. Many have said that Hollywood seems now to be 'out of touch' with the normative audience, the common man and his emotions. Indeed, that is a tradition from which these films seem to stray. Instead of pandering to the whims and gusts of an indifferent audience, these films aim to inspire debate and change, which recalls Schiller's directive that the artist's duty is to guide the moral intentions of the people.

Perhaps, this is reflective of a general mood in the current consciousness, one that questions accepted value structures as well as the nature and validity of authority. This is expressed poignantly in Good Night, and Good Luck, which highlights the repression of civic freedoms during the McCarthy 'witch-hunts'. The film showcases the responsibility of the press to report on the liberties taken by an intrusive government, which has implications for contemporary political issues, such as the cooperative role played by the media and the government in manufacturing public consent for the Iraq war.

That consent was found and manipulated easily in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which inspired a palpable atmosphere of public fear. Munich draws on this vivid experience of terrorism and its continuing prominence in the public consciousness. It is a psychological examination of murder and vengeance, the humans that undertake such actions, and the politics that underpin it all. As well, it discusses the contemporary issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations from a stirringly human angle.

It is, again, the human condition that is examined in Crash, which brings to the fore the very modern problem of civic alienation and its impact on human psyche and behaviour. It questions the effectiveness of public policies that seek to integrate diversity as well as gestures to their inability to inspire an ethic of tolerance in individuals. It draws attention to the civic problem of exclusion and questions definitions of identity.

Identity is an issue that is central in Brokeback Mountain. Of course, same-sex issues have received increasing attention in recent years due to the legalisation of same-sex marriage in a number of Western countries. The film examines the nature of love as well as its accepted notions. It questions traditional beliefs in love as universally accepting and tests society's willingness to attend to those convictions.

The final nominee, Capote, is a film that also investigates individual identity. The film explores the psyche of one of the most influential writers of the modern age and, in an interesting interpretation, suggests that his last and final novel is a reflection of his own self-image.

This quest for identity speaks of a movement towards the renegotiation of society's values and ethics, as well as the political, ethnic, religious, and social affiliations that continue to obtain. That this year's Oscar nominees are all films that deal with relevant, critical, and contemporary issues is indicative of a widening desire to consider alternative viewpoints in the search for a deeper understanding of our selves and our beliefs. This trend cannot be brushed aside as mere liberal elitism. Rather, it represents a desire to see art influence life, and not the passive opposite. The intellectual courage of these films gestures to the desire to stifle the loud cries of argument in favour of the spirited din of debate, in the hope that concerted reform will triumph over reactive chauvinism.

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