There are not just Razzies and Oscars to read about this week. Yesterday, GLAAD -aka- Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, announced their nominees and honorees for the 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards. (Which they did from the depths of Sundance at the Queer Lounge in Park City.) The awards honor everything from print journalism to cinema, and celebrate "fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation."

As Stephen Fry would probably respond: there's still a long way to go, but here are the cinematic achievements and progress that GLAAD recognizes this year. There's singing, breasts, and even gay pirates:

Film -- Wide Release
Across the Universe
The Jane Austen Book Club
Stardust

Film -- Limited Release
The Bubble
Dirty Laundry
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Nina's Heavenly Delights
Whole New Thing

Documentary
Camp Out
Cruel and Unusual: Transgender Women in Prison
For the Bible Tells Me So
Freddie Mercury: Magic Remixed
Small Town Gay Bar

[via indieWIRE]

Awarding what director Ang Lee pointed out might well be the last award for his film, GLAAD last night recognized Brokeback Mountain as the wide-release picture that best exhibited "fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives." By the sound of things, Lee was particularity excited to accept GLAAD's award, describing it as "an award that actually means something." (Take that, Academy.)

In a moment of extreme idealism and, possibly, naiveté, Lee also announced to the audience that "Brokeback Mountain has helped to change the world." Really? While I'd love it to be true that a movie about gay non-cowboys made some people question their beliefs, it strikes me that the film was really preaching to the choir. Those who are already comfortable with homosexuality saw it; those who aren't, didn't. Yes, there are moving stories to be found about people who suddenly saw the proverbial light in a darkened movie theater, but those are few and far between. If nothing else, Brokeback did get people talking - I guess that's something.

GLAAD yesterday announced the finalists for its annual Media Awards and, since the Awards "recognize and honor mainstream media for fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community," it's no surprise that Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang are among the major nominees. What is surprising, however, is how much GLAAD's honorees overlap this year with mainstream awards - it's not very often, for example, that the same work that dominates the Golden Globes also is appears on GLAAD's list of outstanding films. Wow - I guess that evil, gay agenda really is working!

The GLAAD Media Awards will be handed out at a quartet of fundraising dinners in late spring, and will be aired on LOGO and VH1 in April.

I'm sure you all remember our report a few days ago about GLAAD's outrage over critic Gene Shalit's Today Show characterization of Brokeback Mountain's Jack Twist as a "sexual predator." Despite the fact that Shalit's very own, very gay son defended both his father and his words in a letter to GLAAD ("It is precisely because my dad is not homophobic that he felt free to criticize the movie as he saw it."), Shalit himself wrote the organization a very different letter.

In the letter, which reached GLAAD yesterday, Shalit both apologized for his choice of words, and also asked that the organization correct its website assertion that the goal of his review had been to "promote defamatory anti-gay prejudice to a national audience." His letter ends this way: "I certainly had no intention of casting aspersions on anyone in the gay community or on the community itself. I regret any emotional hurt that may have resulted from my review of Brokeback Mountain." To GLAAD's credit, they ask the visitors to their website to email Shalit and thank him for his clarification. Whew. I was so worried - thank goodness everybody made up.

Oh, that Gene Shalit. Now he's gone and pissed of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) for his comments during his negative review of Brokeback Mountain (which, as some of our commenters have pointed out, is not even a gay cowboy movie - it's a gay sheepherder movie). In his critique, Shalit referred to Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Jack, as a "sexual predator" who "tracks Ennis (Heath Ledger) down and coerces him into sporadic trysts". Apparently Shalit hasn't heard the news from Dateline: Hollywood that Brokeback Mountain isn't a gay cowboy movie at all.

GLAAD criticized NBC for allowing Shalit a platform to air his "defamatory anti gay views" and slammed Shalit for characterizing Gyllenhaal's character as a sexual predator, alleging that Shalit wouldn't have made the same assessment of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Titanic for getting it on with Kate Winslet's Rose. GLAAD doesn't take umbrage with Shalit's criticism of the film as "wildly overpraised, but not by me" - just with his bizarre take on Gyllenhaal's character.