And the Winner Is: Not Washington

Why is it that Washington often seems so out of touch with the rest of the country? Maybe it's because people here are so busy taking themselves seriously that they don't have the time, or the inclination, to go to the movies. Just look at this year's contenders at the Academy Awards.

When homosexuality is raised as an "issue," which is the only way anything gets raised around here, politicians in the nation's capital tend to fall into two camps: those who invoke Sodom and Gomorrah in flights of demagoguery and those who suddenly realize they have pressing appointments elsewhere.

Yet the leading contender for the Oscar for best picture is "Brokeback Mountain," a love story about two gay cowboys -- not Village People "cowboys" prancing up and down the streets of some godless big city where "values" means nothing more than a half-price sale at a fancy boutique, but real cowboys who live in the flyover, red-state American West. (Okay, it's been noted by some that actually they herd sheep, but they're definitely what most of us think of as cowboys.) Another nominee for best picture is the biopic "Capote," whose subject is a great writer who happened to be flamboyantly homosexual. And Felicity Huffman is a contender for best actress for playing a preoperative transsexual in "Transamerica."

No, the prominence of gay-themed movies this year doesn't mean that America has reached a consensus on homosexuality when it is framed as an issue. Battles over marriage, domestic partnership, survivor benefits and the like will doubtless continue for many years. But Hollywood, which doesn't make movies to lose money, seems to have decided that most Americans will neither faint dead away nor riot in the streets if homosexuality is openly depicted and discussed. So there's no need to hurt yourselves scrambling for the door, senators.

Another axiom in Washington seems to be that this great nation can survive anything except an open, honest, nuanced discussion of race. Somehow we think we can talk about policies, such as affirmative action, without talking frankly about racism, prejudice, immigration, fear, envy and the other nitty-gritty factors that define race relations in this country.

But we can't get anywhere if we insist on confining our debate on race to anodyne truisms and regular celebrations of Black History Month. "Crash," another best-picture nominee, surveys the complicated, mine-strewn racial landscape that Americans traverse every day. Only along the banks of the Potomac is policy debate considered an adequate substitute for human experience.

Here in Washington we reporters tend to act as if any question about any aspect of the war on terrorism -- arbitrary detention, secret prisons, domestic spying -- has to be phrased almost as an apology. "Pardon me, Mr. President, but I was wondering, could you please be so kind as to explain once again why interrogation techniques defined by international agreements as torture are not, in fact, torture? If you're too busy to answer, I'll understand."

Watching Edward R. Murrow go after Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the best-picture contender "Good Night, and Good Luck" should remind us how to ask a proper question -- and also how even a struggle against a menacing foe, such as communism, can become a witch hunt if good people stand by and do nothing.

And maybe seeing "Munich," the final nominee for best picture, would point out to everyone in Washington something President Bush seems to forget, or at least pretends to forget. He talks about the war on terrorism without mentioning that terrorism is just a tactic -- a horrible, unacceptable and evil tactic, to be sure, but just a means to an end -- and that you can't wipe it out with bullets and bombs.

This is hardly the first time the movies have had a "Hello?" message for Washington. I remember how stunned many people around here were when Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" became a runaway hit, despite scenes of unwatchable violence and dialogue in an ancient language no one speaks. That time, of course, mainstream Hollywood -- which tends to be liberal and secular -- was even more surprised. A few politicians, mostly Republicans, had a sense of the breadth and depth of the fundamentalist Christian movement and have been able to use that knowledge for political gain.

This year, if the Oscar nominations are any guide, it's the Democrats who ought to be in a position to absorb valuable political lessons. America is a complicated place filled with minorities of all kinds, including gay people. Celebrating America means celebrating our differences. Standing for America means standing for American principles. War, even when it's justified, has to have peace as its ultimate end.

Really, folks, we should get out more.

The writer will answer questions today at 1 p.m. on washingtonpost.com. His e-mail address iseugenerobinson@washpost.com.