And This Year's Oscar Goes to Social Issues

More than sparking a social trend, "movies reflect more how people are starting to think," said Patricia King Hanson, executive editor of the American Film Institute's Catalog of Feature Films. The cinema may not be the first artistic venue to ever mention a societal trend, "but as movies come into fruition, that's when there's kind of a rumbling going on that's starting to grow."

Hanson cites a number of films that brought topics into public discourse: "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932), about harsh treatment in prisons; "The Lost Weekend" (1945), about alcoholism; "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), about anti-Semitism; "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), about the Cold War's mutually assured destruction; and "The Panic in Needle Park" (1971), about drug addiction. She puts "Brokeback Mountain" into this category: "There are homosexual couples, homosexual relationships, and always have been, but now it's out there at the movies."

"In 'Network,' Faye Dunaway says, 'They're articulating our rage,' " Hanson quotes. "That's what these movies are doing. They're articulating what's already out there."

Because of their power to "ride the crest of what people are starting to think," such films tend to be remembered as having a greater impact than they actually did at the time, Hanson said. "From a historical perspective, it's not so much that these movies change society as they reflect what's already changed. And then people look back and go, 'Oh, that had such a big influence.' "

The movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967), about an interracial relationship, is one of those, Hanson says. "I'm not sure how much it changed things. But it was probably the first movie that seemed like it was okay for a white woman to marry a black man -- at least if you were marrying Sidney Poitier and your parents were Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn."

"Movies are the storytelling medium of our generation," said Peter Lalonde, whose Christian production company Cloud Ten Pictures made three movies based on the "Left Behind" books. "I believe it's through film that our culture and values are passed along. Who's the good guy, who's the bad guy, what's right, what's wrong. In other generations, that was passed on by family. If you want to go way back, it was done around campfires, and then around the dinner table. Now it's through movies, like it or not."

Almost all filmmakers consciously try to manipulate their audiences, some more successfully than others, Lalonde said. "You paint anyone in the light of a protagonist, put music in the right spot, and you are influencing people. It happens in our movies. To take an extreme event, people decide to change their faith after seeing one of our movies," he said. "Or take 'Jaws.' I still know guys who won't swim in their swimming pool."

None of this year's Oscar nominees strikes Lalonde as especially visionary, but he gives credit to "Brokeback Mountain" for expanding the portrayal of a stereotyped group (though he notes, "I won't see 'Brokeback Mountain.' I'm not opposed to it; that's just my choice"). This puts Lalonde in mind of another group often caricatured: Christians.

"There was a good time in the '70s or '80s when portrayals of Christians were almost always in a negative light," he says. "You had your greasy-haired preacher, your child molester. And I think there was a time when that was true of homosexuality as well. It was so far off the mainstream, it took some time for it to come into the center. Both have moved more to the center now."