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TwitterLedger's strange SAG behavior
Some viewers were shocked at Heath Ledger's apparent gay spoof at the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday night.
At the podium with Jake Gyllenhaal to introduce a clip from "Brokeback Mountain," Ledger kept putting his hands on his cocked hip as he read the teleprompter, acting like he was auditioning for the role of Carmen Ghia, the flamboyantly gay choreographer in "The Producers."
"It was insulting," said one Hollywood insider after the show. "Heath lost a lot of support from the Hollywood gay community after that bizarre performance."
No one can figure out what Ledger could have been thinking or why he behaved so bizarrely onstage.
Which makes it a real shame that the Directors Guild Awards, held the night before, weren't televised. Then viewers would have seen Ledger's heartfelt and sincere expression of gratitude to director Ang Lee, who won the DGA's top filmmaker award that night.
Paying tribute to Lee, Ledger thanked the director for "introducing us to these delicate characters. It took a delicate man to tell this story and that's you." To which, Lee then joked, "I don't know about you, but that feels a little gay to me."
Maybe Ledger's frankly fey SAG performance simply followed Lee's DGA gay joke lead? Maybe he thought he was being really funny? Hey, it's a theory. What's yours?
Photo Credit: Onstage at the SAG awards with Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger's bizarre gay-mocking performance gets no awards or laughs.
(Michael Caulfield/WireImage)
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I agree 100%. Watching Ledger made me very uneasy, the snickers from the audience were strange. Was he doing this for effect? What was his point? It did not work at all.
BM is a classic film and should be treated that way. No more silly "gay" jokes please. Hope those on the Oscar broadcast do not use the film for laughs. Let's give the subject matter some reverence.
Heath Ledger is very shy and awkward. Holding his hand on his hip, elbow extended, is only an expression of his discomfort when he is in front of a camera, appearing as himself. Note the embarrassed manner in which he behaved during his recent appearance on the Jay Leno show.
Heath Ledger would not purposefully attempt to poke fun of the gay community. I am shocked that his performance anxiety was misconstrued in this fashion.
Maybe his back hurt.
I wasn't offended -- the scripted introductions were so banal that other actors who had to introduced their films also humorously scoffed at the recitive. I can't believe anyone can be so sensitive.
I just think they got nervous, were having trouble reading the telepromoter as it was apparent the lines were appearing slowly and worse...the lines they were reading were idiotic. Heath is notorious for being fidgety. I didn't see it as a gay spoof at all.
I too was surprised by Heath's odd behavior, but not because I thought he was "acting gay." I think he got nervous, got the giggles, and simply couldn't recover. Jake Gyllenhaal's reaction was one of awkward embarassment, which leads me to believe Heath's little performance was neither planned nor intentional.
Tempest in a teapot. I'm gay and saw the SAG awards and it never occurred to me that Heath was somehow trying to mock us. Heath always seems awkward on stage and in interviews and his body language often seems off. To me, he seemed nervous, didn't know what to do with his hands and didn't know how silly he looked. I think people who are "shocked" need to relax and find something important to worry about.
Agreed. Totally bizarre behavior. All I kep thinking was "Are you TRYING to engender ill will toward the film two days before it gets nominated for 'Best Picture"? I have a feeling the movies producers were less than pleased with his antics, and I'm sure Ang didn't think it was very funny. And Jake surely looked uncomfortable playing off him, and seemed to try and get him to rope it in a bit and get back on track.
All is all, it was really stupid, incredibly distracting, and was a huge disservice to everyone who worked on this beautiful film. Let's hope it doesn't screw up the movie's Oscar chances.
What the hell was he thinking???
I think that he was simply mocking the terrible material he was supposed to read- and trying to stand akwardly while reading the drivel!
They were put in the position of reading a ludicrous description of the movie. The writing for the show was awful. None of the movie presenters seemed comfortable with the words given to them. Jake just handled it in a totally professional manner and Heath, unfortunately, did not. Jake seems much more mature than Heath. Oh lets give'em both a break! They are 25 and 26. They took on a big responsibility with this movie. Jake handled it better that night.