I'm confused. Isn't life supposed to imitate art? Or does art imitate life? I can't remember. But either way, the two don't line up these days.

For example, although they share Western drawls, Heath Ledger's character in "Brokeback Mountain" is entirely different from U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, a real-life Texas cowboy. So to speak.

The film about two gay cowboys, set in Wyoming and Texas, nearly won best picture at the Academy Awards. And earlier this month DeLay won his state's congressional Republican primary, despite being indicted on money-laundering charges in September.

There is something grotesquely wrong about this. During recent years the Republican Party, which holds the federal majority, has built its political campaign on promoting "American values."

This all seems very backward. Seemingly Americans find it OK for their appointed leaders to lie and steal — as long as they continue to speak out against gay marriage, abortion and the like.

Which brings us back to "Brokeback Mountain."

The tormented love story is just one of many big-name, award-winning box office films with liberal motifs that came out during the past year. And with a bureaucracy that has been sliding increasingly to the right ever since former President Bill Clinton was caught playing his sax where he shouldn't have, it is surprising and refreshing to see these types of movies in the foreground.

"Capote," starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, the winner of Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role at this year's Academy Awards, tells the story behind Truman Capote's best-known work, "In Cold Blood." Capote was gay. And openly so at a time when the American populace was much less accepting.

A male-to-female transsexual is the heroine in "Transamerica," which was also represented at the Oscars.

Moviegoers paraded into theaters and spent millions of dollars to watch, sympathize and fall in love with characters in the LBGT community. And as a result, promoted social equality.

"Brokeback Mountain" was expected to take best picture. However, the award was given to "Crash," another film advocating social acceptance.

Not limiting itself to gay themes, Hollywood gave us a handful of smart political narratives as well, including Academy Award-winning "Syriana" and "The Constant Gardener" and the nominated "Good Night, and Good Luck."

If the goal of these films is to fuel sociopolitical empathy, then they succeeded.

"Syriana" draws some obvious parallels with what is really happening in today's global oil market.

There has been ongoing rhetoric surrounding oil and its influence in world politics long before the current war in Iraq. Nothing new. But in light of the recent U.S. port ordeal, the parallels are almost too good, and the result is prophetic.

"Syriana" hit theaters before the Bush administration attempted to sell six U.S. seaports to a United Arab Emirates company, Dubai Ports World. The country is rich with oil, not dissimilar to the unnamed Middle Eastern country portrayed in the film.

Big business and government team up for mass corruption in "The Constant Gardener" as well. Instead of oil, however, the catalyst is the pharmaceutical industry.

And the sleeper — as it is not action packed with the rocket-propelled grenades or George Clooney torture scenes — is "Good Night, and Good Luck."

This is another movie that offers creative insight into what's happening off the screen. Pioneer journalist Edward R. Murrow and his CBS newsroom staff fought to speak out in opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy's blind crusade against communism during the 1950s.

Replace "anti-communism" with "anti-terrorism" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" shouts irony.

Unfortunately, these films are only art. And although life is supposed to imitate art, it obviously doesn't have to. This rift is disheartening, but maybe it's not all bad. Perhaps Hollywood is ahead of the game and it's a sign of change.

Clooney said it far more eloquently in his Oscar acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor in "Syriana:"

"We are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular."

Nicholas Richer is a State News staff writer. Reach him at richerni@msu.edu.