In the mid-1960s, a Newsday columnist named Mike McGrady came up with a pretty wild idea. Convinced that Americans had become mired in a “cultural morass,” McGrady recruited 24 of his fellow Newsday staff members to compose a novel as a type of experiment. Each person would write one chapter—that way the book’s style and language were sure to be inconsistent. Additionally, the new work would lack a sustained plot, character development, and any “social insight.” “True excellence in writing will be blue-penciled into oblivion,” McGrady warned the team. Instead, the emphasis would be completely on the sexual content of the novel in order to prove that “any book could succeed if enough sex was thrown in.” The team’s final result was published in 1969 as Naked Came the Stranger, with authorial credit given to one Penelope Ashe, “a demure Long Island housewife.” The racy book’s first edition sold in the thousands, and interest in the novel’s author soared almost to a frenzy. By August 1969, the real minds behind Naked Came the Stranger had decided to come clean to their countrymen. In a highly anticipated interview on The David Frost Show, Frost introduced “Penelope Ashe” and shocked his audience when a single-file parade of male news writers marched onto the stage. Not too surprisingly, sales of Naked Came the Stranger soared after that. McGrady went on to write a book about the whole fiasco, entitled Stranger than Naked, or How to Write Dirty Books for Fun and Profit.

The whole history of Naked Came the Stranger can be seen as quite humorous, but I find it pretty tragic as well—for it would seem that Mike McGrady was correct in his opinion about the American culture of his day. This week’s Best Picture winner, Midnight Cowboy (Jerome Hellman-John Schlesinger Production; United Artists), is also a product of 1969. It should come as no surprise then, really, that the same populace that devoured Naked Came the Stranger elevated the X-rated Midnight Cowboy to Academy glory. The film is vastly disturbing. I never want to see it again, and I would not recommend it to anyone else. If you have a hankering to see the iconic “I’m walkin’ here!” scene, just look it up on YouTube. Besides the nudity and heavy sexual content of the film, the repeated images of child molestation, teenage rape, and homosexual prostitution are enough to earn Midnight Cowboy a place on the horror movie shelf, in my opinion. The trash can might be a better option, though…

Jon Voight as Joe Buck and Dustin Hoffman as Ratso freeze in NYC.

In a year of tight competition among Oscar contenders, Midnight Cowboy finished with three wins out of seven nominations, taking home statues for Writing (Screenplay—based on material from another medium), Directing for John Schlesinger, and Best Picture. It failed to win for Film Editing, Actor for Jon Voight as Joe Buck, Actor for Dustin Hoffman as Ratso (I admit, Hoffman is phenomenal in this film), and Actress in a Supporting Role for Sylvia Miles as Cass (a ridiculous nomination since she’s in the film for maybe ten minutes).

What really struck me about Midnight Cowboy right from the get-go is just how contemporary it seems. This film could have easily passed for an Oscar BP contender in any year over the past decade or so. Brutal and dark—we keep seeing these films show up around awards season: this year’s Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, last year’s Manchester by the Sea, 2004’s Crash, 2000’s American Beauty, just to name a few. These types of films are made to shock us, which they usually do. But they couch their disturbing subject matter and images under the “reality clause,” claiming to enlighten us to the true conditions of the world, while blinding us to the actuality that we are paying to immerse ourselves in crap—and often enjoy it.

Whether he reacted to it in the right way or not, Mike McGrady realized he was in the midst of a cultural crisis in the groovy 60s and tried to wake people up to the fact that they were in a war over morality. Ironically, he gave the people the very junk that he was demonstrating against and ended up profiting from the pollution of people’s minds. Just as McGrady’s culture yo-yoed from Woodstock to the launch of Sesame Street, put Armstrong on the moon but buried the first known American victim of AIDS—all in the same year—we also slog through a cultural and spiritual tug-of-war for our attention and values. I’m not a fan in the least of Midnight Cowboy, but perhaps its lasting value for me is to remind me of the dangers of esteeming what society esteems. Just because a film wins an award doesn’t make it worthwhile entertainment.

For more thoughts on Midnight Cowboy and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!