Denver blogger, journalist, and author Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence has taken netroots activism to another dimension. First, he started a Brokeback Mountain forum on his blog which spiraled into the largest Brokeback site on the web.

Then, when Brokeback didn’t win for best picture, he spearheaded a collection drive to take out a full page ad in Daily Variety thanking those who supported the film. The ad ran yesterday and you can view it here. From the forum’s press release:

In an unprecedented show of support for Brokeback Mountain, a website discussion board has spearheaded a campaign to collect donations from around the world to place ads in trade and national publications in support of the movie. In the first 48 hours, the group raised nearly $16,000 from over 400 contributors, and a team of volunteers designed a full page color ad to run in the March 10 Daily Variety.

Now the ad campaign and the Brokeback forum are getting national media attention.

The ad campaign was started by members at the Ultimate Brokeback Forum as a positive way to deal with their emotions surrounding “Brokeback Mountain”‘s
loss for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Instead of responding in anger,
members wanted to find a way to thank the cast and crew of the film and to find a way to highlight Brokeback Mountain’s unprecedented string of Best Picture wins.

“I think most fans of the film were stunned by the Best Picture surprise, which raised the question of how and why the Academy could have been so out of sync with virtually every other organization that awarded Best Picture honors,” site organizer Dave Cullen said in explaining why so many diverse people worldwide were donating to the campaign.

According to industry watchers, no movie has generated this sort of fan response after a loss for Best Picture. Fans are happy their support for “Brokeback Mountain” is becoming part of industry lore. They hope that others looking for a way to honor Brokeback Mountain as the Best Picture of 2005 will contribute to the campaign, so more ads can run to help raise awareness that the film garnered nearly every Best Picture award bestowed for 2005.

Today, Newsweek featured Dave and the ad campaign.

Way to go, Dave and Brokeback fans.

Update: The New York Times chimes in.