Blue Guy in Red Land

Perusing the blogosphere on a lazy Friday afternoon, I’ve come across some disturbing posts regarding the movie Brokeback Mountain.  Some folks must be desperate to read things into the movie, either for their own political purposes or because they really don’t like gay people.  To all the people I’m about to talk about, I have only message:  YOU ARE LOOKING TOO HARD INTO THIS MOVIE!  CHILL THE HELL OUT! 

1. Andrew Sullivan has this to say about Brokeback Mountain:  "[T]he idea that a movie with bareback gay sex in it would have been this successful even five years ago seems unlikely to me. That bareback sex would be a way of revealing deeper love is even more astonishing."   Out of all the things people could pick out of this movie, Andrew focuses like a laser on this aspect of the movie.  A couple of points.  First, by focusing on the sex act itself, Andrew is hopelessly playing into the game of the religious right when it comes to gay people.  They are freaked out by gay sex, and probably a little turned on by it too - which is why they hate us so much.  The relationship in the movie is MUCH deeper than any sex act.  Second, this movie takes place before the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  Men didn’t wear condoms with their wives, let alone with each other.  The worst thing people feared in the 1960s was pregnancy.  Everything else had a pill or a shot to clear it up (except for herpes, of course).  The fact that Ennis and Jack are having bareback sex the whole time did not escape my attention, but in the context of the film, "safe sex" was not an issue.  The movie ends right before HIV/AIDS exploded on the landscape, and certainly before HIV/AIDS reached backwoods Wyoming and Texas.  The message of the film has NOTHING to do with exploring unprotected anal sex or saying that such sex is a form of "deeper love".  With this kind of philosophy, along with proclaiming that having HIV/AIDS is really not that big of a deal and has allowed him to have the best sex of his life (bareback, of course), is it any wonder that Andrew has been positive for years?
2. Some guy named Ross from Andrew Sullivan’s blog complained that Brokeback Mountain "is a study in the contrast between homosexuality and heterosexuality, and the former is - almost without exception - presented as preferable to the latter, as purer and more beautiful, and ultimately as more authentically masculine."   He illustrates his point by saying that while the wives in the film are treated sympathetically, they are really objects of pity.  Scenes of domestic life are portrayed as only being about screaming children, mounting bills, tiny apartments, instrusive in-laws, and a feeling of suffocation.  For the characters of Jack and Ennis, that is EXACTLY what the "straight" lives they choose after their summer on Brokeback Mountain entailed.  For them, the suffocation and isolation was neverending, and domestic life offered only what they described.  This Ross character goes on to whine that NO model of successful "heterosexual masculinity" or "heterosexual relationships" are presented since the largest straight male characters are bigoted (Jack’s father-in-law), cruel (Jack’s father), or a sissified weakling (Alma’s new husband after her divorce from Ennis).  He then goes on to make the argument that the movie presents an ideal of "no girls allowed" erotic masculinity where "real men are gay."  Ummm, OK.  Excuse Ang Lee (the director) for not having Jack and Ennis be swishy effiminate ranch hands in the 1960s.  Pardon the script from daring to show gay men as MEN rather than the character of Jack from Will and Grace.  Seems to me that is Ross guy was looking entirely too hard for reasons to dislike the film.  He does make some points, but he takes his observations out of context.  Would the changes he wanted fit into the story of love denied between Ennis and Jack?  The movie was about them, not a perfect heterosexual couple next door.  Give me a break!
3. Yesterday, Gene Shalit, the movie critic from The Today Show did his review of Brokeback Mountain.  You’d think a man with an 1870s mustache and Albert Einstein-on-a-bad-day hair would be on the progressive side of things.  You’d be wrong.  Ol’ Gene apparently doesn’t like homos as his personal feelings bled quite openly into his review.  The most egregious thing he said was that Jake Gyllenhall’s character, Jack Twist, was "a sexual predator" who tracked down Ennis like a horny dog and lures him (unwillingly) into a series of sexual trysts over the years.  He then mocks Jack Twist’s desire for something more than "a couple of high altitude fucks a year" (quoting the movie, not Shalit) in the movie.  Katie Couric looked somewhat stunned and managed to mumble something about Brokeback Mountain being a groundbreaking movie before the commercial break cut her off.  At least with the Ross guy, he was criticizing the movie itself and what he saw lacking from the story.  He did not attack the characters and mock the relationship of the major characters as beneath his contempt like Shalit did.  NBC owes its viewers an apology for Shalit’s unprofessionalism, and while their at it, get the man a hair cut and a shave!  UPDATE:  Gene Shalit has apologized for his remarks!
4. The good folks from Topeka, Kansas’ Westboro Baptist Church, led by Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps are at it again.  Phelps has released a statement saying:  "Thank God for 12 dead miners.  They died in shame and disgrace, citizens of a cursed nation of unthankful, unholy perverts who have departed from the living God to worship on "Brokeback Mountain," and who have replaced the Bible with "The Da Vinci Code.""  It seems Phelps and his demon spawn have become totally unhinged.  First, Brokeback Mountain is not a real place.  It’s MADE UP.  And last I checked, The Da Vinci Code was a bestseller, but not displacing Bibles.  The man’s nuts.  When this tragedy first happened, Phelps released a statement saying, "Thank God for 13 Trapped Miners in fag-infested West Virginia."  Fag-infested?  In WEST VIRGINIA?  Has he even been to West Virginia?  I have, and the last thing that state is crawling with is homosexuals, open or otherwise.

I figured that the right would start frothing at the mouth over Brokeback Mountain sooner or later.  I just didn’t expect fellow homos to help out (Sullivan) or for the criticism to be so OUT THERE.  Then again, that’s all it really could be if you’ve actually seen the movie.   I hope this movie wins big at the Oscars, not only because it deserves to win, but just to piss the right wing off.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2006 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.