Brokeback Mountain

I just saw the movie last night with my lady and, while I have to say I’m squeamish about practically any intimacy between couples onscreen - much less male-male couples, I left “Brokeback Mountain” with a BAD case of the melancholies. My heart ached for those guys, particularly Jack - although I couldn’t really blame Ennis for the fear that kept him from doing what to the audience seemed so obvious he should do. I really can’t imagine how any person who saw the movie would see a pair of “homos”, rather than a pair of humans.

Yet apparently my imagination is lacking, for such people do indeed exist.
This from the Christian Wire Service:

[quote] “Don’t be fooled by Brokeback Mountain’s seven Golden Globe nominations. What a sad day in America when a movie that glorifies homosexuality, adultery, dangerous and deadly unprotected anal sex and deception is up for Best Picture of the Year. This anti-family movie sends a very harmful, insidious message to its viewers, cloaked in awards nominations,”

"Brokeback Mountain’s nomination for Best Picture of the Year depicts a tragic picture of the all time moral low our culture has sunk to. When a movie based on a short story, containing graphic, explicit, dangerous homosexual anal sex by two men is elevated to Best Picture of the Year, America better wake up. "[/quote]

earnedmedia.org/sbm1214.htm

(Incidentally, the author tried to couch his homophobia by expressing his concern at least partly in terms of outrage at the practice of unprotected anal sex – as if he’d honestly care whether a couple of guys like this got AIDS!)

Morever, we all know that quite a number of American theaters refused to even screen the movie.

With ignorance and intolerance like this still so rampant amongst our people, it’s no wonder a political party whose true agenda is the serving the interests of a minute percentage of the population can still manage to win the elections. They focus on side issues like gay marriage, affirmative action and school prayer, and they hire spokesmen like the Reverend Bill Owens (who’s received a million dollars in contributions from Bush, incidentally) to send out messages like this:

[quote]Merry Christmas. This is Rev. Bill Owens of the Coalition of African America Pastors, wishing you a merry Christmas this week, as we finish celebrating the 12 days of Christmas. Can anyone think of a friendlier greeting than

[quote=“Vay”]I just saw the movie last night with my lady and, while I have to say I’m squeamish about practically any intimacy between couples onscreen - much less male-male couples, I left “Brokeback Mountain” with a BAD case of the melancholies. My heart ached for those guys, particularly Jack - although I couldn’t really blame Ennis for the fear that kept him from doing what to the audience seemed so obvious he should do. I really can’t imagine how any person who saw the movie and would see a pair of “homos”, rather than a pair of humans.
[/quote]

Don 't be suprised. In the land of the Melting pot, not too many people want their gravy touching the veggies on their plate. :wink:

It’s not quite as black and white as all that. BBM is doing very well is the red states according to the producer:

[quote]BOG: Were you surprised that the film shot to number one at the box office the day after the Globes?

JS: No, because we’ve been watching not only the aggregate numbers. As you know, what you watch carefully and what you track are inside those numbers - where they’re coming from, what’s driving them, where they’re growing. And we have been for the past four weeks both stunned into a kind of waking stupor, but also very proactively astonished at the numbers coming out of places like Little Rock, Arkansas or Fort Worth, Texas, or Pittsburgh or Columbus. The stereotype would be that you would continue to get huge grosses out of San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, etc. And then as you expand you’ll get these smaller numbers from so-called “less sophisticated” markets. But, when you’re doing $40,000 weekends on screens in Salt Lake City, you better catch up to reality fast! We’re seeing this in every corner of America, and that’s the real story. When we saw the trending, especially as we very organically and very carefully expanded the film, we really felt confident that if we had a presence at the Globes of any significant kind, that the film would rise its way up to the top.
[/quote]

boxofficeguru.com/oscarspotlight2006.htm[/code]

Of course the rave reviews seem to skim over the fact that in the movie the situation of these two sheepherders involves a marriage …with children.
But life goes on as ‘art’ imitates it.

Anyone familiar with the origin of the “Brokeback” name used in the title?
Kinda freaky deaky… :smiley:

…gravy touching their vegatables…? I think these two are just having a tossed salad…

A bad bad man has written on TaiwanHo:

[quote]Couldn’t they have made it with a little more action. Kinda the two cowboy’s relationship doesn’t turn out good and finally they stand on the main street, legs apart and hands on their guns …
[hum background music: a handfull of dollars]

taiwanho.com/talk/viewtopic. … 9002#29002[/quote]

So did the situation in “The Bridges of Madison County” - but I doubt a lot of religious zealots were spouting off moral indignation about that movie. Reality is tough. Those guys compromised with it as most people do, attempting to achieve a balance between their personal ethics, the true wishes of their hearts, and society’s expectations of them.

The castigation of these characters on the right stems not from the hurt their infidelity causes their families, but from the fact that their ‘method’ of infidelity involves 2 ding-a-lings rather than one.

AS IF a being of infinite power and knowledge capable of creating an entire universe (possibly a multiplicity of universes, actually) in which galaxies containing billions of stars routinely smash into each other gives a crap whether some poor shmuck down here on planet earth prefers another man’s tail to a woman’s vagina.

I saw it last night.

Nice scenery. Make that VERY nice scenery. Made me miss Montana (although it was set in Wyoming, and filmed in Alberta, Montana is in the middle and having spent time in all those places it all looks roughly the same – stunningly beautiful.)

Good performances by the main characters. Nice direction by Ang Lee.

Seen better love stories though. (And I agree with Tainan Cowboy that a love story in which each person is cheating on the person they vowed to be faithful to… well that doesn’t seem very romantic to me – although of course I understand that different social pressures were at play. Still…) In any event, it will probably be remembered more for the political/cultural/commerical aspects than the cinematic achievement. The producers claim that is not the goal – but who knows. Not sure who to believe.

One way or the other, the film seems quite certain at this point to be both a financial and critical success. Still, not sure that I wouldn’t have been better off with Narnia or King Kong though… :ponder:

One interesting note that I saw in the paper: Ang Lee apparently said that he thought it would do well in Taiwan because people are generally more accepting to homosexuality in Taiwan than they are in the US. Wondering if anyone has a comment on that…

I’m a bit squeamish about two guys going beyond anything more than shaking hands so I think I’m going to sit this one out.

I’m definitely going to see Brokeback Mountain Part 2 though in which I hear Jack breaks up with Ennis when Ennis runs off with Jack’s horse.

So…is it true “Randy” Jones did the soundtrack?

randyjonesworld.com/


“Randy” is second from the right. :homer:

I haven’t seen the film yet but I like it already. Loads of bi-sexual/gay men marry women for god knows what reason, probably some sort of percieved social pressure. The issue needs to be brought out in the open and discussed in a mature fashion and with some sort of respect to the complex emotions involved.

So did the situation in “The Bridges of Madison County” - but I doubt a lot of religious zealots were spouting off moral indignation about that movie.[/quote]Nope…I heard that metioned, the family thing, about the Madison County movie also. Really didn’t matter to me. I’m a knuckle-dragger who just doesn’t see many “chick flicks” intentionally.[quote=“Vay”]Reality is tough. Those guys compromised with it as most people do, attempting to achieve a balance between their personal ethics, the true wishes of their hearts, and society’s expectations of them.[/quote]Just hazarding a guess here…but I think that sounds suspiciously like…reality…to me. And, as you so astutely point out, reality is tough sometimes.[quote=“Vay”]The castigation of these characters on the right stems not from the hurt their infidelity causes their families, but from the fact that their ‘method’ of infidelity involves 2 ding-a-lings rather than one.[/quote]Probably a factor in it, no doubt. I am not in a position to make such a generalization as that myself. So far most of what I’ve heard and read, which admittedly isn’t very much, is the ‘family w/children’ thing I mentioned. I think the ‘tent scene’, which I heard was about the most graphic part - and not all that graphic at that - made a few folks uncomfortable also. As I said, I haven’t seen it.[quote=“Vay”]AS IF a being of infinite power and knowledge capable of creating an entire universe (possibly a multiplicity of universes, actually) in which galaxies containing billions of stars routinely smash into each other gives a crap whether some poor shmuck down here on planet earth prefers another man’s tail to a woman’s vagina.[/quote]Can’t speak to that either. If the alien is a guy…I think he’ll most likely prefer p*ssy to pecker if he had to make the choice.
But thats just my guess. If it ever happens…well, then we’ll see. :wink:

Read the story if you want to “get” it. Proulx makes things pretty damned clear as far as I can remember although it’s a while since I read it. Beautifully, as well. Look for a book called Close Range. It’s in that. It’s not even the best of them, either, so you’ll be in for a treat.

And OT, but if anyone reading would care to fess up to who has my copy, I’d be very grateful. :wink:

Good point, bob. A few years ago, I dated a divorced woman for a few months. Her divorce was brought about because one night she came home early from work and found her husband having sex with a man on the livingroom floor. Her husband admitted that he knew from childhood that he was gay, but married her because he was ashamed and wanted to fit in with society and his church (they were Catholic). Two lives needlessly messed up. I stopped dating the woman after it was clear she hadn’t recovered from the traumatic experience. We remained friends, but it was evident to me (and her) that she couldn’t trust men.

If society was more accepting of homosexuals, would there have been any reason for this man to marry this woman?

[quote=“smerf”] [color=red]Irrelevant raunchy stuff deleted[/color]

It may have been too raunchy but it wasn’t irrelevant. Women accept men’s body parts into their bodies. They have right to know where those parts have been. The terms are heterosexual homosexual and bi-sexual after all.

I saw the movie last night, so here’s my spoilerish bit of pop-psychoanalysis.

As some other people have mentioned, it’s very likely that in a more tolerant society, neither of them would have gotten married to women in the first place. But it wasn’t just homophobia that prevented them from achieving happiness with each other. Besides that, Ennis (Heath Ledger) was completely unable to identify his emotions, let alone express them. If he could have done anything besides vomit, randomly get into violent fights, or binge drink whenever he felt anything, I could have imagined him listening to Gyllenhaal’s repeated suggestions and running off and starting a sheep ranch of their own.

The story was a bit sappy, especially towards the end (He’s going to his daughter’s wedding! Look! He’s learning to love!) but the fantastically beautiful scenery (shot only compentently, not brilliantly, by Ang Lee) and Ledger’s fantastic, he’s-robbed-if-he-doesn’t-win-an-Oscar performance made it a worthwhile movie.

I would carry it a step further though and suggest that if a man knows that he is gay or bi-sexual he should most probably share that information with his future wife and let her decide if she still wants to marry him. I’ve seen this kind of situation play out a number of times and it always seemed to me grossly unfair to the wife.[/quote]

Agreed, and in a perfect world, maybe this would happen. But, given the very real fear for many gays that they will be ostracized by family, work and church if they come out, is there any surprise crap like this happens? Why do so many gays move to large urban areas in America? Because they know they are not wanted in many rural communities in the U.S.

The couple I mentioned are from a small town in Louisiana and the husband is still there last I knew. I met the woman in San Francisco, where she was living after the divorce. I thought this was a little funny because her biggest fear in life after her divorce was that all the men she dated were gay - and so she moves to America’s gay mecca!! But, she told me that people in SF were far less judgmental of the cause of her divorce than those back home. Also, she told me that she felt there was a much better chance of meeting a guy in SF who would be honest about his sexuality than if she stayed in small town Lousiana.

On a side note, she is the only woman I ever dated who felt more threatened by other men than by other women. I could check out other women with no problem, but she didn’t like me golfing with the guys. :smiley:

Just realized this may have sounded a little other than as I intended it to mean. When I said, “…some poor shmuck…” I didn’t mean that gay men should be pitied for preferring whatever it is they prefer about men to women. In fact, were it not for the anti-homosexual sentiment they face in many places around the world, I’m sure they’d be quite as likely to be happy (or unhappy) as anyone else.

What I did mean is that in the scope of the greater universe/multi-verse from which God must see things, any one individual is pretty darn small and thus a “poor shmuck”. Then again, since scale continues to such extremes in the directions of both hugeness and smallness, perhaps this kind of distinction would be irrelevent in the mind of such a being (meaning perhaps an atom is as significant as a galaxy)? Aaahh, what the hell am I babbling on about…

[quote=“smerf”]A few years ago, I dated a divorced woman for a few months. Her divorce was brought about because one night she came home early from work and found her husband having sex with a man on the livingroom floor. Her husband admitted that he knew from childhood that he was gay, but married her because he was ashamed and wanted to fit in with society and his church (they were Catholic). Two lives needlessly messed up. I stopped dating the woman after it was clear she hadn’t recovered from the traumatic experience. We remained friends, but it was evident to me (and her) that she couldn’t trust men.

If society was more accepting of homosexuals, would there have been any reason for this man to marry this woman?[/quote]

This is sooooooooooooo true. I know plenty of guys who married BECAUSE their ecclesiastical leaders told them to do so under the misguided assumption that once they had pussy, they’d realize they didn’t like the other. Some guys stick it out, they’ve got kids, and they remain faithful to their wives and families, but the SPOUSE in this setup gets just as short changed as the gay one. Maybe there’s marital difficulties as a result, so then the kids get exposed to the fighting and tension of a loveless marriage (not all get like that, lot’s of gay guys say their wives are their best FRIENDS - emphasis on PLATONIC). It sucks all the way around IMHO. My experience has been that gay folks who marry are pushed to do so by their families, culture and society AND religion. The end result is usually tragic and needless.

Bodo

Seeing that story happening to one of my acquaintances it is not so romantic in real life. Wife finds a stack of gay porn in the closet, is worried because her husband will be going out with the street boys, thinks of getting AIDS, a couple of month fighting. Divorce, the guy starts to wear pink, talking softly to confused Bob H at a party, drives a pink small car, quits his job as an army Hauptmann and lives happily ever after with a 20 year younger boy and even visits his mum finally.

Stillgestanden! Eyes straight! Time for the romantic music.

[quote=“spook”]I’m a bit squeamish about two guys going beyond anything more than shaking hands so I think I’m going to sit this one out.

I’m definitely going to see Brokeback Mountain Part 2 though in which I hear Jack breaks up with Ennis when Ennis runs off with Jack’s horse.[/quote]
I saw Fudgepack Mountain last night, and I can assure you those lonely cowboys do a heap more than shake hands. It should be noted though that their only other choice was the herd of sheep they were tending.

For some reason, I don’t see the protagonists as very deep characters. They just seem super horny to get their sweaty man sex on at every opportunity. I was surprised when they first got it on so suddenly and without even any astroglide personal lubricant.

I’m not offended by this, nor even hard core gay porn. I guess if you get it you get it. It doesn’t do anything for me. It comes across as… alien. Certainly lots of people seem into it, so more power to them, we should stop discriminating.