See Brokeback Mountain

[desslock]

If you see a movie this holiday season, go see Brokeback Mountain.

Unlike many other Christmas movies, it rests solely on its storytelling, the actors and the craft of the director.

Have you had a love, but because for whatever reason life pulled the two of you apart... as if nature itself thought the two of you were not meant to be?

Then as the years pass, you see yourself and your beloved get older, and despite the time passing those loving feelings remain.

This is part of the complicated struggle of the two main characters in the movie. Is feeling this way part of being gay? Or is it part of being an adult?

I think some gay people will be disinclined to see it because it is a "western." It sure contains different locales from Queer as Folk, but honestly it is also a more honest and accurate portrayal of emotions in our relationships.

I admire the film because it is so poignent, containing many elements that are so much more difficult to successfully create.... and which we find so rarely in movies today.

Steve

[XXXWriterDude]

I would definitely have to agree with you on this, Steven.

A lot of people are judging this film based on what they perceive to be its "representation of gay relationships," but I think they are placing way too much importance on the sexuality of the characters.

Brokeback Mountain is not a "gay love story." It's merely a film about two men who fall in love with each other, one of whom is clearly not "gay" in the modern sense, and one of whom -- it is suggested -- has a bit of a history with being with other men. I actually think it's much more powerful for the film to present the love story this way, as one that actually depicts "situational homosexuality" over biological homosexuality. I think there's something absolutely remarkable in that representation, something much more bold than pedantic discussions of gay rights. What the film does is simply say, "Doesn't it suck that the world tells these men that they should not be able to love each other freely? Doesn't it suck that this is how the world is?"

Of couse, your self-righteous little sycophants are going to get their panties all up in a wad b/cuz the film isn't "gay enough" or b/cuz it doesn't have a happy ending (God forbid a film depict REAL life over trumped-up Hollywood-ized happy endings) or b/cuz the actors playing the roles are straight. To me, this shows how deeply the gay community has sunk into a pattern of victimization in which we over-analyze everything and are always looking for ways in which we are being attacked and/or degraded. Brokeback is simply a gorgeously realized, emotionally devastating depiction of love between two men who had no concept of a "gay identity" or Stonewall or the AIDS epidemic or ACT-Up or gay pride parades.

It shows us, in a very restrained, almost understated way, how love is often just something that happens when you are free from societal forces. And then it shows how, once you enter back into society, that very love can become tainted and corrupted by forces outside your control. It demonstrates with remarkable, sobering clarity just how infallible and fragile true love really is, but it also shows us how beautiful such devotion can be.

To look at Brokeback as the "gay cowboy love story" is to place far too many limitations and categories upon a movie that shows us how love, in its absolute purest form, transcends the very limitations and categories that threaten to suffocate it. That these men were not able to fully commit to their love for each other and live "happily ever after" is not the point; that they were able to find it in themselves to love at all is the true miracle on display. That, despite all the forces attempting to keep them down, they still found their way back into each other's arms year after year, time after time.

For me, this is what Brokeback Mountain represents. And it gives me hope that one day I may find that kind of love. This is why I recommend the movie to anyone who wants to live in a world where love is cherished and respected, not trivialized and spat upon.

[desslock]

hehe --- but it IS a gay cowboy lovestory :nowords:

This evening, it occured to me that watching this film reminded me of when I saw the movie Maurice. However, I am at such a completely different stage of my life compared to when I saw the first movie.

I saw Maurice my freshman year in college.... of course I saw it in the movie theater by myself. I walked out of the old Varsity theater, and strolled down the Drag knowing then and there that I would not hide my homosexuality, but be honest with myself and others.

I think Brokeback Mountain is a clear lens into the way life was back then, and how it doesn't have to be today.

The prominent theme of the movie is nature. The guys are brought together by nature, on a remote mountain. Even the name of the mountain is important to the meaning of the film. In other words.... the film portrays homosexuality as a natural act, and not a decadent choice.

Watching the main characters lie to their wives and each other, as an effect of them strugging with their own relationship is painful to watch. If you or I had been born thirty years earlier, would we have gone through the same thing?

Perhaps such depictions are almost alien to a gay audience today where gay TV characters are on network TV.

Frankly, I cannot see Brokeback Mountain as anti-gay at all. And hopefully more people will see that westerns are often a wonderful vehicle to explore human emotions. (The Last Picture Show, Hud, Lonesome Dove)

To me, this shows how deeply the gay community has sunk into a pattern of victimization in which we over-analyze everything and are always looking for ways in which we are being attacked and/or degraded. Brokeback is simply a gorgeously realized, emotionally devastating depiction of love between two men who had no concept of a "gay identity" or Stonewall or the AIDS epidemic or ACT-Up or gay pride parades.

Possibly. I see the modern gay rights movement as completely self-centered and self-absorbed. Listen to how people talk about gay rights, and usually you will hear people talking about themselves. They want the right to marry. They want this, they want that. Me and my boyfriend want. Me.

I think compared to the lives of gays like us one generation ago, as depicted in Brokeback Mountain, there is room to appreciate what we have, not just want we want. To top it all off, Brokeback Mountain was created by straight people....some straight people who thankfully are not so self-absorbed in their own problems that they can paint some vividly true depictions of other people's lives.

Steve