December 1, 2005

The Brokeback Mountain discussion continues…

After four pieces ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4) on the Ang Lee movie that is all the buzz, here comes one more column. It's 20 Weeks day at MCN, so it will be brief and mostly other people's ideas, but here ya go…

In The Village Voice, Garry Indiana did an interesting think piece on the film. And what really got my attention was this:

"In effect, two decades of history produce no important effects in the communities and individuals under scrutiny. Attitudes and opinions remain obstinately immobile, without any help from televangelists or Phyllis Schlafly. Even TV, which replaced verbalization in so many American homes during the period spanned, can only emit meaningless images to people who have nothing to say to each other in the first place.

This is depressingly credible. Tight-knit communities, like tight-knit families, manage to stay tight by deflecting any strong sense of connection with larger social configurations - 'America,' to this mindset, is, or ought to be, a country whose norms are indistinguishable from their own, ergo not such a big place after all."

It is true that small, tightly-knot communities tend to be well behind the curve of the big cities, for better or for worse. But it is big city thinking to assume that all small communities are inherently, murderously (my exaggeration) inflexible.

And the most pointed to comment from my original review, when people write in to tell me how hateful I am, is the reference to Stonewall. People seem to think I was suggesting that coming out was easy and unfettered after Stonewall. (Of course, I also write that coming out is still hard for people today, but nevermind that.) I was not.

What I was suggesting is that the movie, which starts six years or so before Stonewall, with post-Brokeback relations continuing four years later, and continuing about 15 years after that, covers such a long period of time that eventually, the small-town threat that made the possibility of the relationship functionally dangerous had to change. Would The Village People be killed in their tour bus in Montana in 1979?

There are many stories about men and women who put their sexuality on the line in spite of horrid conditions in the 50s,50s, 70s, and certainly the 80s.

Of course, for me, Brokeback Mountain is not really about the fear of being killed for being gay. That conceit both inflames the Mathew Sheppard fears and acts as a border to the real issues in this relationship. It is really, for me, about Heath Ledger's Ennis being a man - straight or gay - unable to allow himself the indulgence of his passion, regardless of what that passion is. Even in his relationship with his wife, he is unwilling to wear a condom even though it makes sense for them not to have more kids, I think because he has a deep belief that there is something unnatural about wearing a condom with your wife. If Ennis could ever get past his own homophobia, there seems little doubt to me that he is a man who would not only risk his life for a relationship with Jack, but that he would flaunt it and dare people to show his love disrespect.

NEXT - The following e-mail came in this week…

"I was reading your reviews and you cleared up something for me.

You wrote "anyone who thinks this is a powerful romance has to be fairly cynical or so used to dealing with abusive relationship behavior that any glimmer of something special is to be grasped. "

And there you have it. The life of most every gay man in America today. The institutionalized abuse & bigotry that passes for normal is so pervasive that I'll bet we can't even see the forest for the trees.

And that is why gay men are so defensive about this movie. It gives us our "glimmer of something special". No matter that both leads are in the closet. At least they're attractive. And they have sex scenes together. And right now, it is all we've got. And right now, that makes them love scenes.

Until I start filming my gay movies. The ones with the big romance you're waiting for. "

Absolutely. I can completely understand that.

There was also this, from a friend…

"Brokeback is sort of about what happens when what you feel leads you directly away from everything you've been taught to be. It's about sexuality tied up with class. It's about being gay outside of cities, where it's always been a lot easier to find community if you are part of what's construed as "other." When I finally saw it the other night, the room was full of the gay boys I've known in various contexts over the last 10 years in NYC, and almost everybody was profoundly affected because it was like seeing the gruff, protective big brother who you knew was hiding all kinds of feelings finally show his soft underbelly.

Part of it was what a ridiculously good performance Heath Ledger gave; I mean, I think anyone who comes from kind of family with working class identification knows that kind of gruff sadness. Plus the movie nailed the flimsy bareness of 70s poor folks' interiors. It's heartfelt and full of real-deal emotionality about what happens when you really can't be yourself, when it's not just your imagination."

Again, a reasonable perspective. Though I have never much believed in the notion that you really can't be yourself in any place other than your imagination. Gender dysphoria, sure. But people have been living with bigotry of every kind forever. Weight, race, religion, sex, sexual preference. It's a nasty, judgmental world. My complaint about the film is that it embraced the "you really can't be yourself" argument and in its way, glamorizes it.

Gary Indiana, again, addresses the relationship in another way…

"What seems less real, despite the months that separate each of Jack and Ennis's reunions, is the unfailing high voltage of their sexual connection. It's not implausible for two people who love each other to continue for 20 or even 60 years to love each other. But it's rare for people to stay sexually interested in someone they love for much longer than two years. If things were otherwise, the world's oldest profession would probably be arms dealing."

Interesting. But where I diverge from this one is that I'm not concerned that they have the hots for each other for so long. What I really would have liked to have seen in the film is the ripening of the relationship over time, however that manifested itself. What would have happened between these men if they tried to be together? Would Jack stay with a brooding, quiet Ennis for more than six months? What would Ennis do if he ever could accept himself?

I will plead to a privileged life. But there are always reasons not to move forward, whether you are poverty stricken or wealthy beyond belief. There are certainly weights too hard to bear. But ironically, in this movie about two men who "can't be who they want to be," one of the men does, it seems, almost everything he wants to do. And the other is constricted by EVERYTHING.

It's funny to feel closer and closer to this film as the discussion continues pretty much every day while I still do not feel the connection to it that many do. It's rare to invest this much ever in something you don't love. But it is fascinating and I am anxious to see the film again.

E-ME.