Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Clyde-B on January 16, 2008, 11:11:23 am --- I agree as well. My using 'Romeo and Juliet' as an example was only to show that you could take a classic love story and force some pretty strange conclusions on it if you wanted to.
I intended no comparison beyond the fact that they are both tragic and involve romance.
--- End quote ---
Another of the superficial similarities. ;)
And thanks for your contributions to this thread, Clyde. I enjoy reading them.
Clyde-B:
The comparison of BBM and 'Romeo and Juliet' had been made in other reviews. While I didn't think it wholly accurate, I figured I could use 'Romeo and Juliet' and force a perverse interpretation on that story, similar to the anti-gay idea that I believe has been forced on BBM.
Since the majority of sympathy in BBM winds up in Jack and Ennis's corner, I don't see how you could consider it an anti-gay polemic. If it was intended as an anti-gay polemic, then Larry McMurtry, Dianna Ossana, Annie Proulx, and Ang Lee (a group which includes three Oscar winners and two Pulitzer prize winners) sure did an incompetent job of it.
Clyde-B:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 16, 2008, 02:40:35 pm ---
And thanks for your contributions to this thread, Clyde. I enjoy reading them.
--- End quote ---
Thanks Jeff, I enjoy your comments here and other places as well. Everything from the serious ones to the smiley faces. ;D
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Clyde-B on January 16, 2008, 07:47:09 pm ---Thanks Jeff, I enjoy your comments here and other places as well. Everything from the serious ones to the smiley faces. ;D
--- End quote ---
Aww. ... ::)
Well, we don't want to take ourselves too seriously. It's bad for the digestion. ... 8)
injest:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on January 15, 2008, 10:21:55 am ---Well, no--and a little bit yes.
This is probably not far wrong as a description of how many in mainstream hetero America perceive what it means to be gay. But this is an extremely limited view, fostered by the mass media (particularly television and movies). I'm not completely enamoured of the term gay myself, but, like it or not, in common usage in the language today, any man whose emotional attachment (love) is to other men, or who has sex with other men (especially to the exclusion of women), or who settles down and leads a partnered existence with another man, is gay. That's just what we're called today, and while it may not be ideal, I do think it's an improvement over queer or fairy or pansy or any other such term. It just seems to me to be a waste of time and energy to insist that one is not gay because one doesn't fit a media-fostered stereotype (which, in fact, like all stereotypes, has its roots in the reality of the lives of some men but by no means all who are sexually orientated toward other men).
--- End quote ---
but the 'mass media' does not set up the parades....they DO focus on the more 'exotic' members of the parade....but they don't get actors out there and make them walk on all fours with a leash. That is 'gay' people doing it themselves. There is a much louder group of gay men that encourage that kind of behaviour and the people like Jack and Ennis simply will not be associated with it so they stay hidden. (of course the vast majority of people do not do this...but you can bet the cameras are going to focus on those few and IMO it does everyone harm.)
Most people aren't interested in broadcasting the particulars of their sex lifes or what exactly they want to do in bed.
this post was a response to Jeff's comment that the stereotype is caused by TV and movies...
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