The "ABCs of BBM": Round 965! (Rules in first post)

[Fran]

"Kids" breaks new ground for lesbians on film

By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK | Fri Dec 3, 2010 3:14pm EST

(Reuters) - It isn't stirring the same buzz as that 'gay cowboy film', but Oscar contender "The Kids Are All Right" may give portrayals of lesbians in Hollywood a positive boost the way "Brokeback Mountain" shattered previous depictions of gay men.

[memento]

  In Brokeback Mountain, there are also significant deviations from a traditional Western plot. Although there have been attempts to make Westerns with gay heroes, such as Andy Warhol’s underground film Lonesome Cowboys (1967), Brokeback Mountain is the first such film with mainstream success. Immediately following its release, B. Ruby Rich  praised the film as a gay breakthrough saying: “With utter audacity, Ang Lee… has taken on the most sacred of American genres, the Western, and queered it” (Clarke and Gilbey). So, it may be a big deal that this Western has gay heroes. Brokeback takes a genre that has always been “a tad gay,” with its emphasis on homosocial bonding between men, and brings it out of the closet (Clarke and Gilbey). Indeed, this fact incites Clarke and Gibley to label an overtly gay cowboy film as “the last Hollywood taboo.” However, the real triumph of the film is in its depoliticizing of the cowboy’s love—as Jack says, “It’s nobody’s business but ours.” Brokeback Mountain is not an ‘issue movie.’ It seems as if this depoliticizing is Lee’s motivation for insisting that the film has little to do with Westerns, that it is in fact a love story.

“Of What Use was the Rule?:” Genre Conventions and Subversion in Brokeback Mountain and No Country for Old Men
by Tony Meyer]

[southendmd]

Despite their liaison in the tent, Ennis asserted to Jack that he was nonqueer.

[Meryl]

Terrified that Alma would call him out as queer, Ennis bolted from Monroe's house, drove to a bar and got into a fight with a truck driver the size of an ox.

[memento]

Ennis was terrified of being thought of as queer, because of the prevailing attitudes of the time.

[southendmd]

An exerpt from the website retroQueer:

A short story by Annie Proulx extrapolated into a two hour Ang Lee epic is an immense achievement. The film is absorbing from beginning to end and it is a credit to the screenplay writers for maintaining the audience for this length. The story is simple enough: a story of the forbidden love between two cowboys that begins oh so carnally, progresses into a lot of confused adoration and affection, and then of course it ends in tragedy – okay, maybe it really isn’t a simple story. But the mise-en-scene and cinematography kept me visually occupied: the spectacular mountain ranges of the Wyoming-esque Alberta, the herds of thousands of sheep on the mossy green mountainside pastures, the trickle of the streams beside a naked Gyllenhall, the physical insignificance of two men set against this amazing backdrop. I spent most of the film with my mouth open in awe (which probably explains my cold the next day, infected undeniably by the coughing leather queen seated next to me).


--retroQueer
("The aim of retroQueer is to talk about media products that explore, develop, comment or blatantly depict what may be deemed queer.")

[Meryl]

After Jack's outburst at Thanksgiving dinner, L. D. decided to swallow his pride and remain seated.

[Fran]

"Lee has taken a story of gay love and placed it where it should be -- in the mainstream. He's delivered a beautifully crafted film to boot."

-- Dave Calhoun, Time Out.           

(I will post a link to the quote when I'm back on my computer.)

[southendmd]

After Jack's outburst at Thanksgiving dinner, L. D. decided to swallow his pride and remain unknocked into next week.

=aside= Meryl
thanks!

[Sason]

Ennis' and Jack's life as gay men in rural Wyoming showed a conciderable lack of comfort and wellbeing.