Brokeback Mountain - mostly spoiler free
Like Boys Don't Cry, Brokeback Mountain was an emotional punch in the stomach. Not for what I saw on the screen - but for the things they didn't show. The main form of distance communication are postcards with very few words on them, no emotional content at all except the word 'friend', capitalized like a proper noun. They're never seen using the phone, although there's evidence at the end that Ennis had Jack's phone number memorized. The interactions between the two main characters are likewise restrained except in very rare moments. Neither of them voices a word for their emotions or their relationship, although the power behind both is depicted throughout the entire movie. It's not a movie about "gay cowboys". It's a movie about how social stigma and paralyzing fear kept two people apart.
To quote Lord Alfred..
'What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.'
They don't speak about it, they don't acknowledge it, they try to live so nobody ever suspects, because the repercussions for being found out would be ugly - and deadly.
What hurt the most, watching this: It's set in 1963 and spans 20 years. It could have been modern-day; the same stigma, the same fear, the same narrowminded, hateful attitudes still exist and still hold the majority. To know that even now, in 2006, we haven't come very fucking far at all from the days of open, condoned bigotry and hate. It hurts to know that, and to know people would rather gloss over that ugly little aspect of our society to make the United States look like some pretty, progressive, shiny magazine cover bastion of political equality and democracy than face up to the dark and ugly side, the things retarding social progress, and work toward fixing them and building a better society instead of a prettier one.
It hurt to realise some people will watch the movie and brush it off simply because it's set in 1963 and "things are better now".
They aren't. Not when a college kid could be pistolwhipped, tied to a fencepost by his own shoelaces and left to die or a man be shot to death for admitting on a television shock-talk show that he admired another man. Not when there's such a thing as a "gay panic defense". 'According to the gay panic defense, romantic or sexual propositions of a homosexual nature are so offensive and frightening to certain individuals that they can bring on a temporary psychotic state characterized by unusual violence.'
Why should that be offensive or frightening, especially to a degree that would provoke 'unusual violence'? Why is someone of the same sex making a pass at a person so much more taboo and terrible than someone of the opposite sex? The incidents of a turned-down homosexual cornering and raping the person who turned them down.. well, I can't even find one at all, so I'm gonna say they're pretty freaking small. Contrariwise, I've had two friends -female- who've been cornerd and raped by men they've politely turned down. One at a college party, one at a bar while she was waiting for a friend who never showed up.
Because 'gay' is seen as contagious, guilt by association. Don't get too close, for fucks sake don't let them touch you, or people might begin to question your own sexuality. They might think you're also homosexual, and that's bad because then they'll start treating you as badly as they treat those gay folk.
Things won't truly be better until that stigma has been put to rest for good. Not until people can stop living with the fear they'll be murdered for who they chose to love. The one thing I'm thankful for is that I live in a time when homosexual equality can be worked toward openly. Equality in general - this aspect in specific.
I had a brother who was gay, and he was murdered. My family doesn't know if his sexual preferance was the reason behind the murder, but we all pretend it wasn't - that it was a random, violent act that happened to him because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's comfort in not knowing - we can pretend it happened for no reason instead of such a terrible one. No matter which way it's sliced, it still amounts to 'no reason'.
To quote Lord Alfred..
'What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.'
They don't speak about it, they don't acknowledge it, they try to live so nobody ever suspects, because the repercussions for being found out would be ugly - and deadly.
What hurt the most, watching this: It's set in 1963 and spans 20 years. It could have been modern-day; the same stigma, the same fear, the same narrowminded, hateful attitudes still exist and still hold the majority. To know that even now, in 2006, we haven't come very fucking far at all from the days of open, condoned bigotry and hate. It hurts to know that, and to know people would rather gloss over that ugly little aspect of our society to make the United States look like some pretty, progressive, shiny magazine cover bastion of political equality and democracy than face up to the dark and ugly side, the things retarding social progress, and work toward fixing them and building a better society instead of a prettier one.
It hurt to realise some people will watch the movie and brush it off simply because it's set in 1963 and "things are better now".
They aren't. Not when a college kid could be pistolwhipped, tied to a fencepost by his own shoelaces and left to die or a man be shot to death for admitting on a television shock-talk show that he admired another man. Not when there's such a thing as a "gay panic defense". 'According to the gay panic defense, romantic or sexual propositions of a homosexual nature are so offensive and frightening to certain individuals that they can bring on a temporary psychotic state characterized by unusual violence.'
Why should that be offensive or frightening, especially to a degree that would provoke 'unusual violence'? Why is someone of the same sex making a pass at a person so much more taboo and terrible than someone of the opposite sex? The incidents of a turned-down homosexual cornering and raping the person who turned them down.. well, I can't even find one at all, so I'm gonna say they're pretty freaking small. Contrariwise, I've had two friends -female- who've been cornerd and raped by men they've politely turned down. One at a college party, one at a bar while she was waiting for a friend who never showed up.
Because 'gay' is seen as contagious, guilt by association. Don't get too close, for fucks sake don't let them touch you, or people might begin to question your own sexuality. They might think you're also homosexual, and that's bad because then they'll start treating you as badly as they treat those gay folk.
Things won't truly be better until that stigma has been put to rest for good. Not until people can stop living with the fear they'll be murdered for who they chose to love. The one thing I'm thankful for is that I live in a time when homosexual equality can be worked toward openly. Equality in general - this aspect in specific.
I had a brother who was gay, and he was murdered. My family doesn't know if his sexual preferance was the reason behind the murder, but we all pretend it wasn't - that it was a random, violent act that happened to him because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's comfort in not knowing - we can pretend it happened for no reason instead of such a terrible one. No matter which way it's sliced, it still amounts to 'no reason'.
posted by Peregrine at 9:24 AM
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