I only very occasionally read Towleroad, which frankly is a mistake, because it's normally a damn good read. One of the things I've appreciated lately is the "all things Brokeback" news round-up that Andy Towle consistently presents. I almost always read something that hits home; case in point these two quotes that he's found:
"The sight of Jake Gyllenhaal crying in his truck as he drives away from Ennis (who retreats to an alley and vomits in tortured despair) is enough to make even the bitterest woman swoon. That moment, like so many in the film, feels like an epiphany not because of the gay context but because for once someone other than the woman is crying. Traditionally, women have done the heavy emotional lifting."
"And I wonder too whether now, Brokeback Mountain won't be real now... not a physical place but a cultural space, a tangible moment in time in which some folks' eyes were opened to the pointlessness and unkindness of their bigotry."
The first quote definitely makes sense to me. I didn't really cry during Brokeback Mountain, not like I have during some movies. (There have been times where I've had to sit and mop myself up after a movie, instead of bolting out of the place, like I normally want to do. Not so with Brokeback.) I'm sure part of it was that I had read the story before seeing the movie, and found the story more moving. I'm absolutely certain that part of it was that I was so angry at the world at that moment that I was too angry to cry. But I think part of it was relief. I'm not sure I can exactly explain it. I think I was relieved to see the depth of emotion expressed by both men, ultimately and too late, in the case of Ennis, but still. It rang more true to me than other movies have where men are emotional, and I'm not sure why. I'm trying to think of a recent movie I've seen in which a man cries, and I can't pull one up. But it usually makes me slightly uncomfortable to see men cry; Brokeback definitely didn't hit me that way.
Of course, the second quote is on a completely different subject that the movie addresses, even if you think it's peripherally, which is that of the enormous bigotry (because I still maintain that this movie is to it's core political; it's a charged issue and it cannot be avoided) in this country even today. When I was in college, on National Coming Out Day we used to chalk the school (common enough on campus; not so common when it related to GLBT issues; also against the rules, technically), and one of the things we wrote was "Someone you love is gay." I think the best way, the most efficient way to defrost hearts on this issue is to bring it home. In liu of bringing it home that way, I think perhaps a movie is a good way to get it out there. And this movie in particular is about destroyed lives, and the lives are destroyed because of the love that's forced to hide. Lives aren't destroyed in this film because the men are gay; Jack and Ennis fall in love before their marriages begin. Both women (and the men, of course) could have been spared the agony they faced if only Jack and Ennis had lived in a world that would have embraced them.
I think people have to understand this to understand why their rampant bigotry is wrong; I think people have to see that it isn't the love that destroys lives, but the fact that the love has to be denied. At least, I hope that's what people are seeing, because that's the truth of it.
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