Michael Pollak wrote:
> And then it suddenly hit me, and I said "You just love this movie
> because you're in love with Jake Gyllenhaal and you love watching him
> make out and you don't believe for a second he's gay." And this
> seemed so obvious to her she was wondering what point I was working up
> to. It was embarassing only the way talking about boys she has crushes
> on is embarassing.
Kind of tough to base the criticism of a movie on the reaction of a thirteen-year old girl. My daughter who is twelve spends half her waking life in ballet class, and most of the men there are gay. Does that mean she doesn't get crushes on them? Of course, not. Does that mean they're not gay? Of course not.
Is it not possible for a movie/book to use characters that are gay for some purpose other than to be ideologically aligned with the latest trend in identity politics?
Brokeback Mountain is a movie about the tragedy of contemporary American life: its dramatic tension builds from the contrast between the wide natural vistas of this country (and its immense natural wealth) with the narrow, deprived, claustrophobic, impoverished life of two men and their families. The fact that the men themselves accept the torture imposed upon them is not evidence that Lee thinks gays must suffer; it is evidence that Lee has the maturity and depth to understand that our suffering is often self imposed because however cruel our social fate is, it is also society that enables us to survive -- in other ways. If Lee wanted to present the suffering of these men as endemic to gayness, if he felt that they were justifiably punished for an unnatural act, this movie would not be a tragedy.
Joanna