Brokebackward

[serai]

*deep breath* Okay, here goes.


Like all of you, I've seen Brokeback Mountain. I thought it very well adapted, stellar directing from Ang Lee, pretty good acting from Heath and Jake (but for my money, not as good as Michelle's), lovely cinematography, etc. It was a good thing, I thought, that it got lots of attention, nominated for awards, etc., etc., etc.



But still, something about the film bothered me. I couldn't put my finger on it at first. It just kinda rankled away in the back of my brain, and all I could think was, "Yeah, good movie, but not nearly as incredible as everyone's been saying." (For obvious reasons, I kept that opinion quiet.)

Then came Oscar night, and Lee's win as Director while the movie didn't win BP. Honestly? Didn't surprise me a bit. Did anybody really think this movie was going to win? I mean, really? Hollywood may be liberal, but it's not liberal enough to give its top honor to a film with buttsex in it, I thought. Especially when the rest of the nominees were a good deal more political, in a year when we need all the anti-Bushian message we can get, thank you. That Crash won is really no surprise at all, given the Academy's track record.

And then came Annie Proulx's pissy little rant about "You didn't vote for my story, Academy, so you're all POOPYHEADS!!!" Oh, bitch, PLEASE. Where's your mother?? You know, a combination of rampant ego and a lack of good manners can be pretty embarrassing (see Anne Rice), and Proulx managed to make herself look like shit to civilized people. And in the course of a tasty Fandom Wank post on the matter, and a recent re-viewing of The Celluloid Closet, it finally hit me just what it was that bothered me about BBM.

Isn't this exactly the kind of film that gay activists used to protest against?

Hear me out here. When movies first started out, there was no code or standard. You could basically put whatever you wanted into your movies. Of course, compared to today, things were very tame, but for the time, some really racy stuff showed up in films. Then the government decided that had to stop, and the Hays Code went into effect, basically muzzling filmmakers, and ushering in the era of "clean" movies that we tend to associate with classic films. (Yeah, filmmakers didn't put married couples in separate beds because they wanted to, or because they were idiots, but because they were forced to.) Our current system of ratings is all that's left of the pernicious censorship that used to obtain in Hollywood as a matter of course.

And natch, that included homosexuality. But as the 60s came around and wore on, that code got chipped away a little at a time until there was almost nothing left of it. The last taboo in films was homosexuality, and Hollywood broached that subject a little at a time. But there was one problem: even though movies were being made with gay people in them, the appearance of these people always came with one particular message (which made up for the fact that they were there at all, I suppose), and that message was...

You are gay so you must DIE!!!

Seriously. Check out The Children's Hour, The Fox, Rebel Without a Cause, Freebie and the Bean, and other such. The only time gay people ever showed up was to die eventually in some ugly way or another. (Later on, you'd get the benevolent flip side of this coin in AIDS-related films like Philadelphia and It's My Party.) Gone was the light-hearted "sissy" of earlier days, when films were so squeaky clean that this kind of thing was never talked about, and so gay people (men, at least) could appear without retribution on them, because by definition the film couldn't mention the fact that they were gay. (There are exceptions all around in this argument, but then what in life doesn't have exceptions?) Once the cat of sexual liberation was out of the bag, all bets were off, along with the kid gloves. Once gay people were out running around being proud of their sexuality, you could portray them as sexual, and along with that came all the nervousness and threat reaction of a population that wasn't sure it wanted to know about this stuff.

That's the way we humans are, you know. Ape descendants, go figure.

So anyway, back to BBM. And it occurred to me that this movie is a throwback to that time when it was perfectly okay to kill faggots in the movies for little more than being themselves. Sure, the story takes place from the point of view of the gay guys rather than that of the people who oppress them, but it's still the same story. It's even WORSE, actually, because in those bygone days, the gays who got killed were mostly people who knew what they were and were committed to it. In BBM, shit, you've got two kids fooling around who don't really know what they're doing at all, just acting on impulses they can't even define, quite a distinction. Now you'll not only get killed for being gay, you'll get killed for even trying to be gay, even if you yourself are not sure what the hell all this is about!

Yes, this kind of story is reality in our society, and an important thing to know about, but I guess my point is that all the brouhaha about how "brave" this film is, is bullshit. Hollywood has made lots of films dramatizing the fact that gay people get beat to death, or shot, or kill themselves, or whatever, for being gay. How is this progress?

In The Celluloid Closet (a damn fine documentary; go rent it if you haven't already), the point was made at the end that a new era was at hand involving gay people in Hollywood films. (TCC was released in the early 90's.) Movies were being made that celebrated gayness, and presented stories about gay people being content with themselves and finding camaraderie, etc. Movies in which there was nary a suicidal corpse to be seen, and in which a world was presented in which, while they may not have been completely accepted, they didn't cower in fear all the time in case some asshole went at them with a bat.

And it leaves me wondering, is BBM an indicator of another new direction? Are we going to end up back in the days of Pay with your life! propaganda, only spiced up with PC bells and whistles? I don't doubt the sincerity of the people who made BBM, but the critical and viewer approval this film has gotten is going to open doors, just as many people hope. Just don't expect that all those doors are going to let in sunshine.

Comments

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

I've not seen the movie, so I'm not sure how constructive I can be in forming any kind of opinion here--but I would say there's one major distinction between this and those older films, and that is the older movies didn't seem to *care* they were killing these people. We weren't supposed to necessarily sympathize with them. Here, we are--regardless of whether we do. It's like saying we shouldn't make movies like Remember the Titans because it promotes racism.

I think one of the first keys to social change is society learning to spot--and point out to itself--where it's in error.

But that could just be me. *shrug*

[serai1.livejournal.com]

That falls under the point I made about how the film just takes a different angle. The older stories were told from the point of view of the oppressive majority, and so of course the deaths were unimportant. (Which isn't strictly true all the time. The Children's Hour is an example of a death of this sort being acknowledged as a tragedy.) BBM simply flips the mirror over and tells it from the other side, but it's still the same story. The message remains: Fuck your own kind and we will fuck YOU. Permanently.

Like I said, BBM is a fine film. My beef is with the choice of outlook, and with the reaction to the film.

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

By that argument, though, you could still just say that any film trying to bring awareness about an issue is just "taking a different angle." If that were truly the case, how could anyone ever raise awareness about anything?

I'm going to interpret a film I see in which a black man is lynched differently if it's told empathetically rather than as propoganda for lynching: I take the movie Huck Finn quite differently than I take The Birth of a Nation, for instance. Likewise, I'll interpret a film about hate crimes against homosexuals differently than I'll interpret a film that uses hate crimes as a backdrop for social awareness. I think there's a difference, personally. *shrug*

[serai1.livejournal.com]

But awareness of what? It's not the film I wonder about, but the public greeting with cries of "brave!", "insightful!", etc., for a film that repeats a lesson we've been hearing for years. It's the perception and its effect. I wonder how much of an advantage or a detriment a film that portrays gay people as victims can be. Because that's what I get off Jake and Ennis, in big hot waves: victimhood. And I wonder when being portrayed that way became ok again.

(A corollary to this from another direction is films like Hustle and Flow, which portray the Pimp and Ho life from the inside. Yeah, okay, these folks exist and they have lives, but what effect does it have to make movies about them, especially movies about how cool they are? And how is it that these films that glamorize that kind of life are so popular, and what does it do to people's heads, and why the heck aren't more black people up in arms about these films basically telling the world that's what black people are? Where are the films about black doctors, or black federal agents, or black cowboys, for that matter? For my money, these films are incredibly racist because of their focus, not their reality or quality or lack thereof.)

I know it's just one movie, and it's a fine film in and of itself, but it's whether it's a bellwether or not that I'm thinking about. This country is rolling backward in so many ways, and not all of them are obvious or even onerous. But effects like that are cumulative. And hey, it's not often that I catch onto an idea that later becomes a widespread trend, so I tend to take notice when I think something like that might be happening.

[kookaburra1701.livejournal.com]

Heh. I haven't actually seen BBM, because after reading what the plot was all about, I thought, "Hey! I don't like this kind of stuff with het couples, and I doubt I'll like it 'cause there's two pretty men involved instead of just one."

[serai1.livejournal.com]

I found the short story effective, very much so. But I was kinda surprised at how little the film touched me. It was lovely and all that, and sure, it was sad. Like, really really sad. But I didn't cry when I saw it, and I didn't get all depressed and whoa! like a lot of people, and also lack the impulse to see it again. And now I'm thinking that this issue is the reason why.

But yeah to your point. It's not happy, not in any way (that could be part of what shut me out, too), so if you're not into Pained Souls Suffering From Thwarted Love Because No One Understands, and Ugly Retribution Meted Out By A Cold World, you're better off skipping it.

[elderberrywine.livejournal.com]

Very true, this. I remember reading once that in Great Britain of the '50s -'60s, you could publish fiction featuring homosexual characters, but they had to, in some way, come to a Bad End. It wasn't until the end of the '60s that books like Maurice and The Charioteer could be published.

The difference being, in my mind, that BBM didn't seem like a foregone conclusion that these two guys could never have a happy life together because they were gay. Instead, it was a combination of factors that sadly enough prevented them (especially Ennis) from being able to accept who he was, and caused the end result. In other words, it seemes more along the lines of Teh Angst!/Romeo and Juliet/These two are so meant for each other but Cruel Fate and their own weaknesses defeat them. And, actually, I would submit that that is progress.

I also think that one of the factors that also has been rather cutting edge in film is to see a gay male couple in which neither one is effeminate in any way. And I would argue that that is pretty darn rare. So yay for gay guys who are actual Guys. And have sex in a very Guy non-romantic wine and flowers way.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

The difference being, in my mind, that BBM didn't seem like a foregone conclusion that these two guys could never have a happy life together because they were gay.

Really? It never occured to me that they could be anything but unhappy, given where and when they lived. I never saw an element of choice about any of it, and the ending was no surprise at all. I think that may be because I read the story first, and the film did change the characters - it couldn't help but do that by the very nature of casting actors in the roles. In the written story, it never felt like there was nay leeway for these guys, and that the little they snatched literally was all they could get. Whether that's true to the culture or not I couldn't say, but it's the feeling I got from within the story's world.

And I guess that's another reason why I'm not that interested in seeing it again. Stories about people caught in the Iron Grip Of Fate usually don't hold me for long.

[elderberrywine.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, that's probably the difference then. I had not read the story (and am inclined to not read it now, since the Ennis and Jack of the film appear to be rather different than those of the story, and I am inclined to feel rather fond of the former). Plus that rant was somewhat off-putting.

[vshendria.livejournal.com]

You make a very valid point, and you wouldn't be the first! Gay folks are either a joke, put in for comedy relief (the sissy) or they are punished for their lifestyle. I have also heard it said that it was irresponsible of Lee et al to put in a scene that strongly suggests that Jack is killed in a gaybashing, but doesn't make it clear one way or the other.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

I've heard that too, and I prefer the way Lee did it, even though I didn't think there was anything vague about it. I found it very clear. It seems to me that the people who say it isn't aren't really listening to Anne Hathaway when she tells the story. That icy tone of hers tells me with no doubt that she's reciting a rehearsed story, not telling Ennis the truth. How many ways could her husband die that would embarrass her into making up a bald-faced lie like that? Not that many.

There've been some very cool films involving gay people in recent years, and I just hope that BBM isn't the first step in losing the focus on stories that aren't tragic.