Not to be left out of the lunacy, the Southern Baptists have now decided that Brokeback Mountain will destroy friendship between boys. Their logic is based on the idea that any demonstrations of affection between males will be viewed as gay and therefore good wholesome straight guys will avoid them.
Quoting Anthony Esolen, professor of English at Providence College in Providence, R.I. and author of A Requiem for Friendship: Why Boys Will Not Be Boys and Other Consequences of the Sexual Revolution:
“Open homosexuality, loudly and defiantly celebrated, changes the language for everyone,” Esolen insists. “If a man throws his arm around another man’s waist, it is now a sign — whether he is on the political right or the left, whether he believes in biblical proscriptions of homosexuality or not.” Esolen offers a blunt and haunting assessment: “If a man cradles the head of his weeping friend, the shadow of suspicion must cross your mind.”
Stop giggling. It’s a Lord of the Rings reference.
Of course the SBs refuse to recognize that acceptance of gay people and eliminating the mistreatment of gay youth will go a long way towards encouraging an environment in which one man can be affectionate with another, regardless of his orientation. It has been my observation that straight men who are both comfortable with their sexuality and comfortable around gay people are often quite physically demonstrative towards other men. They don’t see such displays of friendship as either a threat to them or to how they are perceived.
Esolen goes on to explain how sleeping with other men and writing them love letters proves that Lincoln wasn’t homosexual and laments the loss of the stigma against sodomy. And lest we think that Esolen’s book was unbiased and based on research, logic, or anything other than animus, the Southern Baptists share with us:
“Think about that friendship, the next time you see the perpetual adolescents and feather boas as they march down Main Street, making their sexual proclivities known to everybody whether everybody cares or not,” Esolen instructs. “With every chanted slogan and every blaring sign, they crowd out the words of friendship, they appropriate the healthy gestures of love between man and man. Confess — has it not left you uneasy even to read the words of that last sentence?”
So the Baptists have warned you. The next time you see two friends high-five each other at a game, you will wonder if they’re gay. Maybe that old Brokeback got em good.
good, that way the majority will see them as the lunatics they trully are.
This will probably ensure that BBM will win more than a few of the principal Oscars. I haven’t seen either movie, but I actually do believe that Clooney’s Good Night And Good Luck probably deserves Best Picture.
This between Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck, and Lee’s BrokeBack Mountain harkens back to the Oscars of 1939. The blockbuster movie was Gone With The Wind, and everyone knew that GWTW would win virtually everything (Clark Gable was denied the best actor award that he deserved for stupid reasons). The second blockbuster movie in the year was–the Wizard of OZ, which would have won everything if it had been released in a different year.
I actually do believe that there will be something of a battle between Good Night & Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain, but, in the great scheme of things, I don’t really care. Each will stand on its own merits. And, I’m sure, each will be extraordinary.
Here’s the official release schedule
https://brokebackmountainmovie.com/scheduleList.html
Gee…men wielding swords and arrows that spill blood and guts and setting fires and threatening women and children and harmless little men (LOTR) good…
Two men, kissing, cuddling in a tent, banter by a nightime fireside…gently falling in love with each other (BBM)…bad.
If I were say, 14 years old and saw these films, LOTR would have scared the piss out of me, and BBM would have made me understand gay men a whole lot better.
And I’ve had a healthy attitude for gay folks since I was a child.
“If a man cradles the head of his weeping friend, the shadow of suspicion must cross your mind.”
I would say that if that is what is crossing your mind, perhaps you need a change of mind. Sorry Toto, you are indeed not in Kansas anymore.
David
Wow, this article is out there. I don’t think straight men are not “affectionate” with eachother because of fear of being called homosexual. Honestly, I think society tells them they are not to be “affectionate”. I love the quoting of Lincoln and Jonathan and David in the bible. I don’t have an opinion on the Lincoln thing, but let’s be honest, were David and Jonathan just friends. That bible story makes you wonder.
From the Traditional Values Coalition on December 14, 2005:
Homosexual-Themed Films Assault Christmas Moviegoers
Article quote: Hollywood screen writers and producers apparently think that it’s their duty to teach middle America that homosexual conduct and cross-dressing are normal behaviors that should be affirmed in our culture. They’re wrong, and we will never accept the belief that same-sex relationships or transvestism are simply normal variations of human sexuality. These behaviors reveal deep-seated psychological problems that should be treated not affirmed.
–TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty
I presume that the cross-dressing reference is for Transamerica.
Autumn at December 15, 2005 04:26 AM
I suspect that TVC is scrounging for money. Andrea Lafferty is a relative of Lou Sheldon, founder of the TVC. An article a couple of years ago made clear that TVC is little more than a Sheldon family operation.
Cross dressing???? In THAT movie????I think they have confused it with Priscilla. (BTW Guy Pierce looks hot in a dress, or shooting pool at a gay bar. His wife’s a real beaut sheila too, and I mean that in the best possible way — she’s a hoot and absolutely charming.)Gay cowboys are doing double-drag? You know — gay men want to dress as women but knowing that everyone expects them to dress as women they do the opposite and find a really butch costume that noone whould ever suspect them as gay in.You know, like the Village People… Y M C A…led me tell ya ’bout Y M C A…Or maybe the true double-drag is to call yourself Ex-gay.
“I presume that the cross-dressing reference is for Transamerica.”
Yeah, and Breakfast on Pluto, which is also getting a lot of attention.
In a way I do kinda pity the anti-gay bigots. It looks like a lot of the high quality films that will be recognized at awards time have a gay or trans theme:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Transamerica
Breakfast on Pluto
Or maybe the true double-drag is to call yourself Ex-gay.
[Snort!] That’s a good one!
This lovely gem from the anti-gay-marriage nutcase Brian Camenker:
“Most people find the images of men making love so sickening that Hollywood has to keep finding new ways to push it into society’s face,” said Brian Camenker of the Waltham-based Article 8 Alliance.
Brian, baby, that doesn’t even make sense. On any level.
“So they have to crank up the propaganda machine. I think that’s what this is all about,” Camenker said. “I would be shocked if the movie did not have homosexuality in this, if it got any kinds of awards at all, on its other merits.”
Camenker is hoarding WAY more than his fair share of crazy.
I just saw the movie this morning.
Heavy smoking was the dangerous lifestyle portrayed in the movie, in case anyone didn’t think to bring that up.
I’ve noticed that happens in movies where it really SHOULD’NT be a hablit even for certain character types.
But, Jack and Ennis are young adults in the early 60’s. So it makes sense for THEM.
The love scenes make a LOT of sense. These are healthy, strong and sexually intense young men.
Nineteen year old sexuality is VOLCANIC anyway.
But Jack and Ennis’s situation was about finding soulmates and the other half.
And not being brave enough to hold on.
Jack, being a bull rider and all, was a risk taker.
Their tension would build up the way it usually would in men. In explosions of violence. Their pain anesthetized by alcohol.
I wasn’t turned off at all. I was worried about them.
Men do all kinds of crazy shit when they are sexually repressed and in love too.
I’ll say it again.
This isn’t about being gay or in love with another man that’s wrong.
What’s wrong is the folly of heterosexuals that makes them think life is all about THEM.
Speaking of Breakfast on Pluto.
It’s extraordinary that Cillan Murphy looked SO PRETTY at all.
So was Jaye Davidson in “The Crying Game”.
Where does Neil Jordan find these guys?
Male or female or somewhere in the middle
beautiful is beautiful.
Regan, I too just saw the film yesterday (snuck out of work early and everything) and I totally agree with you about the film. I posted on another site that the movie really is a tragedy with Shakesperean overtones – certainly Ennis Del Mar (and it is really his story) has a tragic flaw of not being able to live an authentic life.
It is a great story, that happens to be about gay love, rather than a movie that “deals” with a gay “issue.” For that reason, it has the power to affect a lot of straight America, and the “Christian” right can’t afford to start losing their best argument for funds – the attack of the homosexuals!
The family film and tv advocates are constantly touting the quality of the WB tv show “Everwood”.
This show deals with a great deal of sexuality. Particularly of it’s young adult and teen characters.
There was the spectre of adultery when one of the doctor leads had an affair with the wife of a disabled patient.
Another storyline dealt with his neighbor (who he was in love with as well) who had a husband that managed a baseball team. When she found a condom in his pocket, she suspected an affair.
It only turned out to be a homosexual affair, when the lover called her house, and it was a man’s voice on the other end. That husband character is no longer on the show, effectively dismissing a gay element that was treated like a cliche.
The younger set in this series are beautiful, healthy, and struggling with their relationships, but SEX is everywhere.
Some unprotected. Especially the sex encounter an underage lead had with his little sister’s babysitter. The babysitter got pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption.
Still with me?
The point I’m making is when stories are told about the situations heteros find themselves in for good or whatever, when they are attractive, don’t get AIDS (oh right, another doctor’s SISTER had AIDS from a contaminated needle while working in a Third World country) and they are as young and forgivably stupid as these folks in Everwood, why…they love it.
Along comes Ennis and Jack, a story that’s got some bite of realism in it and as long as it’s the heteros that get betrayed, it’s a story about adultery.
Not about how Ennis and Jack were betrayed long before they even met.
But nobody will be honest about THAT.
The audience I was with loved BBM. And I suspect the longer it’s out, the better the box office return and critical acclaim.
Having read the original(too raunchy for an R rating, more like gay sexual fantasy one would find in a gay penthouse, to make a film of the real story would require a XXX rating) story I have this to say.
Brokeback mountain is a slap in the face of all that is american, the idea of this story being made into a film was the idea of a terroristic movie director bent on mangling and destroying the very foundation of american culture, the COWBOY. I wonder how one would be recieved in Japan with a excellently done movie about gay Samurais, I think it would not show, no matter how nice it was made, and they would most likey cane the man, in a public exhibition. What would our lord say?
What would the Duke John Wayne say?
Ang Lee may be the ANTICHRIST
He has decieved the masses, has he not. He has made you believe this is OK. Good infact, Clouded your mind by using love as a coverup, planted the seed of deception.
wake up people.
Repent.
The end is near.
How near is the end exactly? I’m trying to figure out if I should bother picking up my dry cleaning or not.
Is next Tuesday good for you?
“Repent.
The end is near.”
That’s cool Ezekiel, I thought people saying that was only a bad joke in movies and magazines. You’ve made lunacy seem real and approachable to me – just tell me how is it again that a loving supportive monogamous same sex relationship is anything but a good thing.
Where are the good, red blooded American movie stars from the past, like Rock Hudson and Cary Grant – pillars of heterosexuality all.
That post really must be a joke.
David
“I wonder how one would be recieved in Japan with a excellently done movie about gay Samurais”
As Japan’s attitude towards homosexuality was rather similar to ancient Greece’s and the samurai often paired younger and older men in relationships meant for education in virtue, combat, and the arts, which included sexual bonding, I believe that they would call such a movie “historically accurate.”
Here’s Ezekiel Jerimiah’s piece with some characterization and stage direction:
MARTIN SHORT AS ED GRIMLEYHaving read the original(too raunchy for an R rating, more like gay sexual fantasy one would find in a gay penthouse, to make a film of the real story would require a XXX rating) story I have this to say.
STEPHEN COLBERT IN RANT MODEBrokeback mountain is a slap in the face of all that is american, the idea of this story being made into a film was the idea of a terroristic movie director bent on mangling and destroying the very foundation of american culture, the COWBOY. I wonder how one would be recieved in Japan with a excellently done movie about gay Samurais, I think it would not show, no matter how nice it was made, and they would most likey cane the man, in a public exhibition. What would our lord say?
What would the Duke John Wayne say?
Ang Lee may be the ANTICHRIST
YODA FROM STAR WARSHe has decieved the masses, has he not. He has made you believe this is OK. Good infact, Clouded your mind by using love as a coverup, planted the seed of deception.
BURT LANCASTER AS ELMER GANTRY
wake up people.
Repent.
The end is near.
I had to bust out laughing when I got to Yoda! I could just hear that Kermit like voice reading that.
David
People like ezekiel jeremiah, and his retarded bigot answer make me want to crawl into a hole and never see other human beings again.
you sicken me.
how is a movie about wholesome, true love between two men figuring themselves out “the seed of deception”.
GAH!