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• Wednesday, February 1, 2006 08:41 PM

  Brokeback in Red Country

  Simple why Brokeback is doing so well out in the great unwashed redness of America. It's a story told so perfectly, so authentically, to absolutley correctly that everyone gets it! It's a freakin' miracle that this movie was made my a U.S. film crew. Americans generally make god awful movies with homosexual themes or homosexual characters. Most American movies with gay or homosexual themes are either outright dumb and insulting (Alexander The Great) or utterly silly (Julie Newmar). Usually what passes for a "gay movie" isn't a "gay movie" at all (The Philadelphia Story.) Hollywood is either wallowing in homophobia by presenting the worst stereotypes as the sole definition of "gay" or their preaching at us. In either case, the characters are completely removed from anything approximating social realities. Europeans, the Asians, Australians, Canadians, Latin Americans all do much better at presenting gay realities, homosexual characters and homosexual situations with much more integrity and authenticity because they don't divorce them from the real world in which the participate and help form. "Brokeback Mountain" breaks the American mold. One can only hope forever. Every single frame of this movie is right on target. There isn't a false note in it. It's organic and natural and powerful and overwhelming in the same way that the earth is, that the sky is, that love is. I only wish the freakin' media (gay and straight) would stop referring to it as the "gay cowboy movie." These characters are not "gay". Gay is a culture, a great deal of which a great many homosexuals don't like. Homosexual is a behavior. People choose to be gay. They don't choose to be homosexual. These characters had a love affair that lasted twenty years. They were also full of homophobia, Ennis at least is. Jack not so much. This is also completely accurate. This movie and Annie Poulux's story are amazing works of truthfulness and integrity, told with such keen sensitivity and awareness, without prejudice, about how many, many thousands of men live their lives, then and now. Everyone gets it 'cause it breaks our hearts. It just blows me away that it was made by a U.S. film crew.

  —Ballsee Read Ballsee's other letters
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