The problem with a publication like Salon.com is that it has a burdensome reputation of being "hip" or "cynical" or whatever superlative it assigns itself, often burying its writers into this stylistic avalanche.

Note the case of Stephanie Zacharek. Here's a reviewer that is so intent on being ahead of the curve in the critical world that her tastes, whether they are truly hers or just a wannabe persona, come full circle and unwittingly resembles that of a misguided 11 year-old.

Just browse into her review history and you'll see that she has panned the likes of well-crafted films like "Brokeback Mountain" and "Broken Flowers", but wildly raves about movies such as 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'", "Fantastic Four", "Ring 2", "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "King Kong" and "The Chronicles of Narnia".

Nothing wrong with some of those films, particularly the popcorn blockbusters, but not surprisingly, her tastes definitely align with those of a 6th grader.

"these are "real" men, not the sissified types we hire to redecorate our houses and arrange our flowers."

What an appalling choice of words.

Late to the game. But what a great movie, and I knew the first thing I should do is check Zacharek's review for all the reasons I should have hated it. Stephanie, you do not disappoint. The contrarian silliness you use to approach anything and everything you think might be widely accessible and enjoyable borders on unprofessional. Can you please post the agenda from which you're working before you actually post your movie review? The context would be of great help to the sheep like myself who wonder if we can ever acheive the level of hip bitterness you invoke in your reviews.

Being in the bottom 5% of Rotten Tomatoes' top 20% is no compliment.

Lighten up.

It is 1963. Americans across the south - white activists,black ministers and plenty of ordinary folks - are rising up against segregation; against the hypocrisy of separate but equal. They are sitting-in at lunch counters, fighting for the right to vote, the right to earn equal wages, the right to live in decent homes and send their children to good schools. The whole world watches while black people are beaten by cops and fire hoses; bitten by vicious dogs. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes into national prominence in Birmingham, Alabama, leading marches in protest of continued maltreatment at the hands of local governemt officials. The Ku Klux Klan and its supporters bomb a local church and four little girls are murdered. Dr. King then leads over two hundred thousand civil rights advocates in the historic March on Washington. As the multitudes gather to hear Dr. King deliver his unforgettable “I Have A Dream” speech, somewhere in Wyoming, two white cowboys are on the downlow.

What does one thing have to do with the other? Not a durn thang. Or maybe...

With all the hype, I expected to be moved by a tender love story between two guys who find each other amidst the mountain ranges, in between the horses, sheep and the macho world of ropin’ and ridin’.

Tender it was not. Their first sexual encounter was almost like a rape. But then, Hollywood has a history of mixing sex with violence, most often with both participants coming away from it mysteriously satisfied. To each his own, I suppose.

Brokeback Mountain opens with two cowboys awaiting work, one Marlboro-weathered with squinty eyes whose mumbling is often uncomprehensible; the other dark-eyed, lively, more comfortable in his skin. He sneaks peeks at his future lover and it is he who eventually initiates their intimate relationship. But how intimate is it? The film is more about emotional repression than intimacy. Both characters come from poor, working class families who are isolated and living in bleak circumstances. They are emotionless, rigid, cold. Growing up, both men were estranged from their fathers. They may have admired their fathers’ strengths from a distance but there was no sense of warmth between them.

As the cowboys continue their relationship over a period of 20 years, they each marry, have children and lie to their wives about who they are and what they are doing.

They never deal with their homosexuality in any depth. After their first encounter they each declare: “I ain’t queer.” They refer to their ongoing relationship as “this thing that’s got ahold of us.” One of the wives, bitter over her husband’s deception refers to it as “nasty”, but that’s about it. No discussion of how they feel inside or what it means. Are they gay and pretending to be straight? Bi-sexual? Are they so ignorant and isolated that they are completely unaware that there are others in the world who are like them and that there are other places that would be more accepting of who they are?

Remember, this romance begins in 1963. I have to wonder if these two cowboys have any clue as to what is happening in the world around them; any knowledge of the scores of black people who are simultaneously being beaten, lynched and stuffed into jails cells for demanding that they be granted equal rights; that they be treated like ordinary human beings. It seems not. But still, I have to ask: Would these two lovers empathize with black people who had even fewer rights than them? Would they see any connection? Would they care?

But, you say, this movie wasn’t about that. No it wasn’t and I’m not saying it should have been. I’m simply describing what most black folks bring with them to the movies: a gnawing sense of invisibility. Unless we are bouncing a ball, brandishing a gun, dancing, singing or helping white folks rescue missing white girls, we tend not to exist in the white male dominated celluloid world.

After viewing Brokeback, I spoke with a good friend, the mother of a gay, African American man, to get her take on it and she brought me back to what the film did have to offer.

“Relationships don’t have gender,” she told me. “They consist of emotional energy that must be balanced between the two people involved...If I were to close my eyes and just listen to the dialogue in the film, I wouldn’t be able to tell the gender...that’s why I related to it as just a love story.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Relationships cannot be stereotyped; they are particular to the two individuals involved. Just because I didn’t see much tenderness doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Just because the cowboys didn’t communicate they way I would choose to, doesn’t mean that they didn’t share a deep bond. They obviously did.

However, while neither man stood up and claimed who he was and their wives stood by, silently suffering, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between all parties to keep mum in order to keep up appearances, financial and/or familial stability. In this sense, their relationship was not unlike many heterosexual relationships that rest more on convenience than honesty. Perhaps this was the underlying message; that too many of us, regardless of our sexual orientation, move through life in fear, choosing to live only partially-fulfilling lives for fear that our honesty might mean that we are forced to face the world alone.

It’s just a bit difficult for me, as an African American, to feel a whole lot of empathy for two white guys who are oblivious to everything but their own private angst. But, then, that’s what Hollywood is all about, isn’t it?