Brokeback Mountain

[ankh]

First off, anyone else calling this Bareback Mountain without meaning to? It just sort of slips out.

Secondly, I haven't seen it - yet. I will see it but only because i've stopped reading the press about it.
Here in the UK there are billboards all over the place, same as for any other film. It's being heavily advertised on radio. Not so sure about TV ads because I rarely watch TV. It's just another film. I find the reaction in the US bizarre and it almost put me off the film. The talk of how "brave" the "straight" male actors are. PFFFT! Brave? Oh, I hadn't realised they'd been racing into burning buildings to rescue kittens and orphans; and that shark-wrestling to save a pregnant woman completely escaped me. They're *actors* playing *characters*, they're not required to change their sexuality or set up home together. Funny how I never see actors being called "brave" and angsting about it when they're playing murderers or philanderers. Get on with it, you wimps, and stop bloody whining. Actresses have to kiss men and women they don't fancy so why the big angst-fest over a male actor having to kiss someone he isn't attracted to? Oh woe, the poor actor is required to act. Every time the pair of them witter on about how difficult it was and responding to comments about bravery with anything other than 'I'm an actor, not a fireman' they add to the idea that playing a gay character is something fearful, something uncommon, something that requires a rundown of their straight love life just in case OMFG someone thinks they might not be *acting* gay, something that requires strength of character and heroics rather than simple acting skills. The Christian fundamentalist won't like it? Too fucking bad.

Those things led me to think the film was going to turn out to be a wussy cop-out, with gay characters dying unhappily because you can't be gay and have a happy ending in Hollywood. Oh wait...

I'll still be watching it, for the pretty and because I want it to do as well as any other movie so those wussy Hollywood types jump on the popularity bandwagon, and maybe in a few years playing a gay character won't be seen as something requiring courage but will be just another kind of character and any whining about how difficult it is will be met with "Try acting, dear boy".

Comments

[khek.livejournal.com]

It is very odd that a great deal of the press is complimenting the actors for being brave enough to "play gay". Then, of course, they have to mention their female significant others to make sure we get the point that they're not gay.

I think it's to placate some of the audience in the bible-thumping/judgemental areas of the country. Maybe they can *gasp* bring themselves to go if they know they're not actually supporting a *gay* character, but simply an actor playing gay.

If it works to get that audience into the theatres, then I guess it's a good technique. According to a coworker (who is a lesbian and will go out of her way to support anything that portrays a gay lifestyle) the gay audience will go anyway. Curious people will go anyway. The only audience they seem to be risking are the people who are turned off by over the top publicity or who just accept two men attracted to each other as another lifestyle and don't understand all the hoopla. Which is probably a very small percentage of the potential audience.

Me, I'll wait for it to come out on DVD. Just like Harry Potter and almost every other film that's come out in the past four years or so...

[ankh-lj.livejournal.com]

"I think it's to placate some of the audience in the bible-thumping/judgemental areas of the country. Maybe they can *gasp* bring themselves to go if they know they're not actually supporting a *gay* character, but simply an actor playing gay."

I think the "brave" comments just end up perpetuating homophobia. You have to be "brave" to play a gay man but playing a pyschopath or axe murderer is OK. Why not just put a big flashing sign saying 'WARNING! DANGER! GAY COOTIES!' because I'm not convinced that someone who has a problem with seeing gay characters in film is more likely to watch the movie if it's held up as something that's not the norm. In my opinion they should just go ahead and make the films and treat it like any other film, that enforces the idea that gay characters are just another option for actors when choosing a role.

"Me, I'll wait for it to come out on DVD. Just like Harry Potter and almost every other film that's come out in the past four years or so..."

I try to watch the big sfx/action movies at the cinema just to fully appreciate the scope of it - so I saw Serenity, Narnia and Goblet of Fire at the flicks but would watch a romantic comedy at home on DVD where I don't have to put up with teenagers heckling and tossing popcorn at each other.

[khek.livejournal.com]

In my opinion they should just go ahead and make the films and treat it like any other film, that enforces the idea that gay characters are just another option for actors when choosing a role.

Oh, I agree with you. But I think, like Nialla said, that conservatives (or whoever) would then have to admit that gays are people just like them, who just happen to love someone of the same sex.

What I think is sad is that, from reading reviews of the movie, I know nothing of the storline, only that it features straight actors playing gay characters. And that Heath Ledger married Michelle Williams and they had a baby after meeting on the set. There's almost nothing about the plot publicized, other than the fact that two cowboys fall in love.