Brokeback Mountain
Jan. 9th, 2006 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ankhFirst 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".
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".
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Date: 2006-01-11 05:51 am (UTC)I think a lot of producers embrace fan interaction, and realize it can only help their franchise. Unfortunately, a lot don't.
The sad thing is, we (US) live in a society where simulated straight sex and rape scenes are accepted in prime time (and day time), but a chaste same-sex kiss or a male-male rape would be something people would expect to be warned about. It's just a huge double-standard, based on beliefs that homosexuality is unnatural, but rape is a perfectly normal extension of a healthy sex drive. With that level of ignorance, I'm amazed we ever get anything half-right.