Not political
I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" yesterday. I liked it. But my opinions about the movie aren't really what I want to talk about.
In recent weeks, I've been reading more and more reviews of this film that take it to task for everything it isn't. It isn't actually groundbreaking, they say--it's just an ordinary love story. After all, if the lead characters had been a man and a woman, it would hardly have registered on the critics' radar screens. It isn't actually gay-friendly, they add. If it were, it wouldn't present such a depressing, bleak picture of what it means to be gay. On the one hand, these critics seem to be saying that if a queer film is going to cross over into the mainstream, it should be a politically significant film that says something profound and timely about The Queer Experience. On the other hand, they seem to be saying that until a movie about gay people can be evaluated on the same level as a movie about straight people, we queerfolk haven't really gotten anywhere politically.
Well, here's a radical idea: why not toss the politics out the window and just let this film be an ordinary story about people? Individual people, that is, with individual lives and a very specific relationship, living in a particular time and place, and who don't have bugger-all to say about The Generic Queer Experience?
Is it because "Brokeback Mountain" is a film about queer characters that people expect it to take on this kind of archetypical existence? Maybe, but I don't think that's the whole story. Two years ago, another Christmastime release with "Mountain" in its title caught hell for not saying something politically significant about the U.S. Civil War when it was just trying to be a love story about two individuals. Anytime a mainstream film is shot against the backdrop of a politically contentious topic or setting, people expect the characters to become cardboard cutouts, representative of some Grand Issue plaguing our society. Enough, I say.
Like "Cold Mountain," "Brokeback Mountain" isn't by any means a perfect film. We can criticize the pacing, especially in the first half, or the makeup in the last. We can criticize its choppiness, and its occasionally hollow emotional core. But even with those flaws, it's still a very real, believable film for the time period in which it was set. Lots of closeted gay men live out their lives denying their feelings for other men, and in 1960s and 70s Wyoming, this would have been even more likely. Lots of gay men end up beaten to death when they get caught. "Brokeback Mountain" isn't saying that gay people are doomed to live out their lives unfulfilled, unhappy, or even dead--it's saying that these particular fictional individuals, given their personal quirks and experiences, could very easily have ended up that way. Looking at it that way doesn't lessen the film's impact; it strengthens it. After all, good fiction is supposed to be about a story and the people who populate it, not Grand Political Ideas.
Let the poor little characters breathe, for god's sake. They deserve that much.
In recent weeks, I've been reading more and more reviews of this film that take it to task for everything it isn't. It isn't actually groundbreaking, they say--it's just an ordinary love story. After all, if the lead characters had been a man and a woman, it would hardly have registered on the critics' radar screens. It isn't actually gay-friendly, they add. If it were, it wouldn't present such a depressing, bleak picture of what it means to be gay. On the one hand, these critics seem to be saying that if a queer film is going to cross over into the mainstream, it should be a politically significant film that says something profound and timely about The Queer Experience. On the other hand, they seem to be saying that until a movie about gay people can be evaluated on the same level as a movie about straight people, we queerfolk haven't really gotten anywhere politically.
Well, here's a radical idea: why not toss the politics out the window and just let this film be an ordinary story about people? Individual people, that is, with individual lives and a very specific relationship, living in a particular time and place, and who don't have bugger-all to say about The Generic Queer Experience?
Is it because "Brokeback Mountain" is a film about queer characters that people expect it to take on this kind of archetypical existence? Maybe, but I don't think that's the whole story. Two years ago, another Christmastime release with "Mountain" in its title caught hell for not saying something politically significant about the U.S. Civil War when it was just trying to be a love story about two individuals. Anytime a mainstream film is shot against the backdrop of a politically contentious topic or setting, people expect the characters to become cardboard cutouts, representative of some Grand Issue plaguing our society. Enough, I say.
Like "Cold Mountain," "Brokeback Mountain" isn't by any means a perfect film. We can criticize the pacing, especially in the first half, or the makeup in the last. We can criticize its choppiness, and its occasionally hollow emotional core. But even with those flaws, it's still a very real, believable film for the time period in which it was set. Lots of closeted gay men live out their lives denying their feelings for other men, and in 1960s and 70s Wyoming, this would have been even more likely. Lots of gay men end up beaten to death when they get caught. "Brokeback Mountain" isn't saying that gay people are doomed to live out their lives unfulfilled, unhappy, or even dead--it's saying that these particular fictional individuals, given their personal quirks and experiences, could very easily have ended up that way. Looking at it that way doesn't lessen the film's impact; it strengthens it. After all, good fiction is supposed to be about a story and the people who populate it, not Grand Political Ideas.
Let the poor little characters breathe, for god's sake. They deserve that much.