Sonic Youth wrote:But for Ang Lee himself to tow that line is very suspect. That he and his producers and his marketers won't use the buzzword "gay" means they have one eye on the box office.
I agree Sonic and it goes beyond monetary lust (an unfortunate product of our hyper-capitalist consumerism society, even among the most apssionate of real artists) - the refusal of Lee, his actors and the marketing team behind Brokeback to ackowledge even the word "gay" is essentially homophobic and quite insulting. I know they don't mean to be but the result is the same.
Penelope, I too am glad that the film is doing so well but at what expense? When talk show hosts and press people make comments like "It's not JUST a gay love story" or "It's not a political movie" the tacit implication is that there is something WRONG with a gay love story or with gay politics. No one would say about Cold Mountain "It's not JUST a straight love story." Gay love and gay politics are curiously being marginalized and sacrificed so this film can become a blockbuster.
Think of it the way slave captivity narratives were sold by pro-abolitionists. The popularity of these stories depended on reaching people emotionally but never condoning the idea that slaves were the same as whites or were in any way equal footing. It may have been necessary at the time and the intentions were all good but nowadays we can see how toothless and essentially racist such an approach was.
Lee, his actors and everyone behind Brokeback may not mean to be but they are still propogating a closet-case approach to gay themes.
Sonic, this part of the article I must disagree with; firstly, the trailer that played for months last year clearly identified the film as a love story between two men. I've not seen any of the television ads, but the print ads I've seen also seem to indicate rather obviously that this is what the film is about.
I have no beef with the way Focus is promoting this film--if anything, I have to give them props for adroitly making this film into the blockbuster that it has become--it was the trickiest sell of the year, and they pulled it off brilliantly.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
Big Magilla wrote:As for the words "gay" and "homosexual", they are not spoken in the film so why should they be used in the press kit?
Why should they?
Why SHOULDN'T they? Why don't they? Do they think they're Ronald Reagan?
Besides, anyone who doesn't know what the film is about at this point has been living under a rock.
Yes, of course. What people who are still ambivalent about seeing the film are asking is not what it's about, but "how much".
The core audience for this film, gays, women and lovers of quality films, has already seen it or is planning to. They are now rightfully marketing to the rest of the country - you know those people who get their news from Bill O'Reilly and his Fox news co-horts.
Yeah, precisely my point.
You want to expand your audience, keep the word "gay" in the closet.
I hate to be an I-told-you-so but the DVD release of Brokeback Mountain has been pushed back from March 7th to April 4th. Expect further pushback if its box office strength continues.
As far as the TV ads are concerned, I've seen the men embracing both in local San Francisco Bay Area ads and in national cable ads so I don't know what the article is referring to. As for the words "gay" and "homosexual", they are not spoken in the film so why should they be used in the press kit? Besides, anyone who doesn't know what the film is about at this point has been living under a rock. The core audience for this film, gays, women and lovers of quality films, has already seen it or is planning to. They are now rightfully marketing to the rest of the country - you know those people who get their news from Bill O'Reilly and his Fox news co-horts.
Penelope wrote:An fine NYTimes Review of Books article pointing out the discrepancy between the "gay" aspect of Brokeback vs. the "universal" appeal of the film can be found here.
This particular rhetorical emphasis figures prominently in the advertising for the film, which in quoting such passages reflects the producer's understandable desire that Brokeback Mountain not be seen as something for a "niche" market but as a story with broad appeal, whatever the particulars of its time, place, and personalities. (The words "gay" and "homosexual" are never used of the film's two main characters in the forty-nine-page press kit distributed by the filmmakers to critics.) "One movie is connecting with the heart of America," one of the current print ad campaigns declares; the ad shows the star Heath Ledger, without his costar, grinning in a cowboy hat. A television ad that ran immediately after the Golden Globe awards a few weeks ago showed clips of the male leads embracing their wives, but not each other.
The reluctance to be explicit about the film's themes and content was evident at the Golden Globes, where the film took the major awards—for best movie drama, best director, and best screenplay. When a short montage of clips from the film was screened, it was described as "a story of monumental conflict"; later, the actor reading the names of nominees for best actor in a movie drama described Heath Ledger's character as "a cowboy caught up in a complicated love." After Ang Lee received the award he was quoted as saying, "This is a universal story. I just wanted to make a love story."
This striving for universality is understandible, and of course Brokeback is more than a gay love story. But saying so to the point of excluding any suggestions that a gay love story is very much what it is, or suggesting that anyone who calls it a "gay love story" or a "gay western" is unrealistic. Had this movie been a straight love story, it would never have been made.
But for Ang Lee himself to tow that line is very suspect. That he and his producers and his marketers won't use the buzzword "gay" means they have one eye on the box office.
An fine NYTimes Review of Books article pointing out the discrepancy between the "gay" aspect of Brokeback vs. the "universal" appeal of the film can be found here.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
One thing I like about the picture is that it presents the wives sympathetically. They are not shrews lpt neorotics like the wives in films like Back Street and When Tomorrow Comes -- they are sympatheic victims of homophobia as well.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Well, he does have a pregnant wife. In all fairness, gay film reviewer Ed Gonzalez who gave the film **1/2 also says that the wives are the emotional centers of the film.
Are you straight? That would explain why you had more sympathy for their wives than for them.
[Spoilers]
For me, the devastation comes with Ledger's penultimate performance in the closet.
Ennis seemed to always think that what he had with Jack was wrong, but he couldn't help his feelings. It was until Jack died that he really understood what he felt. Before that, it was just a comfortable escape for him despite his feelings. Now, it's something that he only now realizes, seeing the shirt in Jack's closet, a symbol of Jack's unwavering love that Ennis now understands was something that he never really possessed but should have. That's why, in the final scene, as he sets Jack's shirt over his own and next to the first postcard he ever received from Ennis that he puts their relationship in the proper perspective and he truly understands what true love is.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
I've taken a copy of this post I left on another post because it rightly belongs here. Here it is:
---------------This may be the best time as any to disclose this, but am I the only one how was slightly under-whelmed by Brokeback Mountain? Maybe I just didn't get it.
It was a good film, but not worthy of the onslaught of hype that its recieving.
I have no doubt that it will win Best Picture, simply because everybobdy seem to say that it will. The only outstanding element in Brokeback Mountain for me was Jake Gyllenhaal's performance - he was superb.
I think the reason why I didn't totaly get the film is because the love story seemed uncomfortable. I felt more emotion for their wives, in particular Williams character - she was the only inocent party who got hurt.
Where was the heart-breaking love story I was hoping to see?----------------
I'll reitirate: what is all the fuss with this film?
I enjoyed it, but no way is it the best of the year.
You don't have to be a farmer, rancher, or member of The Village People to know that the film "Brokeback Mountain" has swept the nation, ending the years of scornful looks and eyebrow-raising that once accompanied the words, "I'm going to see a gay cowboy movie."
The film has also added a certain phrase to our cultural lexicon — a bit of dialogue that is now on the lips of every jokester in America, including mine.
No, it isn't, "I'm going fishing in Wyoming for a few days," which may soon become a risqué euphemism for a secret love affair.
And it's not, "I wonder if they'll make a hit movie about us so we can give up farm life and hit the lecture circuit" — words that Heath Ledger's Ennis Del Mar utters to Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist in a tender moment, but which ended up on the cutting room floor. (Look for it under "Deleted Scenes" on the DVD later this year.)
It's the line, "I wish I knew how to quit you!" And everyone's using it.
Since "Brokeback Mountain" went into wide release, there have been countless workers who have told their boss, "You can't fire me! Because I know how to quit you —and I do!"
And just last night, a long-addicted cigarette smoker took a satisfying drag on his unfiltered cancer stick and then yelled from his Manhattan apartment window, "I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU!" (It was followed by an angry scream from another window: "SHADDUP! We're trying to sleep over here!")
Meanwhile, an investment banker — who was expected home for dinner hours earlier — was gleefully counting a pile of cash on his desk when he said, sarcastically: "Oh, I wish I knew how to quit you."
Then, of course, he just laughed, tossed some crisp $100 bills into the air, and said, "Oh, I'll never quit you, my sweet and precious lucre! In fact, I'm going to take you 'fishing in Wyoming' this weekend!"
In a south Florida retirement community, at least one Jewish grandmother has turned to her husband and said, "Oy, I vish I knew how to quit you! But I don't, so please stop picking your teeth at the table, boobalah."
And, unfortunately, a hack comedian who performs at Mr. Chuckle's Yuk Yuk Hut (located in a Comfort Inn outside Des Moines) has been sending intoxicated audiences into hysterics with a bit that begins, "Do you ever wonder what it would sound like if Jack Nicholson played Ennis Del Mar? I think it might go something . . . like . . . this . . ."
If recent entertainment history is any guide, "Brokeback Mountain" will also be transformed into a Broadway musical by a week from Thursday. And as the curtain comes down on the moving first act, the bare-chested, singing gay cowboy Ennis Del Mar will belt out the show's signature tune, "I Wish I Knew (How to Quit You)."
The rousing finale, of course, will be, "I'll Never Quit You (Even If I Knew How)."
Before it all ends in a swift, "Macarena"-like death spiral by early summer, the "IWIKHTQY" craze will mean a best-selling self-help book titled, "I Wish I Knew How to Quit You: Love Lessons from 'Brokeback Mountain.' " There will also be smoking-cessation kits, career-planning guides, "Quit Him Now! Ask Me How!" bumper stickers, and an infinite number of sitcom jokes (and newspaper column gags).
So enjoy the hilarity while you can, folks. Because even though "I wish I knew how to quit you!" is burning hot and funny today, it will soon be as tired as "Show me the money!" and "I'll be back," movie catch phrases that were quickly ruined by massive overuse.
Until then, let me just make one thing clear: I wish I knew how to quit saying "I wish I knew how to quit you!"
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
