First published, in slightly different form, in The Indianapolis Star on February 6, 2006.
Now that director Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain has lassoed eight Academy Award nominations, millions more Americans likely will see it. Social conservatives should be among those who catch this widely lauded motion picture.
Socio-cons probably have sidestepped this so-called "gay cowboy movie." Too bad. While it hardly screams "family values," Brokeback seriously engages profound issues that merit consideration by those who think seriously about the challenges that families face.
Stylistically, socio-cons need not fear Brokeback as a didactic, in-your-face, gay screed. "We're here. We're queer. Who dropped the saddle soap?" it is not. Nor is this film a flamboyant camp-fest, like the flighty but hilarious The Birdcage or much of The Producers, both coincidentally starring Nathan Lane.
Indeed, as a romance between two thoroughly masculine ranch hands, Brokeback begins to reverse the damage caused by Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and similar offerings that reinforce the stereotype that gay men are indispensable when one needs to select fabulous neckties or striking pastels for stunning interiors. How sad that such entertainment still elicits laughs, even as most Americans would be justifiably outraged at any show titled Jewish Guy with a Banker's Eye or The Mexican Gardening Hour.
Beyond equating same-sex affection with manliness, Brokeback addresses important matters on the political agenda. It is impossible to discuss these themes without revealing key plot points. So, if you have not seen Brokeback, please do so soon, then finish this op-ed after the credits roll.
Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, movingly portrayed by Academy Award nominees Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, respectively, find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other one booze-filled evening in 1963. While huddling in a tent from Wyoming's bracing winds, a spontaneous moment of intimacy triggers for Jack and Ennis a long summer that combines hectic days of tending sheep with tranquil nights of tending to each other.
As the young men depart the mountain pastures when their gig ends, they split up and do what society expects of them. Jack competes in the southwestern rodeo circuit where he meets, marries, and has a son with Lureen (Anne Hathaway), herself an equestrian. Ennis weds Alma (Ledger's real-life girlfriend, Oscar nominee Michelle Williams), a quiet, loyal woman who raises their two daughters.
After four years apart, Jack returns to Ennis' small town of Riverton, Wyoming. Their still-smoldering passion flares like a zephyr-swept campfire. They stoke these flames during periodic "fishing trips" where their rods and reels stay untouched.
Jack's and Ennis's marriages grow increasingly cold, leading to a loveless union for the Twists and divorce and a broken home for the Del Mars. As this adulterous relationship spreads pain all around, one need not hark back to the Rockies of the 1960s and '70s to find parallels to Jack and Ennis's situation. Former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey's wife, Dina, bore him a baby girl before his clandestine affair with an Israeli man named Golan Cipel erupted into view in 2004. The McGreeveys split, and their daughter's live-in dad is now just a visitor.
Similarly, J.L. King's book On the Down Low discusses seemingly heterosexual black husbands who cheat on their spouses with other men. Some lucky wives land in divorce court; the least lucky unwittingly become HIV-positive.
Meanwhile, "you've got the ones that claim they're straight but have sex with men," Sam Beaumont, a gay Oklahoma rancher said in the January 30 People magazine. "And when they come home at night and their wives ask if they've been with a woman, well, they don't have to lie."
Brokeback Mountain should prompt social conservatives to ponder whether it is good family policy to encourage gay men to live lives that are traditional yet untrue. Would honest gay marriages be less destructive than deceitful straight ones? I think so. Many disagree. Even if they oppose it, however, seeing this film may give heterosexual marriage proponents a better insight into why so many Americans advocate homosexual marriage.
Brokeback Mountain also concerns homophobic violence. The October 1998 beating death of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming; the July 1999 fatal baseball-bat attack on Army Private Barry Winchell, whose comrades in arms perceived him as gay; and the non-lethal assault on gay soldier Kyle Lawson on October 29, 2005 are just a few fairly recent examples of this phenomenon. Just last February 2, 18-year-old Jacob B. Robida used a hatchet and a gun to wound three patrons, one critically, at Puzzles Lounge, a New Bedford, Massachusetts, gay bar. (Robida died three days later, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, after he killed a female friend and a cop, both in Arkansas.) Such incidents should remind filmgoers that this grave matter was not buried on the Great Plains decades ago.
Beautifully acted, photographed, written, and directed, Brokeback Mountain quietly but powerfully asks questions that are relevant today. Americans left, middle, and right should see this touching, haunting love story, then give it the thorough mulling over it deserves.