The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting has written a troubling review of Brokeback Mountain. Undoubtedly written to be as objective as possible, it fails to mention the particularly disturbing thing: the film is meant to break down cultural barriers to homosexuality.
I think the movie worked. The USCCB apparently isn't troubled too much by homosexuality any more.
The concluding four paragraphs of the review:
Looked at from the point of view of the need for love which everyone feels but few people can articulate, the plight of these guys is easy to understand while their way of dealing with it is likely to surprise and shock an audience.
Except for the initial sex scene, and brief bedroom encounters between the men and their (bare breasted) wives, there's no sexually related nudity. Some outdoor shots of the men washing themselves and skinny-dipping are side-view, long-shot or out-of-focus images.
While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true.
The film contains tacit approval of same-sex relationships, adultery, two brief sex scenes without nudity, partial and shadowy brief nudity elsewhere, other implied sexual situations, profanity, rough and crude expressions, alcohol and brief drug use, brief violent images, a gruesome description of a murder, and some domestic violence. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.
