Catholic convert, conservative, and Pulitzer-nominee Rod Dreher says Brokeback isn't nearly the homosexual propaganda reel we've been led to believe. Link. Excerpt:
Brokeback Mountain is the story of two young cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, who meet in a 1960s summer job tending sheep on the mountain. They fall in love, then upon returning to the world, go their separate ways, marry and start families. A few years later, they resume their intensely sexual affair ”“ visually, this is a rather chaste film ”“ but with terrible consequences for themselves and the wives and children they deceive. The film climaxes violently and tragically, and it's this that has the critics lauding it as a cinematic cri du coeur for tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality.
But Brokeback is not nearly that tidy. True, the men begin their doomed affair in a time and place where homosexuality was viciously suppressed, and so they suffer from social constrictions that make it difficult to master their own fates. But it is also true that both men are overgrown boys who waste their lives searching for something they've lost, and which might be irrecoverable. They are boys who refuse to become men, or to be more precise, do not, for various reasons, have the wherewithal to understand how to become men in their bleak situation.
It is impossible to watch this movie and think that all would be well with Jack and Ennis if only we'd legalize gay marriage. It is also impossible to watch this movie and not grieve for them in their suffering, even while raging over the suffering that these poor country kids who grew up unloved cause for their families. As the film grapples with Ennis' pain, confusion and cruelty, different levels of meaning unspool ”“ social, moral, spiritual and erotic. In the end, Brokeback Mountain is not about the need to normalize homosexuality, or "about" anything other than the tragic human condition.
I tend to trust Rod. Then again, it wouldn't hurt to send a task force to the Dallas gay bars to see if we find Rod closeted in a booth, sipping an apple martini, and waxing (weeping) about beautiful Ennis. You know, just to be sure he's not a double agent.
(Although it takes out a lot of the fun, rest assured the last paragraph is meant solely as a joke. If Rod is gay, I'll dedicate this blog to pro-ACLU coverage for thirty days.)
