Reactions to Brokeback by friends, family & audiences

[cyoung]

Cara - she never intended to like the movie.  She had a closed mind from the start.  She knew that she had to actually see the movie in order to have any credibility when criticizing it.  Now she can tell all her close-minded friends that she saw it - what courage on her part - and that it stunk.  So then they will be thankfull to her for letting them off the hook, as they then trash it to others by saying stuff like, "I don't need to see such garbage.  So-and-so saw it and said it was awful, etc."  She thus builds her popularity within her own set.

If she had acknowledged that it was a good film she might have to change her mind, not just about gay people, but about a lot of related issues.  Where would that get her?  No, she was a lost cause from the beginning.

Well, here's the thing, and it's one of the reasons her response surprised me. She was visiting from out of town last weekend, and we were talking about movies. I mentioned that I'd seen Brokeback twice, that it had blown me away, and that I wanted to see it again. She perked right up and said, "Oh, I want to see that." A friend of hers had seen and liked it and said it had "sat on her shoulder for days." So we went, and took our teenage daughters with us. Afterward she said she didn't find the love believable, but she did say she thought the movie was "good" and said she was glad she got to see it. Even in her e-mail she acknowledges that the movie was good. So it's good, yet at the same time it's "propaganda for the gay agenda," and she "didn't feel for Jack and Ennis"?! That's what threw me, and irked me. I really do believe that she discussed this later with some more conservative friends, and probably her husband as well, and they told her how she should react.

Remember the old saying, "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see."

True. It makes me sad because I'm so hoping that this movie WILL change the minds and hearts of people just like my sister-in-law. But it seems to have done just the opposite; it's as though they become even more firmly entrenched in their point of view.

Cara

[andyincolorado]

A friend of mine in my office today, when asked by me if she had finally seen BBM, she told me "You're not going to like what I'm going to say......I was very disappointed by the film because of all the HYPE".
She didn't really elaborate on that  and I didn't ask her at the time. She manages our on-line technical library and is VERY literate person - has read Annie Prouxl's "THE SHIPPING NEWS" and LOVED it and LOVED the film version. She has NOT read the short story for BBM. She just told me that all the HYPE over BBM this past weeks have ruined the film for her somehow.

Has anyone else here gotten the same opinion from their families and/or friends??

Can too much hype 'damage' a film like BBM???

[Uclapeterg]

I went to see this movie after seeing the Oprah show on Friday. 

The Oprah effect!!!!

Nothing wrong with how you're feeling. That's why we're all here. 

[Uclapeterg]

is there anyone who doesn't have some of those issues? 

Mary, I believe we all have similar issues. Some people are denying their emotions like Ennis though. (I don't mean just a gay thing)

[mary]

is there anyone who doesn't have some of those issues? 

Mary, I believe we all have similar issues. Some people are denying their emotions like Ennis though. (I don't mean just a gay thing)

Yes we all bring our own perspective/baggage to this film with us.  It's just that some have the cute little carry ons and some of us have the steamer trunks  Mine's probably somewhere in the middle

[Uclapeterg]

it is beneath me to mention butch and sundance (but boy were they hot, and who needed katherine ross  ).
jack

What?  You mean there was a woman in that movie?   

There was? I spent the whole movie looking at how HOT Robert Redford looked. 

[Uclapeterg]

is there anyone who doesn't have some of those issues? 

Mary, I believe we all have similar issues. Some people are denying their emotions like Ennis though. (I don't mean just a gay thing)

Yes we all bring our own perspective/baggage to this film with us.  It's just that some have the cute little carry ons and some of us have the steamer trunks  Mine's probably somewhere in the middle

I have to check in all my luggage at the airport. 

[WLAGuy]

A friend of mine in my office today, when asked by me if she had finally seen BBM, she told me "You're not going to like what I'm going to say......I was very disappointed by the film because of all the HYPE".
She didn't really elaborate on that  and I didn't ask her at the time. She manages our on-line technical library and is VERY literate person - has read Annie Prouxl's "THE SHIPPING NEWS" and LOVED it and LOVED the film version. She has NOT read the short story for BBM. She just told me that all the HYPE over BBM this past weeks have ruined the film for her somehow.

Has anyone else here gotten the same opinion from their families and/or friends??

Can too much hype 'damage' a film like BBM???

I haven't gotten that reaction, but in a way I'm not surprised someone might say that.  I am curious as to exactly what she meant by that.  My guess is that because of all the critical and public acclaim, she was expecting something flashier, for lack of a better word, and as we all know, BBM is the antithesis of a flashy movie.  In fact, I can see how someone who really isn't paying attention would completely miss most of the stuff that's happening in the movie.  Had she read the book before seeing the movie, I think her reaction would have been much different.  Since she likes Annie's work, you might suggest that she read the book, and then maybe give the movie another try while it's still on the big screen. 

[BillKCMO]

Cara:  It's heartbreaking to hear about your sister-in-law.  Your frustration and anger sound very justified.  I don't know, but a theory might be that she is pretty enmeshed with her conservative friends (and conservative husband?) and/or too afraid to let herself really feel the beauty of the movie.  I can certainly imagine someone who is perhaps not accustomed to thinking much for herself going back a certain circle of people and consenting to their shaping her thoughts and opinions about "Brokeback Mountain."  The good news is that the movie is, now, in her brain...and you know what, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some day her heart lets it in:  As the posters say, love is a force of nature -- I daresay stronger than the medieval cabal who may well have subjected your sister-in-law to a re-brainwashing intervention.  Sending good thoughts your way!!

[cms]

Cara:  I'm sorry, but anyone who utters the phrase "propaganda for the gay agenda" was not going to like the movie.  WTF does that mean anyway?
Does she even know how dumb that sounds?  I know it feels bad to blow up at people, so maybe the next time you should try ridicule.  I think that would be effective.  Send her that Onion article about the gay recruitment goal or the "agenda" I saw posted here a while back, where the daily schedule includes taking over all facets of government and business in between going to the gym and theater.

[cyoung]

Cara:  I'm sorry, but anyone who utters the phrase "propaganda for the gay agenda" was not going to like the movie.  WTF does that mean anyway?

Heh. That was one of the things I wrote in my reply to her: "What the heck is the 'gay agenda' anyway?"

But let me emphasize again that she made the "propaganda for the gay agenda" comment only today, more than one week AFTER seeing the movie. She didn't say this beforehand or at any time right afterward.

Does she even know how dumb that sounds?

Probably not. She's not the deepest thinker in the world, but I've always thought of her as a good and kind person, although a misguided one. A little too naive, a little too impressionable. But who knows, maybe she's saying the same thing about me?

I know it feels bad to blow up at people, so maybe the next time you should try ridicule.  I think that would be effective.

I didn't exactly "blow up" at her -- but I did tell her how I felt about her response and that I was angry.

Send her that Onion article about the gay recruitment goal or the "agenda" I saw posted here a while back, where the daily schedule includes taking over all facets of government and business in between going to the gym and theater.

One step ahead of you there -- I sent this a few days after we'd seen the movie because she'd mentioned her husband ranting about "the gay agenda." She thought it was funny.

Cara

[patroclus]

True. It makes me sad because I'm so hoping that this movie WILL change the minds and hearts of people just like my sister-in-law. But it seems to have done just the opposite; it's as though they become even more firmly entrenched in their point of view.

Cara

I've been thinking about this thing about BBM and is it a piece of gay agenda propoganda. Haven't reached a conclusion yet but one thing that strikes me about both her response to you and yours to hers is that you seem to want her to 'change her mind and heart' as a result of seeing the movie. In effect you are treating the film as a piece of propoganda - a tool to change people opinions. And she's objecting that it feels like a piece of propoganda. Could it be that she's responding to what she experiences as your transformational agenda for her? I'd pick up on her sense that the film was good and and talk with her about that - what you liked what she liked. You know how it is - if I sense someone's desperate for me to react in a particular way it's hard not to resist them.  And it's a perfectly valid point to wonder if the film is a kind of propoganda. Ang Lee himself talks about film's power to change people - that does sound a bit like an agenda/propoganda, doesn't it? This board is full of comments and hopes that the world gets changed by the impact of the film.

And to be honest I didn't cry the first time I say the film. And I was expecting to and can cry quite easily at lots of things. Neither did my pal and he was expecting to be able to cry, too. But I was deeply moved, which is different.

[sunspot]

BBM is a work of art, not a work of propaganda.  The folks who wrote it - Annie, Larry, Diana - are all straight.  The story has no obvious agenda, and neither do the writers.  It was inspired by an observation Prolux made in a bar one night of a middle aged man who might have been "country gay".  The story's setting in rural Wyoming during the 1960's flowed from that inspiration to its logical, tragic conclusion.  The fact that hundreds of men wrote Prolux after the story was published in The New Yorker to ask her how she knew so much about their own situation speaks volumes about the honesty and basic accuracy of Brokeback Mountain.

[Nick_F]

last night saw a friend who I haven't seen in a couple of months, she is a lady in her mid 60s, and an ardent movie goer. She said that she had seen BBM, and was haunted by it for many days afterwards. It was an unexpected comment from her.

I didn't ask her too much about how she felt about it, but it was nice to see some of that universal appeal in evidence.

[M. Alexander]

Last night I saw Brokeback for the sixth time, but with a difference. I am visiting friends in Milan right now and seeing as the film opened here just recently, I decided to see it once again - no sacrifice! - but this time, in Italian because in Italy the foreign films are always dubbed. (No subtitles, for better or for worse.) It was very interesting.

The translation was pretty good although certain things were changed. For example the scene on the mountain after the 1st night in the tent where Ennis says "I'm no queer" they translated it as "Non sono cosi" - I'm not like that... Also while the inflections were sometimes fairly similar, the voices themselves sounded older than the voices of both Heath and Jake. Jack's vulnerability via Jake's voice was somewhat diminished and of course, the sound of the West and of their lack of education was also absent. That said the subtely of body language of all the actors was of course fully present and I found myself, to my surprise, in tears throughout the course of the film. This was my sixth viewing but I cried more this time than ever before.

The audience was - for a Wednesday night, at 8 pm - a good one. There must have been about 100 people. Couples, older folks, some single girls and some guys together. Very attentive, particularly after the kissing scene on the landing. It is doing very good business here and if I've heard correctly the total overseas box office is now around $40 million. Fantastic.

It feels good to be "reporting" here on this site. It has been a pleasure to follow, when possible, the news while I'm traveling. I may be far away from home, but Brokeback is still in my heart....  Ciao a tutti!