Did Brokeback Change our Culture?

[stookslady]

Thanks Stookslady,

I've been waiting for y copy for six weeks now. I'm loosing faith...

Don't feel bad, john john...I actually went back to the site about a week ago, and sent an email regarding the status of my order. I finally received the mag, like 3 days ago.

I believe I originally read on their site that it would take 4-6 weeks for delivery, so if you're already at 6, I suggest you go ahead and drop them a note. Perhaps that'll light a match under them.

By the way, apologies to all. After I typed out all of the info I read about us in the Film Quarterly, I ventured over to TDS...low and behold, someone else had already reported it!  I guess I'm just a bit behind the 8 ball these days. - KLJ

[hiker]

I've read most of the articles in Film Quarterly and have been unsuccessfully trying to find a thread devoted to discussing the issue.  Has anyone started one, or are most people still waiting for the magazine to arrive? 

For those of you still waiting, two of the articles have some harsh criticisms (IMHO unfounded) of BBM.

Here's a taste:
BBM "ultimately contains the radicalism of its subject matter through generic conservatism"  (Osterweil article, p. 38)

In another article the author resents, as a gay man, being asked to love the movie, and being asked to "forfeit his reputation for taste and mistake a middling piece of Hollywood product for a major work of art" (Miller article, p. 50).  He doesn't seem to be aware of this forum when he writes "no one has stepped forward to attest any sexual excitement in the film, whether around the film's actors, their bodies, or what these are represented as doing with one another" (p. 50)

The Miller article is particularly fascinating since it goes on to both ridicule the adulation of the movie's "craft", and yet devote careful and loving analysis to that craft--e.g. the motif of looking through glass or with mirrors.

Anyhow, very much looking forward to parsing these articles!

[CellarDweller115]

Stookslady and hiker, thanks for taking the time to post that information for us!

Much appreciated!

[dback]

I've read most of the articles in Film Quarterly and have been unsuccessfully trying to find a thread devoted to discussing the issue.  Has anyone started one, or are most people still waiting for the magazine to arrive? 

For those of you still waiting, two of the articles have some harsh criticisms (IMHO unfounded) of BBM.

Here's a taste:
BBM "ultimately contains the radicalism of its subject matter through generic conservatism"  (Osterweil article, p. 38)

In another article the author resents, as a gay man, being asked to love the movie, and being asked to "forfeit his reputation for taste and mistake a middling piece of Hollywood product for a major work of art" (Miller article, p. 50).  He doesn't seem to be aware of this forum when he writes "no one has stepped forward to attest any sexual excitement in the film, whether around the film's actors, their bodies, or what these are represented as doing with one another" (p. 50)

The Miller article is particularly fascinating since it goes on to both ridicule the adulation of the movie's "craft", and yet devote careful and loving analysis to that craft--e.g. the motif of looking through glass or with mirrors.

Anyhow, very much looking forward to parsing these articles!

I can think of a lot of gay-themed films that were sexier than "Brokeback."  Last year, over several days, I saw "Sun Kissed" "Summerland" and "Like a Brother" in 2 day's running--or, as I said to a friend in line for the men's room, "the arty hot boy disaster trio."

The point is, "Brokeback" touched people's hearts--even straight people's, who would normally not see a "gay" movie.  That's what's truly radical about it.  It has no connection with "gay" culture as we know it, especially as we've previously seen portrayed onscreen; far from being conservative, that's what makes it radical.

[stookslady]

Stookslady and hiker, thanks for taking the time to post that information for us!

Much appreciated!

 

[hiker]

Dback, Thanks for the tips on more sexy films.  Haven't seen any of them, but will check them out.   

As for BBM, I completely agree that its chief effect comes through its relentless focus on character and emotion, on heart if you will.  In fact, it seems to uniquely rejuvenate a very orthodox romantic love narrative that to me still has lots of radical potential as evidenced by this forum, contra Osterweil.  And like for others here, the movie is also wonderfully consoling.  Whenever I'm stressed, I only have to think of Jack looking down into the valley on that first moonlight night to fell peaceful.  But it has also changed so many people's lives, including mine.  I'm now reading Beyond Brokeback.   Still, I find Miller denial of eroticism to the movie to be very odd.   

Anyhow, no one mentioned a thread for a Film Quarterly discussion, so I'm not missing anything yet, right?

Hi CellarDweller, I can give a few more reports on the articles if needed to tide everyone over.  I also have access to pdf files of the articles, so I can send at least one along to anyone who is interested.

[john john]

I can't believe it!!!! I just got my copy of Film Quarterly!!
After 7 weeks of waiting....

I'll be back

[stookslady]

I can't believe it!!!! I just got my copy of Film Quarterly!!
After 7 weeks of waiting....

I'll be back

Enjoy the read, my friend.  - KLJ

[Brokeback_1]

You know, I don't think the criticisms in the FQ Brokeback issue matter that much.

Yes, I disagree with a great deal of what was stated in that magazine, we all would I think. Yet that's not really the point.

I think the point is that such treatment--in this particular trade magazine--automatically places BBM within a class of very select films which are cultural hallmarks. It raises BBM into very rarified realms. And what amazes me most of all is that it only took a single solitary YEAR!!! Almost every other film they have treated like this took years to be considered. Not our baby. Nope.

Brokeback is one of THE legendary films after ONE YEAR!!!

That means something, something immense. Whether you agree or disagree with the findings of the articles are secondary, it is the treatment of our film which matters and I try to keep that first and foremost....

[john john]

I agree Jack.
I happened to have enjoyed the FQ articles a lot. Jim Kitses' in particular is quite luminous.
One phrase I liked a lot:"Their passion's cost are counted in the dead and scattered sheep of their compromised mission and in their fatally damaged families."
D.A. Miller's florid, academic prose was mostly lost on me, my English is not that refined...it's like reading Foucault!
He analyses BBM through straight people's view/opinion/prejudice of homosexuality, namely A.Proulx'.
It's a piece I'll have to study, for there are flashes of insight in there on subjects that I'd never imagined BBM would hold.

Chris Berry's assessment of what is typically Chinese in Lee's view of BBM is very revealing, for instance he explains the difference in America's and China's conception of the family and how the story is perceived in both cultures.

As you said the simple fact that these writers would scrutinize BBM in such depth is comfirming it's place amongst to the great masterpieces.



 

[stookslady]

You know, I don't think the criticisms in the FQ Brokeback issue matter that much.

Yes, I disagree with a great deal of what was stated in that magazine, we all would I think. Yet that's not really the point.

I think the point is that such treatment--in this particular trade magazine--automatically places BBM within a class of very select films which are cultural hallmarks. It raises BBM into very rarified realms. And what amazes me most of all is that it only took a single solitary YEAR!!! Almost every other film they have treated like this took years to be considered. Not our baby. Nope.

Brokeback is one of THE legendary films after ONE YEAR!!!

That means something, something immense. Whether you agree or disagree with the findings of the articles are secondary, it is the treatment of our film which matters and I try to keep that first and foremost....

Brava! - KLJ

[Roland]

One of the problems with the FQ mentality is that they want movies to be so "radical," rarified and esoteric that only an elite few will be willing to go to see them.   This kind of thinking practically guarantees that gay-themed movies will forever remain at the margins of the moviegoing experience.

I find it ironic that BBM is often criticized for being too slow and arty to appeal to a truly mass audience, yet, at the same time, the FQ reviewers criticize it for being too wimpy, homogenized and conventional in its approach to its subject.

The movie must be doing something right if it can stir up diametrically opposite criticism from both camps.

[Rosewood]

Didn't know, really, where to post this, but this seemed like a likely place:

Just the other night I was watching the end of that ineffectual twit Tucker Carlson's show
on MSNBC, the moment in the show when he has the equally odious AND ineffectual twit
Willy Geist in as, supposedly, some kind of social 'critic', anyway...
Geist got to talking, in his smarmy way, about Russian President Putin AND the the French President's
chummy side by side vacations in Maine (or Cape Cod or someplace in that vicinity) and how they'd
shared a tent and spent some time carousing in the water or whatever. Anyway...
you can imagine the eye-rolling and snide remarks.

Well, Geist brings up BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN as an example of the kind of thing they
were imagining going on up there in the wilds - it was supposed to be a joke, don't you know.
They had a pix of the French Prez without his shirt on, as well as a pix of Putin without
his shirt. (OHMYGAWD, these men ACTUALLY took their shirts OFF while on vacation!!!
Arm the nuclear warheads!!! )

Anyway...here's where my ire was truly irked:
When Geist first mentions BBM, he ACTUALLY said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit since
I didn't tape it:

"Isn't this just like a Brokeback Mountain kind of thing? Not that I saw the film, but
it's what I've heard."

"...NOT THAT I SAW THE FILM...??>!!"

Here's a twit, who, even after all this time and all that has been written about the
supposed effect of BBM on the general public and show biz in particular, who is still AFRAID
to say that he saw the film. So afraid that any comment he makes about BBM must
FIRST BE PREFACED BY A DISCLAIMER that he didn't ACTUALLY see the film.
I mean, heaven forbid!

How's that for the effect BBM has had on our culture?

I hadn't meant to post this because, after all, who cares what a twit has to say?
But you know, it has been slowly percolating beneath the surface in the most
annoying way. Because, after all, this guy has a blog and is being trumpeted over
on MSNBC as some sort of 'wry' social commentator. I mean, it's enough to make
you puke.

On the other hand, I will say that my brother was at a cocktail party recently and
happened to get into conversation about film and BBM came up and there
was a very freewheeling discussion in which some straight men (as far as he knew)
ACTUALLY admitted having seen the film and liking it. So maybe all is not lost.

Maybe this is one of those instances in which the general public is far ahead of the
cowardly pundits.

And at the risk of going O/T:

Saw last night's repeat on COLD CASE which featured a BBM-like story
of two closeted gay men who happened to be cops, and the tragedy that ensued.
Very gritty and heartfelt. I'm also wondering, of course, if this story would have been
possible BEFORE BBM. So maybe that was a direct result of the film's influence on our culture.
Though, of course, the violently tragic ending was to be expected. So that much has
hardly changed. Still, the actual bringing up of the story and its terrible effect on two
human beings (not to mention the actual murderers) might have opened some eyes or
even a mind or two.
And for that, I suppose, we can only be greatful.

[jack]

if i may nit pick, that forever blue story, as with brokeback mountain, shows the tragic effect on far more lives than two, at minimum, four for bbm, and several for fb...

jack   

[dback]

I poked around on MSNBC's site to e-mail Geist, but couldn't find his address.  If someone can, let me know and I'll pepper him with some electronic buckshot.

I am so pissed I missed "Cold Case" Sunday PM, I can't tell you.  I walked in the door at 5 till 9 and saw the end of "Big Brother," then without thinking switched to "Family Guy."  Since I was in Los Angeles for a family event, I didn't read the paper in the AM, including the Sunday TV section.  I've been watching for it all summer.   

My only consolation is the millions of people who saw the episode--probably more at one shot than "Brokeback" had viewers or patrons.