BROKEBACK ANAL-YSIS

Ya gotta love a bitter queen who tells it like it T-I-S!

"It's very brave of them"

Everyone who’s tired of the media—and Madonna—calling Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger “brave” for acting in Brokeback Mountain, please raise your hands. Then say it with me: “poppycock”

By Charles Karel Bouley II

An Advocate.com exclusive posted, December 13, 2005



It started eating at me when I saw a little preview on Logo for upcoming movies. It said, “Logo salutes those who were brave enough to play gay...” or something like that. It stuck in my craw (or whatever the human equivalent is) for days: brave enough to play gay. But since I have ADD (no, not attention deficit disorder, aging diva disorder), I quickly forgot and moved on.

Then the topic again came into view, and craw, with weeks of prerelease coverage of Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, which stars two allegedly straight hunks, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Even before the movie was released, the accolades for these two began pouring forth. Gay Goddess Madonna saw the film and told the British magazine Attitude, “They’re really good, those boys, and they did a great job. It’s very brave of them.”

And there’s the problem. The media seem to be running with a recurring theme around this movie: the “bravery” of the actors playing the roles, the “courage” it took them to do it, and the “speculation” about whether America is ready for a “gay cowboy movie.” Certainly not a position a liberal would take, so it befuddles me how the media is labeled “liberal.” Because the media has all but compared these two to war heroes for their portrayal of two closeted cowboys in a story of unrequited love and personal deception.

Say it with me: poppycock.

Now, there can be no doubt it took awhile for this movie to be made. And there can be no doubt there was a lot of fear surrounding it. And that’s what the media should be talking about. Instead of playing into the homophobia about how courageous it is to play gay, the media should be examining why it’s OK to play a rapist, a demon, a vampire from hell, a serial killer who eats his victims with fava beans and nice chianti, or any of the hundreds of sick, warped, twisted characters Hollywood puts out and we gobble up. Why do studios green-light films all the time that have gruesome plots or despicable characters, and why did this film languish for years?

If it really is the gay thing, then the media needs to take Hollywood to task, instead of lauding the courage of the people who ended up making the film.

According to the Hollywood Reporter’s story of November 11, the movie struggled for years to get made, in part because no actors would commit. According to the story, actors would read it, love it, and then their agents would advise them against it even though it was, according to most, the best script they’d read in years. Those actors obviously had no courage in turning down the script, according to the press, yet not one interview has been done with the interviewer calling such an actor a coward. We can laud the heroes but not call out the cowards, I suppose.

The media’s obsession with the “courage” and “bravery” is just plain crap. First of all, I thought Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were actors, as was every person who turned down the script. And I thought actors were paid, often large amounts, to be somebody else. In other words, they are paid to play people who are not themselves. So why on earth would playing gay be a problem? Actors take on roles all the time embodying despicable or reprehensible characters. No one clamors to them and tells them how brave they are. But the media make a big deal when a straight guy kisses another straight guy on-camera. (Or a woman kisses a woman, for that matter—remember Mariel Hemingway and Roseanne?)

Are they, and thus America, so insecure that they actually believe if two guys kiss on-screen, they’re gay off-screen? Bi? Curious? Are we still that much in the dark ages when it comes to being gay? Can we all just finally agree that it is not learned, it is not forced, it is as organic as breathing? And just because a person “acts” gay doesn’t mean they “are” gay. So when an actor acts, he is doing just that, and when the lights go off he goes back to his Hollywood starlet.


READ THE REST--THE PACKS A WALLOP: ADVOCATE.COM