Get Off My Back Mountain

My ambivalence about whether to see Brokeback Mountain is turning me into a social pariah.

I enjoyed E. Annie Proulx’s short story on which director Ang Lee’s film is based when I read it a few years ago in the New Yorker. She’s a brilliant writer whose sparse prose quickstarts the imagination. I even recommended it to friends. But there was nothing in the story that left me eager to rush to a movie theater to see the screen adaptation.

Now, I am often asked if I have seen the movie. My “No,” usually elicits an expression of horror and the words, “but you have to.”

That’s when the problem starts. Time after time I am told Brokeback Mountain is a certified cultural phenomenon because it is a lushly designed, well-acted movie about two men in love that portrays their relationship as understandalbe (if abhorred in the film’s 1950s America) and in a manner that is accessible to contemporary, mainstream audiences. Really, how could I avoid participation in this seminal filmic event?

Well, I have my reasons and none of them even remotely justify suggestions I might be homophobic, as did one friend.

I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 18 years and was far from naive before that. The fact that two good looking macho guys could fall deeply in love is somewhat less than a revelation to me.

Unlike what some people think, the film is hardly a first. There have been a number of widely released films about men in love over the years. Yes, some of them, like Le Cage aux Folles, and its U.S. remake, The Birdcage, portrayed one gay character as the epitome of a drag stereotype. But both of those films portrayed the campy Albin respectfully and humanely. Only someone with a heart of coal could fail to care about Albin's delimma or be amused by his solution.

There is also the fact that Brokeback Mountain is a chick flick. Change one of the sheepherders to a woman and you would have a dramatic version of Same Time Next Year, in which two people married to others meet once a year for a brief affair. It’s Sleepless in Seattle, with a sad ending. It's Casablanca without the context of a war.

I might see Brokeback Mountain someday. And, from what I’ve read about the acting, directing, and cinematography, I might even enjoy it. But if I do attend, it will be because I want to experience a movie, not get my liberal credentials certified.