One tries so not to believe in stereotypes, but some people make it so hard. What is one to make of this WaPo story --it's not exactly a review-- of Brokeback Mountain? It's about how gays are going en masse to see "the gay Gone With the Wind" --but those who have seen it in preview sound a bit disappointed:
Alec Papazian, who saw "Brokeback" in an advance screening at the Regal Gallery Place in downtown Washington last week, echoes many who've seen it when he says: "I'm not really sure how my friends -- my gay friends -- would categorize it."
Then we find it's not a typical gay movie because it's not outright porn and it's not about campy gay characters with exquisitely decorated apartments. Um, so it turns out gays prefer to be stereotyped. according to WaPo?
It actually sounds more like the gay Bridges of Madison County to me. A celebration of betrayal and infidelity over prosaic home life --passion presumably being more "honest" than duty. Well, duh. It's easy to maintain a grand passion for someone who's not intimately acquainted with your bad habits, has never seen you with the flu, who's never heard you snore or seen you scratch and who's not around enough to nag you.
And spare me the reviewer's claim the movie isn't political. The plot is the poor, gay cowboys who were forced against their wills to court women, profess love for them, propose to them, vow to be faithful to them, and father children, all the while knowing they were doing these things falsely. Bad society, bad! If only you had let them marry each other. You know, so they could cheat on men instead of women when domestic life turned boring.
I'm sorry, a cheater is a cheater. No matter what form his lusts take.
