Ride 'Em Cowboy!

Rating: 3/10 (26 December 2005)

Although based on a story written by a straight woman, directed by a straight man, starring actors who are straight (one of whom is dating his movie wife), "Brokeback Mountain" has become a litmus test for society's tolerance of the so-called gay lifestyle. It reminds me of the self-congratulatory hoopla over "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," a film made by the very people who saw to it that blacks never played anything more substantial than maids and train porters! Such films exist solely to make the elitists look good and feel good -- which is why it will make out like a bandit on Oscar night!
The filmmakers want you to conclude that Jack and Ennis don't get to live happily ever after because of "intolerance". Oddly, this "intolerance" demands that the boys choose to betray those fool enough to love them. If they weren't such selfish pricks (give Ennis points for feeling bad about the sheep being killed while he was, uh, busy), I could have gotten on board. But each treats his wife like crap, and Jack sleeps with other men! Don't give me the line that the boys they "had" to marry: Ennis could have broken his engagement, and it was perfectly acceptable back then for a man to be a "confirmed bachelor". And when his true love dies, is Ennis devastated? Hardly! His run-in with that bear had more depth!
As for their "historic" hook-up, you'll find more explicit stuff on basic cable! The boys never show us their "fishing gear", but the girls show us their "bait" -- that's Hollywood's idea of progress, kiddies! Worse, the movie utterly fails to convey gay love as natural, what with all the jokes just begging to be cracked about the boys eating beans and sleeping with sheep!
If the story was about a guy and a girl or two girls, would the movie condemn the lovers for betraying his/her partner, or excuse the affair? When the elitists regard minorities as fellow human beings instead of cynically patronizing them with pretentious tripe like "Brokeback Mountain", then they can consider themselves enlightened.