It's official: America loves gays

Wait, still not gay.

This is another article about Brokeback where a dude claims that he can't go see it by himself because it looks weird. I really don't understand this. Are straight guys afraid that people are going to suspect that they're secretly gay just by showing up?

Besides, Brokedull was only #5 at the b.o. this weekend! Y'all still hate us!

(as a sidenote I'm lecturing on a Chekhov story whose plot points are remarkably similar to BBM's and I remarked on this in class. There were a few nervous chuckles – from the guys, of course. After class, one of them came up to me, rather gingerly, and asked, "So, it's a good movie? I should go see it?")

- Straight men like watching femme fake-lesbians get it on, because it involves women exhibiting what's perceived as the same lust for the female body straight men experience. This depends on pretending the lesbian desire is strictly sexual and supercedes emotional connection and vulnerability and such.

- Straight women like watching butch fake-gay men fall in love because it involves men exhibiting the kinds of emotional connections and vulnerabilities straight women crave from them. This depends on pretending the gay desire is curiously non-sexual and transcends the everday body-lust that straight women are the objects of.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1692548,00.html

McGreevey is white; Plummer is black. Although McGreevey was a public official, his transgression was generally regarded as a personal flaw. Although Plummer was a private citizen, his infidelity was regarded as part of a public health crisis. McGreevey's infidelity drew a mixture of contempt and pity; Plummer's betrayal fed a moral panic. McGreevey was being unfaithful; Plummer was on the "down-low".

yes, the people of new jersey just went "ho hum" about mcgreevey, sure.

That said, the notion's right -- the stuff approached with compassion in Brokeback is stuff being called out as a horrible trend elsewhere. And the obvious difference is that one's dramatizing a specific case, while the other is some nebulous "trend." And disapproval or not, for some people the prescription for both of those things is the same -- to marry right in the first place. It's not contradictory to dislike an abstract trend of infidelities but have compassionate feelings toward invidivual instances of people experiencing them.

It'll probably make as much money as Million Dollar Baby.

Perhaps (tho $100M domestically. I'm not so sure)... another competently made, dreadfully familiar genre film with a gender switch that gives it political 'importance.'

Morb: Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog"

http://boneyboy.antville.org/static/boneyboy/images/foxnews%20on%20brokeback.gif

what does this mean? people whose homosexuality is famous but whose fame is not predicated in part upon their homosexuality? and does it assume that they're sexuality has been open since the beginning of their fame?

xpost

Waters and Haynes both make 'gay movies,' at least most of the time, or at least on the way to winning what fame they possess.

xpost

That's tricky, but it's also tricky to come up with straight examples.

THE press attention for NYPD Blue was based on the treatment of Dennis Franz as a sex object!

1) it is not a gay cowboy movie, no one in this movie is gay.
2) the stories on the periphries (the marriages, the child raising, the scenes w. family, etc) are much more important towards the films central themes then the fucking or the emoting.
3) anne hathaways hair is as an important signifer of gender, class and ambition as the hats of doris day in pillow book.

Jake, isthat you?

And blount, the point is M$B was the first successful Hollywood "A" movie about a female boxer (which is why she had to die).

What, like Ian McKellan?

Everett is the closest it gets, so far as I know. There may be a bit of a "gay vs foreign" thing working for him. McKellan gets the same plus an age at which he's not necessarily sexualized the way young Hollywood leads are.

he has subtly acknowledged his orientation on air at least once

is he a major Hollywood star? he's been 'famous' as an actor forever, but didn't get leading roles in blockbusters until 2000, afaik. I think X-Men, more than LOTR, was American-made, but was it intended for roughly the same internatioal audience? (I have no idea - film barely registered with me)

or is it just the age thing? (I think it's just the British thing)

Then why, again, are you babbling on about Jake G.?

Plus his rumored bf Sarsgaard humiliated himself in a 1978 retro Gays In Space abomination on Sat Nite Dead.

what, you want him to say "I am gay" on the air? how is that part of his job? and maybe he hasn't said so off the air, because he wants to be known for what he does on the air. and perhaps 'subtle' isn't descriptive enough - when called upon to cover the gay community, the way he has chosen to report on same has acknowledged his membership in same. i don't know what "count" means, but that seems to me to be far more progressive than anything else he could do.

What he does on the air looks like standard mega-cable 'news' bullshit to me.

that's right. maybe that's what he wants to be known for.

Yeah, because the average straight man regularly goes to a conflicted romance film alone.

Straight women like watching butch fake-gay men fall in love because it involves men exhibiting the kinds of emotional connections and vulnerabilities straight women crave from them.

The women I saw the film with didn't think that there was a buildup in the plot that showed the two actually attracted to each other or falling in love, what have you. As a straight man, I thought it was pretty obvious. Just goes to show that women still have no idea how men think, even when they're gay. Maybe they were gay men expressing themselves in a stereotypically hetero fashion?

As in, exclusively through sex and shallow banter?

Except for the relationship in the tent details, which, while fleeting, was towering.

I really don't see this doing $100M. Kaus thinks $65, and I don't see that number as proof that America loves gays.

The thing I keep wondering about is how much this movie would be doing if Jake's character would have been a woman. Hmm, I also wonder if the film would do more box office without the tent scene.

"Boys Don't Cry on Brokeback Mountain"

Yeah, that's what I mean -- I feel like I'm way generalizing about male/female roles by saying this, but it seems like it was surely kept in mind the way Jack's position could be related to by straight women, and the way relating to a man in that position could be really effective for, umm, women who date men!

Okay, but so this is interesting to me: Maybe they were gay men expressing themselves in a stereotypically hetero fashion? Because I think this has something to do with why Anthony and others would say the film's not about "gay" cowboys. Most of their relationship-development is done in the same terms that friend relationships are established, and of course their entire long affair is presented to everyone else as a fishing-buddies friendship; there's already a ton of stuff going on there about the difference between strong friendship and actual "love," and I think it'd be hard to come out of the film thinking the only thing that separates the two is sex.

And then what's really weird is thinking of how hetero love is usually portrayed in films and television; there's usually this assumption that a character's same-sex friends "understand" him or her, and then the hetero love is established in terms of finding someone of the opposite sex with a similar understanding or compatibility. I.e., it's also in the same terms as friendship, except with the presumption that an attractive friend of the opposite sex = a lover, of course.

Maybe they were gay men expressing themselves in a stereotypically hetero fashion?

You mean that gay men don't? Or do they have a special way?

Or was that the point of the film? GAY MEN EXPRESSING THEMSELVES: THEY'RE JUST LIKE US!!!!!

(ps. this is sarcasm.)

Maybe Mike is otm about male hetero expectations here (and in any event nabisco is probably most otm about who this appeals to and why), but I wonder - maybe the perception that these are stereotypically (iconically - cowboys) hetero-acting dudes is sufficient to provoke some curiosity at how the other (10th?) lives from even hetero dudes who know they are risking discomfort in seeing the movie (which might well be the vast majority of them).

I also think the Westernness alone/as metaphor simultaneously provokes curiosity, analogously, across an interior Western/otherwise divide.

I've overheard gay dudes talk about wanting to check out Wyoming or wherever it is.

That's pretty much it, except I should maybe have said 'large part'. Norton's homosexuality allows him to be a little cattier and more outrageous that most hosts, but the jokes are all straight. And with Will Young it's just backstory for his career.

and does it assume that they're sexuality has been open since the beginning of their fame?

Either way. I get the impression, for example, that the vast majority of Ellen Degeneres news stories since she came out have been "Noted Homosexual Ellen DeGeneres today blah blah blah".

I mean, I guess John Waters has his sexuality as part of his fame

Possibly, I didn't know he was gay until that Simpsons episode :) But fame is Waters case has to be in some level of quotes - I'm guessing he's not been on the cover of a lot of TVGuides over the last 40 years.

On the other hand, Elton John qualifies as not having his sexuality be part of his fame?

It's some part, sure, but it's not on the top five things people think of when his name comes up (Candle in the Wind, terrible wigs, Crocodile Rock, terrible costumes, Candle in the Wind again).

(NB: I stuck his name on the list when I was thinking about it six months ago, watching my sister watch Queer Eye/Norton/Will & Grace. In the intervening time, he has rather upped his Gayness Quotient by you know, marrying a dude)

I thought about Rosie O'Donnell, but got the impression she ws in the same boat as Ellen.

I'm not actually pushing "Amerikkka hates Teh Gay", I just couldn't come up with any answers. I am now schooled.

Not least because it's less about either America or the celebrities in question, and more about what kind of stories about them can sell papers.

Even more squirm-inducing: their WIVES were posting too.

I don't think people focus on Rosie O'Donnell's sexuality to nearly the degree they do on Ellen's. The difference may be that the latter came out quite publicly while the former merely stopped denying it.

Whereas when Rosie finally came out, she was already at the height of her popularity -- maybe even having slipped a little in the public eye since the first two seasons of her daytime show (1996-98) -- and the news was mostly greeted with, "Oh well, yeah, that makes sense."

(Yeah, gabbneb OTM.)

http://www.popbytes.com/archive/2006/01/oprah_headed_fo_1.shtml

But like yeah, if the question is whether the homosexuality is partly responsible for the notoriety, then yes, it's been a huge factor in her career. Though I swear to you, she does a surprisingly good daytime show, she's really earning the comeback.

Oh christ I read this as "had a moderately succesful strap-on career". SEE WHAT THIS MOVIE DOES!

OPRAH (to Ledger and Williams): How'd you guys fall in love?

JAKE (interrupting): Here's how it happened: Heath and I made out, Michelle got pregnant.

pretty ridiculous

She's topless for like a second.

And her makeup is not aging makeup as much as it's "rich Dallas socialite" makeup. Thankfully, the movie didn't go all Jennifer-Garner-in-A Beautiful Mind.

There are tears shed.

And Ledger is good.

Hathway doesn't really get any aging makeup. They just put her in a bad blonde wig with some bright red lipstick.

I'm the only one on this thread who's seen the movie who will defend both Gyllie's old age makeup and his petulant kiss-off scene, so I'm obviously no authority.

And, yes, Ledger's fairly great. I was more aware of this on my second viewing this weekend, how convincingly in the later scenes he showed a man imploding, subsisting on Marlboro Reds and Bud.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/gofugyourself/GFY112005/56605378.jpg

Well, in life, as in art, I'm a sucker for unexpected domestic sex.

Well, "gay" implies more than (or other than, even) man-on-man action. Ancient Athenians might have had their homosexual pinings and whatnot but they were nothing like what we'd think of when we think of gay. Same seems to be the case with these fictional cowboys.

So if I have no use for gay culture, but exclusively fuck dudes (and don't try to hide that fact), how would you suggest I identify?

BUSH: NO 'BROKEBACK'
Mon Jan 23 2006 17:09:44 ET

President Bush has so far skipped BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN -- the Hollywood hit about two homosexual cowboys.

During a Q&A session at Kansas State University today, a student asked Bush: "I was just wanting to get your opinion on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN if you'd seen it yet."

The crowd laughed softly before the student said loudly: "You would love it! You should check it out."

"I haven't seen it," Bush said flatly. "I'd be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen the movie," he said to laughter. "I've heard about it."

The president waited a second or two, then said, according to a transcript: "I hope you go -- (laughter) -- you know -- (laughter) -- I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm, is what I was about to say. I haven't seen it. (Laughter, applause.)"

They do have a kid. Ain't they cute?

http://www.youtube.com/w/BBM-Cast-coming-to-Oprah%21?v=6fO-0yCFj2k&search=brokeback

-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), January 23rd, 2006.

I still can't figure this out. Are you sying being gay isn't a big part f those three people's careers?

Probably for Will Young it's least important, although it was a nice filip to his career immediately after he won that talent show, when the media would otherwise have been losing interest.

But Elton John? Surely that's what he's most famous for, even above piano playing by now? He must have had hundreds of fromt pages about his various shags.

And Graham Norton? His whole TV personality is about how camp he is.
You can't watch him for 10 seconds without realising he's playing it up.

(Camp doesn't always equal gay, I know.)

BBM's mediocrity is forgiven, as I saw the infinitely more 'evolved' but inept Happy Endings last night. Yikes.

Jeez. I almost rented Happy Endings last night until its length forced me to re-rent Lost in America instead.

Gilly's makeup: in his last scene you can see salt-and-pepper hair beneath his hat, and he did wear a fake paunch.

The same was not true on Broadway, where people were "very at ease with being open and honest".