It's just not my "thing", baby! Yeah....
Posted on 01/05/2006 4:21:21 PM PST by Incorrigible
BY DRU SEFTON
It's true, the movie "Brokeback Mountain" does provoke what one researcher calls "a very strong ick factor" in some straight men.
What is it in this story of two cowboy pals in 1960s Wyoming who find themselves in lifelong love -- yet go on to marry women -- that elicits this response from heterosexual males?
The answers are as complex as the plot.
A psychologist who coined the word "homophobic" said the revulsion is precisely that. A scientist who discovered genetic links to sexuality said he simply does not understand the response. The author of "The Sexual Brain" said there is nothing on a neurobiological basis to explain the aversion.
To film fan Eddie Hargreaves of Stockton, Calif., it's more like the "ick" of romantic drama. "I'm not going to speak for everybody," he said, "but I don't know a lot of straight guys who said, `Oh, man, I can't wait to see "Bridges of Madison County,""' 1995's famous tearjerker.
"Brokeback Mountain," directed by Oscar winner Ang Lee and starring box-office hunks Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, is sparking both critical praise and water cooler chatter. It's been nominated for seven Golden Globe awards.
But when movie critic Dave White, who is gay, wrote a humorous piece titled "The Straight Dude's Guide to `Brokeback,"' "I got hundreds of messages, most of whom hated me for just existing," he said.
An excerpt from the column: "The good news -- there's less than one minute of making out. It's about 130 minutes long and 129 of them are about Men Not Having Sex."
We're not talking here about rejections of homosexuality based on moral or religious grounds, though the film has provoked its share of those. It's that some men who pointedly won't see "Brokeback" are social liberals who generally find no fault with people being gay.
"I didn't write the piece with the homophobe in mind," said White, a Movie.com reviewer in Los Angeles who wrote the column for MSNBC.com. "I wrote it for the liberal guy who just can't see this movie, because they know that reads as socially uncool."
White's theory on straight-male queasiness centers on self-identification. "These characters are too close to being regular guys," he said. "That's part of the freakout."
Timothy Shary also noticed that. He's director of the Screen Studies Program at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., and examines masculinity in movies.
"This is a threat to most men because it opens up the possibility that two men who are friendly may become affectionate," Shary said. "That's something men just do not want to consider."
Countless movies feature characters who marry (or are married to) someone but linger evermore over feelings for another -- think "Casablanca."
"But this is about two men who are attracted to each other and keep that connection. That's especially troubling for some men," Shary said, adding, "but that's what makes this a truly revolutionary film."
George Weinberg said this aversion is "definitely homophobia." He is the New York City psychologist and researcher who invented that term in the 1960s, and broke ground with his 1972 book, "Society and the Healthy Homosexual."
"This is the idea of one man's adoration for another," Weinberg said. "A love affair more deep and lasting and romantic" than with their wives.
His advice for straights uneasy about "Brokeback" is to "first understand you have this problem. At least by acknowledging it, that's a start. It's like saying, `I have a fear of heights."'
Research into a physical source of these feelings is lacking.
"It does seem to be almost culturally universal that heterosexual men can have a deep repulsion to overt homosexuality," said Dean Hamer, scientist and author of "The Science of Desire: The Gay Gene and the Biology of Behavior."
"But there is no study I know of to ascertain whether this is a biologically based trait," Hamer said.
Simon LeVay agreed. He is a lecturer on neuroscience and author of "The Sexual Brain," a biological overview of sexuality.
"From a neurobiological basis, I just don't think this response has been researched at that level," LeVay said, "although it's something that should be."
Movie buff Hargreaves, who is straight and married, still isn't going to see "Brokeback Mountain." Not that there's anything wrong with that.
"To say that straight guys are missing out because they're unjustly turned off by the plot, well, there wasn't anything to turn them on in the first place," Hargreaves said. "At least `The English Patient' had a plane crash."
Jan. 5, 2006
(Dru Sefton can be contacted at dru.sefton@newhouse.com)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
You got that right! John Wayne would roll over in his grave!This is no cowboy movie. Don't they herd sheep?
Nope. Cowboys. They wear cowboy hats, not sheephearding robes and a big cane, they were cowboyboots, not sandals, and they enter rodeo's and ride (besides each other) bulls and broncs. Cowboy stuff. Cowboy- A hired man, especially in the western United States, who performs many of his duties on horseback. Also called cowman, cowpoke; Also called cowpuncher; also called regionally buckaroo, vaquero; Also called waddy.
You are so right - I have no desire to see this flick no matter "how good the acting."
Glad someone pointed out that these actors aren't playing cowboys - they're shepherds, and shepherds do get lonely, so have some damn sympathy already. From one of the reviews I read, these men have their little fling in a tent on the mountain and are freaked out by it like normal men would be. They go on with their lives and get married to unsuspecting women and have kids. Then they end up divorcing and abandoning their families because of what? That wonderful night of anal sex on Brokeback Mountain? And it is the Straight World's fault that they don't pursue their so-called love? Spare me.
This movie has one purpose and that is to change minds by evoking sympathy for unsympathetic behavior. As usual, the worst enemy of some gays is facing them in the mirror. We straights just don't care what you do. Please just leave us alone. Oh, I forgot - you have to recruit, don't you, because you cannot reproduce future partners for the Gay World.
My feelings on this movie take me back to the hullaballoo over the gay bishop of New Hampshire. This man declares he is gay. He divorced his wife, left his children, and moved his boyfriend in with him. And he thinks he is Bishop material -- no one should think anything is wrong with this picture. As Stossel says so well, Give me a Break! And not on a mountain....
It's just not my "thing", baby! Yeah....
You watch they'll try to give it every award known to man because they are morally bankrupt.
The western was the one place we thought they wouldn't shove this perverted life style in our face but knowing Homowood we should have known better.
I will never knowingly go to or watch in my home a movie such as this.
My Western Heroes never snuck up and and shot a man from the back, or in the behind.
What's next from Homowood, the cowboy hero who lassos, corrals and digs his spurs into the school marm's eight year old boy?
Or maybe the cowboy who really does make love to his horse and dog instead of the girl?
I hope and pray this thing and everybody associated with it lose so much money and credibility that they will have to pay people to come and see them in anything they do from now own.
A psychologist who coined the word "homophobic" said the revulsion is precisely that.
I'm afraid of nothing. Homosexuals are simply unnatural, immoral, disgusting, and oh yea, most of em are dead by 50.
Best line of the whole piece.
"Cowboys" don't herd sheep.
Yeah, the sooner we put these people in ovens, the better off we'll be.
Yea ? so how long you been a nazi ?
Saying they are dangerous to themselves and society is the truth you go to far with your little extermination rant !
Ping me to that suffix when you find it.
My ninety-year-old father-in-law likes cowboy stories. I wonder if he'd like this one?
OUCH!!!
LOL!
That said, the cake is WAY more than just the icing. The wrapping is pretty and flashy, but I bet no one in here is USING the wrapping paper under the tree from a week or so ago. I am fortunate to have a wife that is great to look at. After 27 years I can still make her blush by responding in truth to the queston "what are you thinking about?" with "You, naked."
22 Years here but i'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to my wife she still thrills chills and excite's and though she may not be one of these other beuties shes mine ! i don't know and can't fathom what i would do without her .
My point is how could anyone ahhh nevermind you know what i mean ! after all your a FReeper !
You got it. Anything that appeals to heterosexual males and their eyes is frowned upon and immediately censored.
I had a similar experience when I accidentally saw a movie called "Personal Best" with Mariel Hemingway.
Lots of flannel in the audience that night, and a parking lot full of Subarus.
"Whenever you go to see a movie, you are PAYING the Democrat/Socialist/Communist alliance. Just say no! :)"
I agree, and I've boycotted Gollywood movies for 15 years.
BTW, some tidbits on "liberal" Bush-Basher Streisand who may very well have help fund this pro-gay movie:
Howz about DISGUST!
Hell, I'm not even sure why women like us (I'm thankful they do!) ... we're repulsive!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.