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.
I thought the idea was revolting, and I'm a straight female.
Think I'll pass.
It's the same school of thought that produces Robbins/Sarandon crying about being formally blacklisted when people choose not to see their liberal treasonous hippie crap.
"I'm a chick and I HATED The Bridges of Madison County.
It was a horrible, boring movie, notwithstanding the whole cheating on your husband thing"
Ahh a woman with good taste... where were you when I was single? :)
YUP!
Now, Steve McQueen was a great actor. But would he have accepted this role? "Okay, Steve, now you make out with John Wayne . . . that's right . . . you really dig it . . . now reach around there and . . . woah!"
Yes - that is true, but there are also corresponding sexual disorders too - erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, etc. (of course, I would have no personal experience with these!)
You may think that the primary purpose of sex is achieving orgasm, but that is supposed to be a means of aiding the reproductive process, whose end is the survival of the species.
Again - that's true, but we do use birth control pills, IUDs, condoms and the "rhythm method" to bypass the reproductive process.
NOT if he stinks like sheep!
Having spent many years living in Montana, I just don't see BrokeBack as being a big pull with Montana males. More to the point: why is an aversion to homosexuality always twisted into a phobia. A phobia is an irrational, abnormal, persistent fear of situations, objects, activities, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject. Phobia was originally a clinical term that has mutated into a substitute for dislike or aversion. I hereby declare that most people are homoaversive, they are not afflicted with a phobia.
This man's an idiot. Sam Kinnison said it best,
"Somebody tell me how one man looks at another man's hairy a$$ and finds love. How does that happen?"
I would imagine, for a stone homosexual, the idea of hetero sex would produce as strong an 'ick' factor.
Regardless, what self-respecting hetero is going to part with $9.50 to watch one man bugger another?
For the same reason that there are no black racists. Apparently we're idiots because we just can't get into the utter rejection of marriage, and love between two adult males. We should revel in the way these two men fill the empty hours out tending sheep by having sex together.
It's just too much. Hollywood is no longer a money making sort of enterprise.
"They've got to stop calling these homos cowboys! They have sheep, not cows. And we don't want to have anything to do with that!"
"Sorry pal. They are cowboys. They wear cowboy hats, cpwboy boots and ride (besides each other) horses. They even go to rodeo's and ride broncs and bulls, cowboy stuff." You are wrong also, they are not Cowboys or Sheepherders or Sheepboys they are TURD HERDERS!
Buttcrack mountain.
Lol! Or queers....or fags..... :)
bump with no comment.
"The author of "The Sexual Brain" said there is nothing on a neurobiological basis to explain the aversion. "
Well then, maybe there is more to people than just neurobiology? Ever think of that smart guy?
You know what time it is when a sheep gets stuck on a fence in Wyoming?
It's Mountain Time.
I bet he's wrong, anyway. All our experience tells us that if a characteristic is universal across cultures, as he says the heterosexual male aversion to homosexuality is, it's probably hard-wired.
Well, he and his "fiancee" --it's Hollywood, what do you expect--Michelle Williams just became the proud parents of baby Matilda, so his sexuality probably isn't in question.
And if it is, what a waste of a beautiful man! My copy of A Knight's Tale is almost worn out!!!
(I know this gossip because I recently had to take a plane and I read the trashy gossip rags to make the time go by! ;-)
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