The Gay Agenda in films.....

Well, before I went to teach on Friday I inquired with the school as to an emergency loan.  It would have been nice if one of the people I had spoken with on the previous day had mentioned this, but they do have small emergency loans.  I only sold one book in the end, which fetched $70.  That plus the loan should help get me through.  But I still don't have rent money and right now, I'm just avoiding calls from my landlord.  If the money comes through next Friday, I can shoot her a $3000 check for rent for four months.  I'm going to write a letter of complaint to the university.

Anyway, other than that, I slept late today and walked to downtown Northampton where I whiled away the day reading.  Nothing much.  I'm fearful that I can't write right now.  Nothing like finances to kill one's buzz, eh? You'd think one would get used to poverty after a while, but you don't.

Last night I went to see two movies (for the price of one...yes, I snuck into the 2nd one).  Capote and The Matador.  Loved Capote.  I mentioned this to a Northampton local today at a coffee shop and he sneered and said, "oh, another one of them gay movies."

What the fuck is up with homophobes?  First of all, it's a huge turn off.  If I was dating a guy that wouldn't see Capote because it had gays in it, I would dump him.  Just like that.  Why?  Because I would assume he was gay and not dealing with it.  Or, worse, that he subscribed to some deeper agenda he wasn't letting onto with me.

Anyway, Phillip Seymore Hoffman turned in an incredible performance. Great film.  I also liked Brokeback Mountian, even though it seems to be the "in thing" to pick it apart right now and find fault with it.  Not because of its gay theme, but more I suspect that others think people are praising it based on agenda thinking alone.  And ripping it apart as a story makes them seem above this agenda based thinking.  Hell, what can I say except I sort of reached this conclusion because I saw the movie and absolutely loved it.  I liked Ang Lee's subtlety.  I love the landscape.  How it was shot.  the sense of place that was infused into the film.  The acting was off the charts and the story was heartbreaking.  Someone said it was "not glued together well enough" for instance.  I just don't get it.  I thought it was tied together really well.

Anyway, feel free to disagree with me.  I'm curious as to what people really do think about these films and about the reactions of others to the "gay agenda".  Are men fearful of it?  Why?  Why are people so threatened by gays?

Of course this isn't the reaction everyone is having.  Charles Barclay, macho basketball player and all around rebel said the other day on a sports talk show (now consider the audience) that he had "a lot of gay friends, God Bless them all" and no he hadn't seen Brokeback Mountain.  The reason why is because he just doesn't care for the genre of love stories.  He said, "now if they had a couple of gay guys in a kung fu movie that also fell inlove, I'd have no problem seeing the film, 'cause I love kung fu"  He then repeated "God Bless all my gay friends.  I don't know where I'd be without them."

Pretty fucking brave.  It at least gave me some amount of hope that some men could actually be men about all this.

Comments

[Limey]

Well I haven't seen the film and so can't comment on that. I'm also unclear as to what the gay agenda is.

I don't think that I am homophobic. But I don't feel comfortable watching two chaps snogging each other. Actually, I get slightly uncomfortable watching men and women snogging and being lovey dovey all over each other on film. Repressed english and what not.

Though having said that Im very comfortable watching two women snog.

I suspect that I have enormous double standards

[Oedipa]

Fair enough Limey. I should state I'm not trying to judge anyone's squeamish nature if they aren't used to seeing something. But people who outright sneer at a movie because it has gays in it is rude, don't you think? Anyway, there is very little man to man action in this film (none at all in Capote in fact). In fact, there is waaaayyyy more hetero action with two hot babes featured topless. So....I dunno. Hell, the story is a tragedy. That's all. To simplify it to a "gay cowboy movie" is a crude simplification and reflects unintelligence (if the person doing the simplification has seen the film).

Anyway, thanks for being brave enough to step up to the plate and comment on this Limey.

[pea]

Shoot, all I can say is that I agree with you Oedipa, and I don't know what *is* up with all the homophobes, but their reactions seem juvenile and uninformed.

What did you think of The Matador?

[King Of the Hill]

Yeah, but Ang Lee himself has admitted that the "Gay Cowboy" theme was deliberately hyped in order to create interest in the pre-publicity. It certainly seems to have worked. I still don't want to see two fellows getting down with each other, and I still don't think I'm a homophobe. Which rather begs the question: "What am !???"

[Oedipa]

Well, Ang Lee may have, but it caught everyone by surprise how popular this film became. Like I said, there's very little of the "men getting down" with each other in the film too. There's more men on women action in my opinion. I think it's a shame people would avoid the film over this one detail. It seems to be a film about much more than gay cowboys. Sigh. I just don't know. Maybe it's because my grandmother knew so many gay men when I was growing up, I just never thought anything was wrong with it nor did I ever think to be squeamish. And my granddad was a cowboy. He made his own horse shoes in the barn at a forge, he bred Arabians, he rode in the mounted sherrifs patrol, drove an old Chevy and was a retired Navy guy. And he never had a problem with gays coming by to the house for dinner with us. He was a cool guy. Died with his boots on watching a baseball game, a Winston smoldering in the ashtray next to him. Lung disease.