Risky Business
No, not that movie. I'm talking (as we all are) about Brokeback Mountain. And although my HTML skills are good enough to make a link to the movie site, I won't. Because you see, I'm one of those fags who's not going to see this film.
Here's why - and I'll try to lay out my problems logically:
I'm utterly bothered by how both Heath & Jake in every single interview that I've seen, or at least that I saw/read prior to giving up in disgust, about the film has included some reference by them or the interviewer to their unassailable heterosexuality. I'm bothered by the fact that when playing a murderer or an elf, or a pedophile there are no such caveats. Nobody thinks that an Charlise Theron went home after a nice day on the set of Monster and murdered johns in south Florida. Most people assumed, in fact, that it was a great leap to play that role, and that she was a great actor for making us beleive something that was patently untrue.
I googled the words "Heath Ledger" and "Risky" and found 32,600 hits, all (or at least the first few pages and I'd wager the whole list) referring to this movie. Here's a quote from a infotainment website that captures both he "oh no he's straight" and the "risky performance" problem
"Heath Ledger has a baby, Oscar buzz for his risky Brokeback Mountain role, and
a home far from Hollywood..."
I won't go see a movie that is created by a bunch of people that view playing me (were I a cowboy) as risky.
Now I know that some would argue that well it is risky. That we live in a world, and they work in a profession, that is so terrified of 'gay' that it actually is a risk to play gay. Well fuck that. Seriously. fuck that shit for what it is: bullshit, 'we'll take what they give us and be glad of it' Uncle Tom-ism. When we let them get away with calling us risky, and even commend them for taking such risks, we acknowledge that it is risky. And in that we cede all our power.
Frankly if we wanted any power, we'd take it. And we don't. Rosa Parks said "fuck that" and so should we. Bert blogged recently about the fact that fats and fags are the only things we can still joke about and that's wrong. It's also wrong of us to accept movies like this, which are meant to be all forward thinking and liberal, but which merely reinforce 'gay' as something to be afraid of (playing and being).
And the fact that Hollywood is populated by more fags than an Elton John concert makes it even more sickening. I for one will wait to see the inevitable porn movie that will come out, probably by Colt, called (i'm sure) Bareback Mountain. At least when that's released we won't have to listen to the stars going on about how they disucessed the love scenes with their WIVES before taking the role.
