Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Brokeback Mountain — But No Equal Rights

The radical middle: Will “Brokeback Mountain” change anything? Nah.
by Dennis Kempton
Reader Weekly, Issue 358, February 16, 2006
I swear if I hear one more person, gay or straight, tells me they were “powerfully moved” or “cried like a baby” or were “forever changed” by the movie Brokeback Mountain, I’m going to scream.  Yes, I said scream, reader. Pretty gay, huh?

Dennis Kempton makes some excellent points. Be sure to check out his entire article on the Reader Weekly site. Why should people be so moved by the doomed gay love affair in Brokeback Mountain? What? They didn’t think gay people could actually LOVE one another? They always figured it was just about kinky sex?

I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain. I have no interest in it. Romance movies don’t typically interest me — I’m more of a horror and sci-fi kind of gal. (Now, if the gay lovers were battling giant alien pseudo-pods… THAT’s a movie I might want to see!) The only possible good thing that I can imagine maybe coming out of Brokeback Mountain’s popularity is that it might help some people along in the process of thinking of homosexual people as just… people. People who, of course!, deserve the same rights heterosexual people enjoy. The more likely outcome, though, is that Brokeback Mountain will encourage straight people to think of gays as being like sweet, precious pets. Aren’t they adorable! They’re so… gay!

Sigh.

I can’t imagine most gay people want that.