The American Spectator

Special Report

I confess, I am a "High-Grade Non-Homophobic." There, done! Out of the closet at last! I took the homophobia test yesterday and achieved a score of 17, thus putting me in the category of "high-grade non-homophobic," the average score for white, male college students being around 30 (lower is better). The test was developed by Lester W. Wright, Henry E. Adams, and Jeffrey Bernat, and appeared in an article entitled "Development and Validation of the Homophobia Scale," in the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, Vol. 21, (1999), No. 4, pp. 337-347. You too can take the test if you are brave enough (click here).

Although it is always flattering to be acknowledged as a high-grade anything, I thought important to first establish my bona fides before saying the controversial things that I am about to say about Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx, and gayness.

How was I able to achieve such a benign attitude towards homosexuals and homosexuality? Perhaps it is my age. I am ripe -- some would say over-ripe -- and ripeness sometimes brings with it a degree of humility when it comes to knowing what is right and true. Another factor might be that as a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist and teacher of such young professionals I have had many opportunities to treat and supervise the treatment of homosexuals -- those conflicted about their homosexuality and those unconflicted about their sexuality but unhappy about other aspects of their lives. In the course of these many clinical experiences I was able to learn much about the individual psychology and development of homosexuals and the sociology of the gay life.

p>"Best picture of the year!" br> "Unmissable and unforgettable!" br> "Big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center." br> "A big sweeping and rapturous Hollywood love story!" br> "Hollywood's first openly gay western." br> "Epic love story!" br> "A story of forbidden love." /p>

For a movie with such rapturous reviews, seven Golden Globe nominations, full page advertisements, two of Hollywood's newest and brightest stars, a cast of thousands (of sheep), the great mountains of Wyoming (Canada, really), gorgeous Big Sky country, Brokeback Mountain turns out to be a disappointingly small movie. Its mise-en-scene wears the story just as surely as Jake Gyllenhaal's black cowboy hat wears him rather than the other way round.

It's about the size of, say, My Beautiful Laundrette, of a generation ago, in which two young men kiss and make love on screen in a context of social and racial struggle. Controversial in its time, it is now a classic. And no doubt Brokeback will win prizes and become a small classic for its niche audience, if for no other reason. The performances are fine and the young men have taken risks for their career, and Hollywood always rewards young actors for taking risks in the service of homosexual values.

It is a movie in which two movie stars pretending to be two poor, dumb, young ranch hands, forced to be alone and isolated with each other for a couple of months, find themselves having sex, which turns out to have tragic consequences. Based on a prize-winning story by Annie Proulx, one of the problems with the movie is that the screen writers are too respectful of Proulx's story. It is this fidelity to the short story that makes this film, with its awe-inspiring backdrop, seem so small. The story is characterized by emotional minimalism -- the young men, Jack and Ennis, are barely articulate even at emotional high points. Much is communicated by silence or enigmatic looks and shrugs. This may work well in short fiction, but the art of writing a short story is different from the art of writing a movie. And after all a short story can only go so far in developing character and creating dramatic conflict.

ANNIE PROULX (PRONOUNCED PROO) IS, without a doubt, a first-rate writer. And "Brokeback Mountain" is a good but flawed story. Its flaws emerge out of its origins. "Brokeback began as an examination of country homophobia in the land of the Great Pure Noble Cowboy," Proulx says in a recent essay. The use of the word "homophobia" in her explanation (about which more later) and the ambivalence towards men expressed in the sarcasm "the land of the Great Pure Noble Cowboy" is expressed more subtly in her story and more flagrantly in the movie that was made from it. Her grievances with men, or at least men who live by "white masculine values," as she calls them, profoundly influence "Brokeback Mountain." Perhaps her own personal disappointments with men may have played a part in this, perhaps not. She was married three times, the last "...ended in amiable divorce twenty years later after a long separation, and we remain friends. It gradually dawned on me that I am not well-suited for marriage."

topics:
Education, Television, Hollywood, Law