Reviewing the Brokeback story, so far

December 24, 2005 By

oscar statuesThis post is really late and I apologize for that. However, I have not been anxious to get back into the Brokeback Hollywood story. However, it is clearly not going away. I told the folks at Poynter.org — in an email poll they sent me — that I think it’s going to be one of the three or four hottest religion/cultural stories of the year in 2006.

More than one friend of mine out on the left coast has said that “Brokeback Mountain” is a dead lock for the best-picture Oscar, in part because the competition is so weak and all of the true blockbusters this year are films for young people that the academy will laugh at.

One thing is certain, it’s going to be a very political year at the Oscars. Forget Brokeback Mania for a moment. Here is USA Today on the political atmosphere right now:

Take a look at the early front-runners, and most aren’t pulling any punches. Syriana is a searing take on the relationship among the U.S. government, oil companies and Mideast leadership. Good Night, and Good Luck is an examination of the press’ will to stand up against big government. Munich takes a cold look at eye-for-an-eye justice when it comes to terrorism.

“Politics are all around us, you can’t escape it,” says Jeff Goldstein, a distribution executive with Warner Bros., which released Syriana. “It’s natural that the best movies are going to reflect what’s going on in people’s everyday lives.”

Politics? Right now that means the war and religion (and or social issues).

So back to Brokeback. According to most people, the film is a quality piece of work and has layers that are not showing up in the cheerleader MSM reviews. And then there is the short story itself, with the hints that each man was, as a child, abused and in some way bent.

Will all of this turn political somehow in the age of blogs, listservs, fundraising lists and talk radio/television? Is water wet? Is fire hot?

We can see the complexity of this situation in the reviews of the film that are starting to emerge from religious publications and organizations.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for example, had much to say about “Brokeback Mountain” and most of it was positive. This resulted in a “L” (limited) rating that said the film was for mature viewers, but was not morally offensive in and of itself. Sure enough, that started a firestorm in an age when the Vatican is learning to read its emails and follow the blogs.

Thus, the rating was changed to an “O” (offensive). As you would expect, Andrew Sullivan is not amused.

Then there is this review from Christianity Today, which dances through some of the same minefields of quality, politics and moral theology. This is not a positive evaluation of the movie, at all. But the fact that it has ANYTHING positive to say could lead to pull quotes in magazines and websites that are more conservative than the CT circle.

And there is the heart of the story that is going to have legs.

Can anyone conservative say anything positive about the film at all, even while debating it? Will anyone in the Kingdom of Hollywood be allowed to raise critical questions about the movie or the wisdom of declaring it to be the gay (or bisexual) Gone With The Wind?

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Filed Under: Film, Pop Culture, Social Issues
About TMatt

Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

  • Stephen A.

    It’s probably the best bi-sexual shepherd movie ever made.

    There. Positive enough for you? I’ll write more when I accidentally see part of it on cable TV in a couple of years (“with limited commercial interruption,” for this “important” film, no doubt.)

    As for the Catholic review, is it surprising that some liberal American Catholics managed to sneak in a positive/neutral review of this film? No.

    Is it surprising that the current spate of films manages to bash political conservatives and target the Bush administration? No. Will it be surprising when liberals on this board recoil in horror at the suggestion that films are in any way political. Nope.

  • http://BUSY Deacon John M. Bresnahan

    One thing is becoming more and more certain -with so many clearly Christian movies (Lord of the Rings, Passion of the Christ, Narnia) making so much money–Hollywood does not follow the money as so many defenders of Hollywood decadence have claimed. Rather,Hollywood is appearing more and more as a place where the decadent and immoral (in traditional Judeo-Christian moral eyes) denizens of the place are more interested in evangelizing America and the world to its moral degeneracy instead of simply making money. Or maybe, Hollywood is doing both:::raking in the dough from Christans and then using it to bash Christian morals and ethics (in an artistic way, of course).

  • http://blogs.salon.com/0003494/ Bartholomew

    That’s right – the people who made the movie are evil, and it’s all a plot against Christian values. Thank God we’ve got Ted Baehr and the Vatican to tell us what to watch.

    Merry Christmas.

  • Daniel

    Of course they are political movies. We live in a political climate dominated by conservatives. Our government is dominated by conservatives, our foreign and domestic policy is dominated by conservatives, social conservatives are exerting inreasing power and influence (who would have imagined we would still be debating creationism in 2005). One cannot turn around without being innudated with conservative social messages and God-talk.

    Given that environment, of course artists are going to question the status quo. That’s the role of art–and at one time, religion. We are in the midst of unpopular war that has religious tension as a subtext. Why wouldn’t artists be responding to that kind of environment.

    I’m a Christian and am conservative in many ways. But I don’t think it is all surprising that the media and the arts are reacting to the conservative power and influence in this country.

  • John

    I doubt Gibson will turn the profits from “The Passion of the Christ” around and put them into anything degenerate. The makers of Narnia, on the other hand…

    BTW: Merry Christmas to all!

  • shari

    I am a christian conservatiev and i have nothing positive to say about a gay cowboy movie.

  • http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com Peter T Chattaway

    Whatever the Narnia movie is, it is not “clearly Christian” — it does too good a job of systematically depriving Aslan of his divinity and turning him into little more than a furry Jedi Knight, while allowing much of his thunder to be stolen by the Pevensies (it is they, not Aslan, who are now credited with bringing “hope” to Narnia) and the White Witch (who is far more powerful and in-control here than she was in Lewis’s book).

    Yeah, sure, Aslan dies and comes back to life — just like Spock, Neo, Gandalf, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and various other characters. But the film makes no reference whatsoever to his father the Emperor Beyond the Sea, or to the Deeper Magic that goes back to before the dawn of time, etc.

    As for whether Hollywood is “following the money” — well, first of all, Americans aren’t the only ones who go to movies, and a number of films do a heck of a lot better overseas than they do in the United States; conversely, films that cater to the evangelical audience often do less well, proportionately, overseas than they do in the United States.

    Beyond that, Brokeback Mountain reportedly cost only about $14 million to make — unlike that unbelievably expensive Narnia movie (which had a budget nearly equal to two Lord of the Rings films combined and delivered only half the entertainment or mythological value, if that) — and is halfway to making its money back already based on domestic receipts alone.

    I know some Christians like to argue that there is some sort of connection between a movie’s moral worth and whether or not it achieves worldly blockbuster bragging rights, but this argument has never made sense to me.

  • http://wildfaith.blogspot.com/ Darrell Grizzle

    Peter, you’re right about the movie not referencing the Emperor Beyond the Sea (as far as I remember), but I clearly recall two mentions of “the Deeper Magic that goes back to before the dawn of time.” And you’re right, the White Witch was shown as way too powerful in the movie — it came across as though Aslan were paying ransom to her, rather than making a willing sacrifice.

  • Daniel

    If only we as Christians spent as much time criticizing movies about greed, war, and wealth (which are all clearly condemned in the Bible) as opposed to worrying about homosexuality, which is barely a blip on the Bible radar.

  • http://www.joe-perez.com/ Joe Perez

    “Will anyone in the Kingdom of Hollywood be allowed to raise critical questions about the movie or the wisdom of declaring it to be the gay (or bisexual) Gone With The Wind?” I’d rather the last question of this blog had said: “Will anyone in the Kingdom of Hollywood be allowed to fully acknowledge the movie’s emotional and sexual complexities or will they become political cheerleaders for a ‘message movie’?” (Plenty of folks have raised critical issues with the film, even as they have no interest in the sort of “moral criticism” that conservative Christians find so overwhelmingly important. Personally, with only one minor exception, I find conservative religionist commentary on the movie to be so far removed from reality it’s a virtual self parody.)

  • http://agrumer.livejournal.com/ Avram

    Wait, Peter, Obi-Wan doesn’t come back to life. His spirit hangs around, visible only to Luke, but he isn’t restored to physical, bodily life. There’d be no wound for a Doubting Thomas to poke a finger into.

    On the other hand, his physical body just vanishes at the moment of death. I dunno what the deal is there.

  • http://www.getreligion.org Mollie

    I thought that Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer had a thoughtful review critical of Brokeback Mountain. I can’t find the full review online but here’s the excerpt from RottenTomatoes.com:
    “I was never moved or even overly excited by what I finally witnessed on the screen, though I have no quarrel with the superlatives heaped upon the film by most of my colleagues.”

  • Michael

    Michael Medved, the posterboy of conservative Hollywood, also said the film deserved all the accolades it was receiving even though he disagreed with the moral lessons. He said on CNN that it was a beautifully made movie with wonderful acting.

  • Stephen A.

    Joe, the problem is that many critics are portraying this film as THE film of 2005, when it likely was just “a” film.

    The fact that it’s a film with a gay theme makes it the “MOST IMPORTANT FILM OF THE YEAR” to Hollywood elites, which is of course, a ludicrous statement for them to make, but one that is repeated ad nasueum, so we are supposed to assume it must be true.

    I think the rising backlash against the film is this blind praising of the film way out of proportion.

    And whether Medved liked the cinematography or not, that’s beside the point. He clearly and strongly condemned the film’s message, which is, arguably, the only reason this film got made in the first place, and said it was an assault on marraige, since this “cowboy/cowboy” affair legitimizes the breaking up of two hetro marraiges.

    Oh, and I found another “Blunt” headline:
    “The Last Temptation Of Hollywood: Homos On The Range”

    Ouch.

  • http://www.joe-perez.com/ Joe Perez

    Stephen A.: Judging from the consensus of msintream critics, it looks like Brokeback Mountain is one of the best films of the year. You don’t have to like that, but please… blaming the unanimity of praise as a justification for conservative backlash is just plain dopey. Conservatives would express their views just the same, even if liberals loved the film half as much. And since many of these critics have unfortunately confused whiny moralizing with bona fide criticism, they would be roundly ignored by most thinking people. I’ve read quite a few conservative opinion pieces on Brokeback Mountain, and it’s a rare bird who says anything more intelligent than “don’t go see this film, because homosex is wrong.” I’m surprised they gaven’t reduced King Kong’s “moral lessons” to “don’t do bestiality, it’s wrong. And the beast will fall off the Empire State Building.”

  • Michael

    - Don’t see Michelangelo’s David — it’s designed to promote homosex.

    - Don’t see the Sound of Music, it promotes a positive light on broken families.

  • Stephen A.

    Oh, you folks are SOooo funny in your retorts. Gosh, us Luddite/neoPuritans can barely contain our bigotry toward this “movie of the year.” We should all just shut up about it, just like you folks did about that “antisemetic” Passion of the Christ film last year, right?

    Again I say – it’s hard to see your own biases when you want so desperately to see unanimous adulation.

  • Michael

    “it’s hard to see your own biases when you want so desperately to see unanimous adulation.”

    Fair enough, but this works both ways. See “The War on Christmas” as an example of needing unanimous adulation for your beliefs that everyone should be saying “Merry Christmas”. Add: prayer in schools, religious symbols on public property, boycotts of public companies that won’t endorse your values.

    Stir, shake, repeat.

  • http://www.joe-perez.com/ Joe Perez

    I never called you a Neo-Luddite, neo-Puritan, a bigot, nor did I tell you to shut up. And *I* for one wrote a glowing, emotional review of The Passion on my blog.

    So I take it you aren’t actually responding to me, but just listening to the sound of your own voice echoing down the deep well that is, apparently, your own need for unanimous adulation. Personally, I would be a little sad to see religious conservatives stop writing horrible reviews of Brokeback Mountain. I get a little too much enjoyment out of my gleeful mockery.

  • http://BILL Dan

    The gist of the conservatives reviews that I’ve read is that the movie is well made but morally bankrupt. This seems to me a reasonable type of thing to say. The liberal reviewers agree that the film is well made and then go on to express glee that sodomy has gone mainstream and is being foisted on the public at large. The liberals’ enthusiams form the film is a striking example of the degree to which the liberal/left has made an idol of sex. The unstated agenda of course is to preserve heterosexuals’ liberty to bed hop and the abortion license that is necessary to that liberty. If sodomy is mainstream and celebrated, the thinking goes, how much harder it will be to ever return to the bad old days when pre-marital sex was seen as immoral and killing children in the womb was considered wrong.

  • http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com Peter T Chattaway

    Darrell Grizzle wrote:

    Peter, you’re right about the movie not referencing the Emperor Beyond the Sea (as far as I remember), but I clearly recall two mentions of “the Deeper Magic that goes back to before the dawn of time.”

    No, what you recall are references to the merely Deep Magic — which, in the book, is a specific contract giving certain powers to the White Witch, but in the film, has become some sort of Force-like mystical entity that “governs” everyone’s “destinies”, including Aslan’s. (FWIW, I owe the Force analogy to my colleague Jeffrey Overstreet.) This is why I sometimes say the film has reduced Aslan from a God to a Jedi Knight.

    In the book, the “Deeper Magic that goes back to before the dawn of time” was something that only Aslan knew about, and his knowledge of it was a scene of his divine omniscience. But, like so many other signs of Aslan’s divine supremacy over the Witch, this too has been eliminated from the film, and in its place, Aslan now merely says that he had a better interpretation of the “Deep Magic” than the Witch did. As one of the producers reportedly put it at the film’s junket, Aslan did a better job of “figuring out” the Deep Magic.

    Avram wrote:

    Wait, Peter, Obi-Wan doesn’t come back to life. His spirit hangs around, visible only to Luke, but he isn’t restored to physical, bodily life. There’d be no wound for a Doubting Thomas to poke a finger into.

    On the other hand, his physical body just vanishes at the moment of death. I dunno what the deal is there.

    Well, if you listen closely to the very end of Episode III, you will hear Yoda tell Obi-Wan Kenobi that Qui-Gon Jinn — who died and was cremated in Episode I — has “learned the path to immorality”. Yoda goes on to say that Qui-Gon “has returned from the netherworld of the Force.” Yoda promises to teach Obi-Wan how to “commune” with Qui-Gon, and presumably the bodies of both Yoda and Obi-Wan disappear when they die in Episodes IV and VI because they have learned from Qui-Gon how to pass into “immortality”.

    So, in other words, Obi-Wan and Yoda do not “die” the way that everyone else in those movies dies.

    But that’s totally geekish and off-topic now, I guess.

  • Pingback: CaNN :: We started it.

  • Michael

    From “friend of the blog” Rod Dreher at the National Review Online

    I LIKED “BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN” [Rod Dreher]
    Don’t believe the hype! It’s a good (not great) work of art that is not at all the propaganda tract that both its amen chorus on the left and their antagonists on the right claim. As I write in my column today, it does what Flannery O’Connor says true art does, which is to make “concrete details of life that make actual the mystery of our position here on earth”

  • Stephen A.

    Michael: Personally, I actually would not have been offended (and wasn’t) receiving a “happy holidays” greeting this season. Most liberals missed the entire point here: it was all about countering an active movement to cleanse religion from the public square, not about “forcing” religion onto others – a commonly parroted line by the religious/political Left that’s kind of silly.

    As for boycotts and the other activism being done on the Right, are conservatives forbidden from activism and speaking out, while Leftist groups supporting animal rights and radical environmentalism (for example) get to do so without being questioned? Double standard.

    Joe: Not talking down a well, just talking to a liberal, which is the same thing, apparently. I was also using sarcasm, which is beyond some people, I guess.

    You say, “I never called you a Neo-Luddite, neo-Puritan, a bigot, nor did I tell you to shut up.”

    Well, yeah, you kinda did.

    Be aware that you had just spent a great deal of time in the previous post -

    1) implying that so-called “mainstream” critics had a “unanimity of praise” for the film, thus proving my point about liberal myopia and the tendency for elites to believe they ARE the mainstream, and everyone else is out of step (hense, my “unanimous adulation” comment both you and Joe flipped out about) and…

    2) contrasting “thinking people” with those who use “whiny moralizing,” and say nothing “more intelligent than ‘don’t go see this film, because homosex is wrong.’” Thus, your implication that conservatives are pretty much stupid, unthinking drones (I used the word ‘neoLuddites.’ Granted, you didn’t use that *exact* word. Thanks for that, anyway.)

  • http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com Peter T Chattaway

    Joe Perez wrote:

    I’ve read quite a few conservative opinion pieces on Brokeback Mountain, and it’s a rare bird who says anything more intelligent than “don’t go see this film, because homosex is wrong.” . . .

    Personally, I would be a little sad to see religious conservatives stop writing horrible reviews of Brokeback Mountain. I get a little too much enjoyment out of my gleeful mockery.

    Point of clarification: “Opinion pieces” and “reviews” are two different things. “Opinion pieces” generally go in the “Editorials” section of the newspaper and focus on the broader social or political themes that are raised by a film or other work of art, while “reviews” generally go in the “Arts & Entertainment” section of the newspaper and focus on the artistic merits (as well as perhaps the possible ramifications thereof) of a film or other work of art.

    While that may seem like nitpicking to the layman, it’s the sort of nitpicking that is particularly appropriate on a blog devoted to the study of journalism, I’d say. And while a number of conservative reactionaries may be saying all the things we expect them to say about Brokeback Mountain in their opinion pieces, Christian film critics have generally been more balanced and cautious in their actual film reviews (as the New York Times recently noted).

    A noteworthy exception here may be the folks at Movieguide, but if memory serves, “Dr.” Ted Baehr once said, after another magazine ran an article pointing out that he accepts money to promote certain films and is therefore in something of a conflict of interest, that his magazine doesn’t really write “reviews”. His rationale was that his organization is something of an activist lobbying group. So, following the definitions I just provided, I guess he’d fall more on the “opinion pieces” side of things.

  • http://cinecon.blogspot.com Victor Morton

    Actually, Steve, everything Joe Perez says to those Religionistsâ„¢ stuck on the Lower Level of Evolved Integralismâ„¢ always, already and necessarily comes packaged in the word “Luddite” (and/or such linguistic kissing siblings as “backward,” “unevolved” and “limited”).

  • Eric Phillips

    Peter,

    In the Narnia movie, Aslan does say, “I was there when [the Deep Magic] was written.”

    That is a claim to divinity.

  • http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com Peter T Chattaway

    In the Narnia movie, Aslan does say, “I was there when [the Deep Magic] was written.”

    That is a claim to divinity.

    Not really, no, it isn’t. Because, of course, the Deep Magic confers special powers on the White Witch, which would seem to indicate that she, too, was there in the very beginning (as indeed she was, as we learn in The Magician’s Nephew). So if Aslan’s angry outburst — found nowhere in the book — indicates that he is divine, then the Witch must be divine too.