February 2, 2006
I'm a Conservative, and I Liked 'Brokeback Mountain'
By Mark
Davis
I'd like
to call to order this meeting of a group of an uncertain size:
Conservatives Who Saw Brokeback Mountain and Thought It Was Good.
Before we
elect officers, we have to deal with our plight. I'll start with
my own story.
I couldn't
care less if someone is gay. I have known more than a few gay
people, and some have been friends. Their sex lives are as irrelevant
to me as the sex lives of my heterosexual friends.
I oppose
certain elements of what's commonly called the gay political agenda.
I do not believe it is a moral or legal necessity for any state
to recognize gay marriage. I do not believe companies are duty-bound
to offer same-sex benefits.
I am a great
skeptic of gay adoption, believing that the ideal for any child
is to be raised by a mother and a father. And I believe it is
outright morally objectionable for lesbians to intentionally create
a baby they know will be fatherless.
This has
led many to wonder how on God's earth I could even think of seeing
Brokeback, much less admire it.
The answer
is fairly simple. Repeat after me:
It's ...
a ... movie.
I saw Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when I was 12. At no point did I
feel that Paul Newman, Robert Redford and director George Roy
Hill were trying to make me admire bank robbery.
Butch and
Sundance were dashing figures, and we were supposed to root for
them, and I did. A couple of counselors could probably fill their
days with that moral dilemma.
But they
won't. Why? Because it's a movie.
Brokeback
arrives in the midst of a popular culture that is heavily loaded
with political agendas. Our movies and TV portray far more gay
people than naturally occur in the population.
This creates
an atmosphere ripe for skepticism, if not knee-jerk revulsion.
Upon hearing that a movie was on the way about 1960s gay sheepherders,
one could be forgiven for a groaning anticipation of the worst
kind of Hollywood preachiness.
It doesn't
happen.
We've all
been to movies written with agenda dripping from nearly every
line: stories where every Indian is a saint and every white man
is a devil, every corporate bigwig is a pig and every whistleblower
a hero. You could make your own list.
Sometimes
a thick agenda cripples a film, sometimes not. In the realm of
movies about sexual orientation, Philadelphia immersed us in AIDS
awareness in 1993, winning Oscars and worthy praise in the process.
A steeper hill faces Transamerica, a film out right now featuring
Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives as a pre-op transsexual
who discovers he has a teenage son before the surgery. Ms. Huffman
has said she hopes the film sparks empathy for people who feel
trapped in a body of the wrong gender.
We'll see
about that. I tend to think these are tortured souls who ought
to examine every avenue of professional help before going under
the knife, but the movie sounds interesting. Does this mean I
am now a card-carrying member of the transgender lobby?
Brokeback
has brought out an unattractive snap judgment instinct in millions.
While my main point is that conservative credentials do not require
hostility toward the movie, nor is it fair to label those wishing
to avoid it as raging homophobes.
There are
very few frames of gay sex in the movie. There is, in fact, very
little on-screen affection between Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and
Ennis (Heath Ledger). What you see a lot of is the living hell
they go through as a result of their plight. You see them betray
their wives and kids. You see them miserable.
There are
no cartoonish villains designed to prod you to their side. You
simply see a story of great complexity, which you may admire as
a film or not.
I did. Guilty
as charged. I don't care if anybody else likes it, but I need
everybody to get off my back – as if embracing this film
as art means I share the politics of those who admire it for other
reasons.
Mark
Davis is a columnist for the Dallas
Morning News.
The Mark Davis
Show is heard weekdays nationwide on the ABC Radio Network.
His e-mail address is mdavis@wbap.com.
