Brokeback on the Hot Plate

"I don't want to spend my money and see a three hour movie about gay cowboys." - dude, the movie is 2 hours and 15 minutes. King Kong on the other hand IS three hours and is about a romance between a gorilla and a woman.

It seems so strange that more people are averse to Brokeback Mountain's romance than to King Kong's.

And I think Dave Cullen hit the nail on the head. It's not that Poland didn't like the movie that has annoyed so many people, it's that (from all appearances) he doesn't even think it is worth the time. As if homosexuals have no right to have a big epic romance made about them. So many people have said that if it weren't for the gay theme then nobody would care. And exactly, it IS about gay men and what they think, feel, do, etc. That's not up for discussion.

And so I think it is just irritating to many readers (gay men in particular) to hear (mostly) men disregard Brokeback as nothing important. As if it's just another soppy romance of no value.

But of course, we also have King Kong - apparently one of the greatest romances of our time. And that's between a freakin 800 pound gorilla and a human. But, aww, you can see the emotion in Naomi Watts' eyes!!!!!!

(this isn't a dig at Poland, btw - i'm just trying to express why I think so many are annoyed at Poland's views and the ones like it)

er, except that last bit. I still don't really get how people can believe Naomi Watts loved the gorilla as anything other than... well, a big giant ape. Surely she has SOME standards.

That was posted by me.

Having now seen the movie, I think DP's reaction can be attributed to his raging heterosexuality...simple lack of a identification with the characters, as opposed to any agenda or ignorance or anything such as that.

That was posted by jeffmcm

I find it sort of saddening that some people can identify with a giant ape falling for a human female (and vice versa!!) than they can a man falling in love with another man.

Really. If "lack of a identification with the character" was the only problem then... well... yeah.

That was posted by me. All consecutive posts over on this thread at the Hot Blog.

Not to say I'm great or anything, but aren't I on the right direction here. How can, in the year 2005, anyone claim to not be able to identify with two men falling in love, yet can praise King Kong's emotional core. IT'S A FUCKING GIANT GORILLA AND A HUMAN FEMALE!!!! If you can identify with that more than than two men (and it ain't the time period - Kong is set over 30 years before Brokeback at it's earliest) then you have something wrong.

And I really do think that David isn't a homophobe for not liking the movie. He has the right to like and dislike any movie he pleases, but it's just annoying when he can't even see past his opinions to acknowledge the affect that this movie is having. How much it actually means to a large majority of the gay film-loving population to have a film such as this. He expects us to all just carry on as if nothing particularly different is happening. "It's just another romantic drama" or whatever he'll say.

That may be, but if there was one about two lesbians that involved them getting naked while also creating a beautiful poetic love story they'd probably think it was revolutionary. It may very well be his hetero knee-jerk reaction, but to just disregard the film as nothing more than a regular film with nothing to offer, then... well, THAT is almost homophobic. To just think that we (gay film goers) should deal with the fact that movies such as this aren't made often (or particularly well for the most part) and get back to caring about HETEROSEXUAL romances such as Walk The Line or whatever (a perfectly good movie i'm sure) is grotesque.