Michael Medved on Brokeback Mountain: No One's a Bigger Idiot?

Religious conservatives are having a hard time dealing with the popularity - critical as well as general - of the movie Brokeback Mountain. Many of those leveling trenchant criticisms against the movie haven't even seen it. Michael Medved, a movie critic, has seen Brokeback Mountain but his criticisms have an air of desperation about them.

James Wolcott notes that when the movie was first released, Medved said one thing:

“I’m very proud that conservatives have not taken up the cudgels against Brokeback Mountain. There’s a recognition that most of the people on whom they could have any influence are not going to see this movie, anyway.”

Now that it’s gaining critical and popular traction, however, he has changed his tune:

Unable to impugn the movie on the caliber of its acting, directing, etc, he’s reduced to whining that the film hasn’t been “honestly advertised,” as if he were some consumer advocate. Medved must think moviegoers are bigger idiots than he is. He couldn’t be more wrong. Nobody’s a bigger idiot than he is.

Except for the cranky patriarch in Boondocks (and he’s a cartoon character), everybody knows that Brokeback is that “gay cowboy” movie. (And yes I know they’re not technically cowboys, they’re sheepherders, go away, don’t bother me.) There are no recorded incidents of someone being lured into the cineplex under false pretenses and coming out Gay.

Medved has complained not only about Brokeback Mountain won awards at the Golden Globe ceremonies, but also that other movies involving gay characters and themes won as well. Wolcott wonders what Medved’s real problem is — that it’s wrong for too many movies with gay themes to win?

The real problem for religious conservatives is that movies such as this brings homosexuality farther into the mainstream. Movies like this don’t portray homosexuality as something shameful, embarrassing, immoral, sinful, or even as the object of jokes. Movies like this portray homosexuality as the emotional, psychological, and social equivalent to heterosexuality. It’s not condemned, but it’s not necessarily celebrated, either — it’s just a way that people are and a part of people’s lives.

The more homosexuality is presented as something that shouldn’t be controversial, the more religious conservatives lose in American culture. They know this and this is what they are fighting against.

 

Read More:

• Gay Rights, Gay Marriage
• Gay Marriage and Homophobia: News