If you’re seeing new ground being broken in the discussion the movie has generated about gays and gayness, I’m glad to hear it. Personally, I haven’t, and that’s my objection to the whole brouhaha. Everyone’s reaction has been drearily according to recipe. It is not the duty of gay people to get frothed up over Brokeback Mountain out of loyalty to the cause; it’s not the duty of straight people to show their support for us by getting frothed up over Brokeback Mountain. I plan to read your post after writing this, and I expect it to be interesting and substantive, as your posts usually are. Would that the rest of the effusing over the movie were likewise.

I saw it yesterday and I don’t think it is a gay movie. It’s a straight director, straight actors and for straight people. What’s significant to me is that this is an understanding empathetic straight America showing the straight America that has not been so understanding or empathetic just exactly what the cost of choosing NOT to be gay is. That gay America latches on to the movie it is reasaonable and appropriate.

The party line on the right has always been that it’s a choice, and the wrong choice. I saw in this movie the clear message that the wrong choice is NOT to come out. I detail all the whys and wherefores in my post being gay is a choice. I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think.

Tanoki, there’s a lot to respond to there. Your analogy between support for the war and support for gay visibility is very suggestive, though I don’t know that it works entirely the way you think it does. Most Americans aren’t pro-gay, but they’re not The Enemy in the non-negotiable way Islamofascists are. That gives different dimension and heft to the approaches we have available.

I do think that I’d say the two are similar in this sense: We’re in Iraq now. We cannot afford to screw it up, so we cannot show ambivalence; historically, that’s the best way to demoralize your own forces and embolden the enemy’s. In any action of that magnitude, there are going to be things that are done wrong, or people who get involved whose motives aren’t pure. We have to be self-critical and figure out how to improve as we go. But when it’s time to talk turkey, we have to be firmly behind our own.

Likewise, on a smaller scale, as gays, we have to support people’s right to seek their own happiness and to speak freely. Some of the expression produced is going to be unhelpful, or disingenuous, or counter-productive. But we can’t start picking and choosing in hindsight who should have been allowed to make which movie or stand-up routine. Free speech is free speech, and either we believe in it and see it through…or we believe there are exceptions to accommodate our own little wish lists, and we create an opening for our opponents to say, “See? They’re really closet fascists!” and for newly out people to say, “Who gets to decide what makes me a legitimate homosexual? I don’t want anything to do with this.”

Reflecting on the “all-gays-must-see-this” hype surrounding the release of “Brokeback Mountain,” Sean Kinsell demonstrates why he’s one of the most honest voices in the blogosphere: …those of us who don’t see our story in it have to be allowed to…

Report to college for four years of “re-education,” after which you will hopefully realize that group identity is the only thing that matters.

I recommend Wesleyan.

On the other hand, I can understand and respect that you don’t want to feel a *need* to support the film just because you are gay. It’s silly to assume that all gays, simplly by virtue of being gay, have to think alike and have the same interests and preferences (outside of general sexual preferences), so why should you, just to appease the more general gay *cause*, need to place your imprimatur on Brobeck Mountain? I completely understand and agree with this point.

I suppose the issue boils down to something I alluded to above–that, at times at least, some issues become so important in the minds of those involved that they think that loyalty is required, or at least morally justified. With the war effort, the idea is that we were all attacked collectively when the World Trade Center was downed in New York and we are all Americans effected by terrorism generally, so we should all be behind the Americans fighting to protect our freedom in Iraq, irrespective of personal allegiances or ideologies. With the gay cause, the same point probably stands–gays are involved in a mutual social crusade, and the movie here serves to promote the recognition and acceptance of gays in society. All people that are affected by issues impacting on gay rights and issues, therefore, should be supportive of the movie. It’s a milestone and a step forward for gay rights. That’s the argument, at least.

Like the war argument, you can be against the war but for the troops. I think that’s the brand of pressure you are feeling when you talk about the reaction you feel *expected* to have to Brokeback Mountain. The point is, the community effected by the movie–the gay community–doesn’t expect you to appreciate the movie on a personal level, but does expect you to support it because of the significace the movie has in terms of the gay movement in general.

I’m not sure which side on fall on in this argument, but I thought I would at least state the general argument to stimulate discussion. Fire away.