February 2, 2006
I'm a Conservative, and I Liked 'Brokeback Mountain'
By Mark DavisI'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.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_2_06_MD.html