A Brokeback Challenge

Fall 2005

Some conservative friends of mine do not want to see Brokeback Mountain, the new film directed by Ang Lee which centers on a homosexual relationship. Many films interest me not a whit, so I would hardly grudge anyone a movie choice, but there is an interesting line of reasoning that I hear repeatedly: the film approaches homosexuality from a “liberal point of view”, or with a “pro-gay ideology”. The assumption being that films cannot be neutral, but must represent a moral point of view, and any film portraying homosexual love in a positive light must surely be under the influence of the other side.

It is hard not to see some truth in that, since artists, whether movie directors or writers, do have convictions about social issues and express those convictions in their work. Not infrequently their work comes out as thinly veiled propaganda—that is, aimed directly at guiding the audience to a certain opinion. In the current cultural environment it is hard for anyone to get a clean shot at a charged issue such as homosexuality, shunting aside the temptation to score points against the other side, and I admit I went to Brokeback Mountain somewhat nervous at the prospect of hearing a sermon.

Thankfully the film was not a sermon. The love between Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) hardly gets a free pass, and one can see the personal damage as they marry women they cannot love. The mismatch between the tough and silent Ennis and young Alma (Michelle Williams) especially calls for compassion as we watch a family fall apart over an issue neither principal can talk about honestly. It is this unflinching attitude to the costs of a homosexual relationship that even opens the door for conservative commentators to get a critical foothold. An analyst on homosexual issues for Focus on the Family is cited in an on-line review: "Contrary to the nearly ubiquitous modern portrayals of homosexuality, in Brokeback Mountain the lifestyle is neither glamorous nor normal and healthy.”

If the film is not propaganda, then what is it? My suggestion is that we should think of it as art. Quite a few cultural artifacts get bundled into that term, I realize, but for our purposes we could define art as any form of representation that is particularly truthful and honest in its portrayal of some aspect of our world. That is not to say there is no room for the distortions of genre and abstraction, but nevertheless we recognize something genuine, some moment where we think: yes, that is how it would feel. That is not a rare feeling in Brokeback Mountain. It is hard not to sympathize with the turmoil into which Ennis and Jack are thrown.

That sympathy shows exactly the usefulness of phrases such as “from a liberal point of view” or “motivated by a pro-gay ideology.” They serve as useful means to turn aside from what is otherwise a carefully worked representation of our world, allowing a person either to justify not watching the film at all or to walk away from it unwilling to consider its view of the world.

This mental shorthand is yet another example of a phenomenon increasingly being pointed out: the adaptive conservative use of arguments often excoriated by them as “postmodern.” Last month Stanley Fish pointed out in an article for Harpers (December 2005) the specific example of the use by Intelligent Design proponents of the tactic of “teach the conflict”—a strategy pioneered by social liberals in order to allow students to understand the clash of ideas not fully resolved. The notion that there is no neutral ground and that every opinion carries some ideological load could be straight out of cultural critic Edward Said’s body of work. In the hands of social conservatives that decidedly liberal opinion becomes a tool for non-engagement with views of the world that are opposed to their own. In refusing to watch Brokeback Mountain they are not—in their view—flinching from reality, but avoiding a loaded and subtly propagandistic version of reality. And since everything is, in the end, a form of propaganda, why not limit oneself to one’s own propaganda?

Down that path lies the creation of a mental system impossible to broach. If there is any value in representations of our world, such as films or novels, it is in the possibility of broaching those assumptions and allowing a complex reality to overflow our mental dams. Narrative art forms present purveyors of moral values, conservative and liberal, with a challenge: can their version of the world be portrayed in a realistic fashion, or does the audience recoil at the actual enactment of their abstract values. Ang Lee succeeds in portraying a believable version of homosexual love, and the collateral damage that occurs when people are not able to be honest with the world about their feelings.

The challenge for the religious conservatives who oppose a film such as Brokeback Mountain is to imagine a work of narrative art that reflected their views on homosexuality yet at the same time came across as compassionate and not cruel. I have serious doubts that any portrayal influenced by those connected to Focus on the Family could ever be satisfactorily compassionate. The moment views like those were put on stage their cruelty would be evident. The movie would either be flat and unbelievable, or painful in its insistence on silencing the desires and internal strife of its homosexual characters. But let them take up that narrative test if they wish to prove me wrong.