Don We Now Our Gay Cowboy Movie?

In a struggling Hollywood plagued by huge budget box office flops and more remakes than a Rod Stewart album, there comes a fresh -- no, wait...a unique, well yeah it's unique but it's more...what's the word I'm looking for...oh yeah, ORIGINAL -- an original screenplay that is bound for controversy and probably lots of critical success.

Imagine if you will George W. Bush on his ranch. He's rustlin' cattle and eating meat and potatoes and being very macho (quite a vision, isn't it?). Now, also imagine Sam Elliott's character from The Big Lebowski that lives nearby. Two cowboys, tough and leathery watch the sunset by the fireside eating chuck wagon beans and getting hammered on whiskey. For a moment let's pretend they aren't eating beans, but enjoying some tube steak and a side of reach-around. W with his leathery lips wrapped around Sam's junk, they fall in love under the moonlight after a hot and heavy drunken sexual encounter.

Now, picture that story played out more completely on the movie screen. Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, 1995), a well respected Chinese born director, has recently finished post-production on his latest film Brokeback Mountain. It's a story of two cowboys that do all the stuff cowboys do, but they're gay. It makes me awkward just thinking about it.

I've seen some very awkward situations in movies before, but this raises the bar. When Hillary Swank showed up in that tiny Nebraska town in Boys Don't Cry you knew things would get bad -- although I still never expected the rape scene. Who knows what awaits these love struck penis wranglers in the 1960s Western U.S.? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Brokeback Mountain promises to break new ground and is said to be a masterfully directed piece of work. I intend to see it myself. These two cowboys, Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger), part ways after the initial rogering and move on with their lives -- their very heterosexual lives. However, every summer they have a tryst in the mountains while working at a ranch. I think the writer didn't have to stray far when casting Ledger and Gyllenhaal. I imagine the sex scenes were completely natural to the actors. They'd had intercourse with men before, undoubtedly.

Now that you've read this far, I feel compelled to tell you, or least tell you what Ang Lee told a reporter in a recent article, "It's not a gay movie." Instead, it is "a more realistic portrayal of the West that people outside of America, like myself, don't normally see."

On a side note: If only we could say the same thing ("It's not a gay movie.") prior to Leonard Part 6 hitting theaters back in 1987. Alas, if Bill Cosby would have said such a thing we could easily punch him in the throat and call him a liar, because it was a very gay movie.

Anyway Brokeback Mountain is coming to a theater near you on January 6, 2006. I encourage you to go see it, despite my nonchalant way of explaining it here. I am in no way opposed to films of this nature. I think it's Hollywood's job to present such stories to the public. Expand our minds and in turn, just maybe, you can show some right wing nut bag that being gay isn't a sin, but a lifestyle that should be accepted in our society. But that's another blog all together.