Cerebus
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|  #1 Posted on 13.1.06 1635.22
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1636.57 | I wasn't sure which forum to put this in, but since it seems to me that there's more of a 'Current Events & Politics' slant to it, I thought this was the better choice, if I'm wrong, then move it... thanks.
-----
I'm sure some of you saw my little jab at BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN in the Movies & TV forum. Hey, I have a problem with pretty much everything, don't think of it as gay bashing cause it's far from that. Personally, I could care less if a man wants to have 'relations' with another man. In fact, my best friend in the world is openly gay and even HE doesn't want to see this movie... but that's not what I was getting at here.
I got this in EMail today, and while I certainly wouldn't go as far as to treat it as gospel, it certainly brings some of my views to light. Here's the email...
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"Brokeback Mountain," the controversial "gay cowboy"
film that has garnered seven Golden Globe nominations
and breathless media reviews and has now emerged as
a front-runner for the Oscars is a brilliant
propaganda film, reportedly causing viewers to change
the way they feel about homosexual relationships and
same-sex marriage.
And how do the movie-makers pull off such a dazzling
feat? Simple. They do it by raping the "Marlboro Man,"
that revered American symbol of rugged individualism
and masculinity.
We all know the Marlboro Man. In "The Marketing of
Evil," I show how the Philip Morris Company made
marketing history by taking one of the most positive
American images of all time the cowboy and
attaching it to a negative, death-oriented product
cigarettes.
Hit the pause button for a moment so this idea can
completely sink in: Cigarette marketers cleverly
attached, in the public's mind, two utterly unrelated
things: 1) the American cowboy, with all of the
powerful feelings that image evokes in us, of
independence, self-confidence, wide-open spaces and
authentic Americanism, and 2) cigarettes, a stinky,
health-destroying waste of money. This legendary
advertising campaign targeting men succeeded in
transforming market underdog Marlboro (up until then,
sold as a women's cigarette with the slogan "Mild as
May") into the world's best-selling cigarette.
It was all part of the modern marketing revolution,
which meant that, instead of touting a product's
actual benefits, marketers instead would
psychologically manipulate the public by associating
their product with the fulfillment of people's
deepest, unconscious needs and desires. (Want to sell
liquor? Put a seductive woman in the ad.) Obviously,
the marketers could never actually deliver on that
promise but emotional manipulation sure is an
effective way to sell a lot of products.
The "Marlboro Man" campaign launched 50 years ago.
Today, the powerful cowboy image is being used to sell
us on another self-destructive product: homosexual sex
and "gay" marriage.
'People's minds have been changed'
In "Brokeback Mountain," a film adaptation of the 1997
New Yorker short story by Annie Proulx, two
19-year-old ranchers named Ennis Del Mar (Heath
Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) have been
hired to guard sheep on a rugged mountain in 1963
Wyoming. One night, the bitter cold drives Ennis into
Jack's tent so they can keep each other warm. As they
lie there, suddenly and almost without warning, these
two young men both of whom later insist they're not
"queer" jump out of the sack and awkwardly and
violently engage in anal sex.
Too embarrassed the next morning even to talk about
it, Ennis and Jack dismiss their sexual encounter as a
"one-shot deal" and part company at the end of the
sheepherding job. Ennis marries his fiancιe Alma
(Michelle Williams, Ledger's real-life girlfriend)
while Jack marries female rodeo rider and prom queen
Lureen (Anne Hathaway). Each family has children.
Four years later, Jack sends Ennis a postcard saying
he's coming to town for a visit. When the moment
finally arrives, Ennis, barely able to contain his
anticipation, rushes outside to meet Jack and the two
men passionately embrace and kiss. Ennis's wife sadly
witnesses everything through the screen door. (Since
this is one of the film's sadder moments, I wasn't
quite sure why the audience in the Portland, Oregon,
theater burst out in laughter at Alma's heartbreaking
realization.)
From that point on, over the next two decades Ennis
and Jack take off together on periodic "fishing trips"
at Brokeback Mountain, where no fishing actually takes
place. During these adulterous homosexual affairs,
Jack suggests they buy a ranch where the two can live
happily ever after, presumably abandoning their wives
and children. Ennis, however, is afraid, haunted by a
traumatic childhood memory: It seems his father had
tried to inoculate him against homosexuality by taking
him to see the brutalized, castrated, dead body of a
rancher who had lived together with another man
until murderous, bigoted neighbors committed the
gruesome hate crime.
Eventually, life with Ennis becomes intolerable and
Alma divorces him, while Lureen, absorbed with the
family business, only suspects Jack's secret as they
drift further and further apart. When, toward the end
of the story, Jack dies in a freak accident (his wife
tells Ennis a tire blew up while Jack was changing it,
propelling the hubcap into his face and killing him),
Ennis wonders whether Jack actually met the same
brutal fate as the castrated "gay" cowboy of his
youth.
Ultimately, Ennis ends up alone, with nothing, living
in a small, secluded trailer, having lost both his
family and his homosexual partner. He's comforted only
by his most precious possession Jack's shirt which
he pitifully embraces, almost in a slow dance, his
aching loneliness masterfully projected into the
audience via the film's artistry.
Yes, the talents of Hollywood's finest are brought
together in a successful attempt at making us
experience Ennis's suffering, supposedly inflicted by
a homophobic society. Heath Ledger's performance is
brilliant and devastating. We do indeed leave the
theater feeling Ennis's pain. Mission accomplished.
Lost in all of this, however, are towering,
life-and-death realities concerning sex and morality
and the sanctity of marriage and the preciousness of
children and the direction of our civilization itself.
So please, you moviemakers, how about easing off that
tight camera shot of Ennis's suffering and doing a
slow pan over the massive wreckage all around him?
What about the years of silent anguish and loneliness
Alma stoically endures for the sake of keeping her
family together, or the terrible betrayal, suffering
and tears of the children, bereft of a father? None of
this merits more than a brief acknowledgment in
"Brokeback Mountain."
What is important to the moviemakers, rather, is that
the viewer be made to feel, and feel, and feel again
as deeply as possible the exquisitely painful
loneliness and heartache of the homosexual cowboys
denied their truest happiness because of an ignorant
and homophobic society.
Thus are the Judeo-Christian moral values that formed
the very foundation and substance of Western culture
for the past three millennia all swept away on a
delicious tide of manufactured emotion. And believe
me, skilled directors and actors can manufacture
emotion by the truckload. It's what they do for a
living.
Co-star Jake Gyllenhaal realized the movie's power to
transform audiences in Toronto, where, according to
Entertainment magazine, "he was approached by
festival-goers proclaiming that their preconceptions
had been shattered by the film's insistence on
humanizing gay love."
"Brokeback Mountain," said Gyllenhaal, "is that pure
place you take someone that's free of judgment. These
guys were scared. What they feared was not each other
but what was outside of each other. What was so sad
was that it didn't have to happen like that." But
then, said the article, Gyllenhaal jumped to his feel
and exclaimed triumphantly: "I mean, people's minds
have been changed. That's amazing."
Changed indeed. And that's the goal. Film is, by its
very nature, highly propagandistic. That is, when you
read a book, if you detect you're being lied to or
manipulated, you can always stop reading, close the
book momentarily and say, "Wait just a minute, there's
something wrong here!" You can't do that in a film:
You're bombarded with sound and images, all expertly
crafted to give you selected information and to
stimulate certain feelings, and you can't stop the
barrage, not in a theater anyway. The visuals and
sound and music and along with them, the underlying
agenda of the filmmakers pursue you relentlessly,
overwhelming your emotions and senses.
And when you leave the theater, unless you're really
objective to what you've experienced, you've been
changed even if just a little bit.
Want to know how easily your feelings can be
manipulated? Let's take the smallest, most seemingly
insignificant example and see. Sit down at a piano and
play a song, any song even "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
as long as it's in a major key. Then, play the same
song, but change from a major to a minor key; just
lower the third step of the scale by a half-step so
the melody and harmony become minor. If you watch
carefully, you'll note this one tiny change makes the
minor-key version sound a bit melancholy and sad,
while the normal, major-key version sounds bright and
happy. (As the expression goes, "Major glad, minor
sad.")
Now take this principle and apply it to a feature film
by expanding it a million-fold. A movie's musical
score has one overriding function to make the viewer
feel a certain way at strategic points during the
story. And music is just one of dozens of factors and
techniques used to influence audiences in the deepest
way possible. Everything from the script to the
directing to the camera work to the acting, which in
"Brokeback Mountain" is brilliant, serve the purpose
of making the movie-makers' vision seem like reality
even if it's twisted and perverse.
Do we understand that Hollywood could easily produce a
similar movie to "Brokeback Mountain," only this time
glorifying an incest relationship, or even an
adult-child sexual relationship? Like "Brokeback," it
too would serve to desensitize us to the immoral and
destructive reality of what we're seeing, while
fervently coaxing us into embracing that which we once
rightly shunned.
All the filmmakers would need to do is skillfully make
viewers experience the actors' powerful emotions of
loneliness and emptiness juxtaposed with feelings of
joy and fulfillment when the two "lovers" are together
to bring us to a new level of "understanding" for
any forbidden "love." Alongside this, of course, they
would necessarily portray those opposed to this
unorthodox "love" as Nazis or thugs. Thus, many of us
would let go of our "old-fashioned" biblical ideas of
morality in light of what seems like the more imminent
and undeniable reality of human love in all its
diverse forms.
A "Brokeback"-type movie could easily be made, for
instance, to portray a female school teacher's affair
with a 14-year-old student as "a magnificent love
story." And I'm not talking about the 2000 made-for-TV
potboiler, "All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau
Story," about the Seattle school teacher who seduced a
sixth-grade student, went to prison for statutory
rape, and later married the boy having had two
children by him. I'm talking about a big-budget,
big-name Hollywood masterpiece aimed at transforming
America through film, just as Hitler relied on master
filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to make propaganda films to
manipulate the emotions of an entire nation.
In place of "Brokeback Mountain's" scene with the
castrated homosexual, the "adult-child love story"
could have a similar scene in which, as a young girl,
the future teacher's mother took her to see the body
of a woman who had fallen in consensual "love" with a
14-year-old boy, only to be brutalized, her breasts
cut off, and bludgeoned to death all by Nazi-like
bigoted neighbors. (So that's why she couldn't be
honest and open about her later relationship with her
student.)
Inevitably, such a film would make us doubt our former
condemnation of adult-child sex, or at least reduce
our outrage as we gained more "understanding" and
sympathy for the participants. It would cause us to
ask the same question one reviewer asked after seeing
"Brokeback Mountain": "In an age when the fight over
gay marriage still rages, 'Brokeback Mountain,' the
tale of two men who are scarcely even allowed to
imagine being together, asks, through the very purity
with which it touches us: When it comes to love, what
sort of world do we really want?"
OK, I'll bite. Let's talk about love. The critics call
"Brokeback Mountain" a "pure" and "magnificent" love
story. Do we really want to call such an obsession
especially one that destroys marriages and is based on
constant lies, deceit and neglect of one's children
"love"?
What if I were a heroin addict and told you I loved my
drug dealer? What if I told you he always makes me
feel good, and that I have a hard time living without
him, and that I think about him all the time with warm
feelings of anticipation and inner completion? And
that whenever we get together, it's the only time I
feel truly happy and at peace with myself?
Oh, you don't approve of my "love"? You dare to
criticize it, telling me my relationship with my drug
dealer is not real love, but just an unhealthy
addiction? What if I respond to you by saying, "Oh
shut up, you hater. How dare you impose your sick,
narrow-minded, oppressive values on me? Who are you,
you pinch-faced, moralistic hypocrite, to define for
me what real love is?"
Don't laugh. I guarantee Hollywood could make a movie
about a man and his drug dealer, or an adult-child
sexual relationship, that would pull on our emotions
and create some level of sympathy for the characters.
Furthermore, in at least some cases, it would make us
doubt our conscience a gift directly from God, the
perception of right and wrong that he puts in each one
of us our inner knowing that this was a totally
unhealthy and self-destructive relationship.
Ultimately, propaganda works because it washes over
us, overwhelming our senses, confusing us, upsetting
or emotionalizing us, and thereby making us doubt what
we once knew. Listen to what actor Jake Gyllenhaal,
who plays Jack, told the reporter for Entertainment
magazine about doing the "love" scenes with Heath
Ledger:
"I was super uncomfortable
[but] what made me most
courageous was that I realized I had to try to let go
of that stereotype I had in my mind, that bit of
homophobia, and try for a second to be vulnerable and
sensitive. It was f---in' hard, man. I succeeded only
for milliseconds."
Gyllenhaal thinks he was "super uncomfortable" while
being filmed having simulated homosexual sex because
of his own "homophobia." Could it be, rather, that his
conflict resulted from putting himself in a position,
having agreed to do the film, where he was required to
violate his own conscience? As so often happens, he
was tricked into pushing past invisible internal
barriers crossing a line he wasn't meant to cross.
It's called seduction.
This is how the "marketers of evil" work on all of us.
They transform our attitudes by making us feel as
though our "super uncomfortable" feelings toward
embracing unnatural or corrupt behavior of whatever
sort a discomfort literally put into us by a loving
God, for our protection somehow represent ignorance
or bigotry or weakness.
I wrote "The Marketing of Evil" to expose these
people, and especially to reveal the hidden techniques
they've been using for decades to confuse us, to
manipulate our feelings and get us to doubt and turn
our backs on the truth we once knew and loved. Indeed,
whether they're outright lying to us, or ridiculing us
for our traditional beliefs, or trying to make us feel
guilty over some supposed bigotry on our part, the
"marketers of evil" can prevail simply by intimidating
or emotionally stirring us up in one way or another.
Once that happens, we can easily become confused and
lose the inborn understanding God gave us. We all need
that inner understanding or common sense, because it's
our primary protection from all the evil influences in
this world.
As I said at the outset, Hollywood has now raped the
Marlboro Man. It has taken a revered symbol of America
the cowboy with all the powerful emotions and
associations that are rooted deep down in the
pioneering American soul, and grafted onto it a
self-destructive lifestyle it wants to force down
Americans' throats. The result is a brazen propaganda
vehicle designed to replace the reservations most
Americans still have toward homosexuality with
powerful feelings of sympathy, guilt over past
"homophobia" and ultimately the complete and utter
acceptance of homosexuality as equivalent in every way
to heterosexuality.
If and when that day comes, America will have totally
abandoned its core biblical principles as well as
the Author of those principles. The radical
secularists will have gotten their wish, and this
nation like the traditional cowboy characters
corrupted in "Brokeback Mountain" will have stumbled
down a sad, self-destructive and ultimately disastrous
road.
-
No, I didn't edit it or nothing, just cut and paste. I'm not even gonna spell check it, though I'm sure there's some mistakes in there.
This sorta sums up how I feel about the film, sight unseen. Gay marriages were shot down at the polls during the last election period, the entertainment business disagrees with the general population. They put out a film that certainly any red blooded will see and feel sorry for the characters predicament, and change thier views on the subject.
It's not what I think going to the movies is all about. If you want to make a 'statement', do a documentary, not a fluff piece to trick the audience.
How do any of you feel about this? | Promote this thread! |             | The Goon
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|  #2 Posted on 13.1.06 1657.41
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1659.01 | There have always been "statement" movies. Some people are inspired by them, some people are skeptical. Whoever wrote that wordy essay has a lot of anger towards Hollywood, it seems. Yeah, there's a lot of preaching in movies like this, but the preaching against it is equally as annoying.
Look, you go to a movie. When you walk out, either you liked it or you didn't. If you see a lot of movies, chances are you know ahead of time if you're going to enjoy a movie like "Brokeback Mountain" or not. If not, go see "Wedding Crashers" or "Batman Begins" or something that appeals to you.
Admittedly, I haven't seen the film. I was planning on renting it, as I enjoy Westerns. Unfortunately, the essay above GIVES THE ENTIRE PLOT. Maybe a spoiler warning would have been a good idea. | Karlos the Jackal
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| #3 Posted on 13.1.06 1724.34
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1725.39 | Originally posted by Cerebus
It's not what I think going to the movies is all about. If you want to make a 'statement', do a documentary, not a fluff piece to trick the audience.
Wait, so -- okay, discounting all of the other stuff -- yes, yes, filmmakers are like Hitler and might use their evil powers in the future to make all of us incestuous kiddie lovers -- it's a slippery slope! -- do you really think that no non-documentary film should make a "statement"? Honestly? I find this flabbergasting and kinda depressing.
(Also, Brokeback Mountain is a "fluff piece"? Huh.)
--K | EddieBurkett
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| #4 Posted on 13.1.06 1732.40
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1733.21 | Originally posted by Cerebus' email
That is, when you
read a book, if you detect you're being lied to or
manipulated, you can always stop reading
And that's when I stopped reading the above post.
Originally posted by Cerebus' email
Thus are the Judeo-Christian moral values that formed the very foundation and substance of Western culture for the past three millennia all swept away on a delicious tide of manufactured emotion.
I read that, and I think that's ludicrous and people can make up their minds for themselves. Then I stop and think I wonder just how much I may have been influenced by the same 'anti-moral' (for lack of a better term) forces, and I wonder if my apathy is a product of that. And that's when my brain starts to hurt and I stop thinking about this, because I can go around in circles all I want.
At the end of the day, Brokeback Mountain is still just a movie.
And I for one am glad for the spoilers in the article, as I've been curious about the plot but really have no desire to spend the money or the time to sit through that. | Dahak
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| #5 Posted on 13.1.06 1820.33
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1820.35 | I am not going to see this movie. Not because it's about gays but because I find 90% of the Academy Award nominated movies boring, deppressing, or both.
| Spaceman Spiff
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| AIM: |  |
| | |
| #6 Posted on 13.1.06 1930.29
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1930.35 | You mean people might come out of this movie seeing that gay people are just like everyone else, and shouldn't be persecuted/discriminated against/looked down upon? OH NO, FOR SHAME! We must stop this evil message! I'll get the pitchforks, you get the torches, let's go burn down Hollywood.
Gratuitous violence, sex, violence against women, juvenile humor = A-OK.
"Gay people shouldn't be persecuted" = evil message.
Got it.
(Not that I have a problem w/ the sex/violence stuff, but which 1 is more detrimental?) | Tribal Prophet
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| #7 Posted on 13.1.06 1939.10
Reposted on: 13.1.13 1939.11 | Originally posted by Cerebus
This sorta sums up how I feel about the film, sight unseen. Gay marriages were shot down at the polls during the last election period, the entertainment business disagrees with the general population. They put out a film that certainly any red blooded will see and feel sorry for the characters predicament, and change their views on the subject.
It's not what I think going to the movies is all about. If you want to make a 'statement', do a documentary, not a fluff piece to trick the audience.
How do any of you feel about this?
Even Terminator 2 had a "point" to it about man's over-reliance on machines. Almost every movie does, some are just more forward about it than others. If you want to avoid any movie that has a point to it, then you've just relegated yourself to an eternity of watching Pauly Shore movies. Enjoy your hell! 
Yes, America's hatred of gay sex was stronger than their hatred of George Bush during the last election. If I wasn't white, I'd bring up the fact that for a loooooong time in the US's history, people were for the most part cool with the idea of slavery (as long as they were on the right part of it). Some people still are, so what the majority think is right isn't always true. Bigotry dies on it's own over a long time. "Roots" didn't end racism, but it might have helped a few young people who saw it build up a bit of a defense to things they'd later hear.
This guy also has decided that God is on his side (Can't say I'm surprised, very few people claim that God is against them when the "Pick which side the Ultimate Judge believes in" starts) and says that homosexual sex feels very wrong and quotes the straight actors saying the same thing. Maybe it's because they're straight, and it's not really supposed to feel natural? If I was being immature, I would type something like "If thinking about gay sex makes this guy feel so uncomfortable, maybe he should try not to think about it so much".
Other than that, halfway through it became clear as day that this guy has major bigoted attitudes. The director is the same as Hitler? Gay sex is the same as child rape? Cerebus, I think you need to get a better email spam filter. There's a guy at work that's gay. He's not shy about it at all, pretty much like Big Gay Al from South Park actually. He has no interest in this movie either, but them again, no one really does. It's not a "propaganda" film, it's an "artsy" film. They all have very strong themes to them and whole lot less blowing things up. They never do well in theaters, but clean up at the Oscars, then are forgotten until they become answers on the next update of "Trivial Pursuit". None of them have 'changed the world' yet.
Tribal Prophet | Ukrainian Justice
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| #8 Posted on 13.1.06 2108.33
Reposted on: 13.1.13 2108.34 |
If I wasn't white, I'd bring up the fact that for a loooooong time in the US's history, people were for the most part cool with the idea of slavery (as long as they were on the right part of it).
Didn't you just bring it up anyway?
Some people still are, so what the majority think is right isn't always true.
Who is still cool with slavery? | Tribal Prophet
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| #9 Posted on 13.1.06 2121.41
Reposted on: 13.1.13 2122.54 | Originally posted by Ukrainian Justice
If I wasn't white, I'd bring up the fact that for a loooooong time in the US's history, people were for the most part cool with the idea of slavery (as long as they were on the right part of it).
Didn't you just bring it up anyway?
Oh, I guess I did... 
Originally posted by Ukrainian Justice
Some people still are, so what the majority think is right isn't always true.
Who is still cool with slavery?
They tend not to give their names (some even hide their faces with white cloth), but unfortunately there's still a lot of people left in the US who haven't joined us in this century. Not a majority by any means, but not just a dozen of them either.
Tribal Prophet | Joseph Ryder
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| #10 Posted on 13.1.06 2154.54
Reposted on: 13.1.13 2155.10 | Originally posted by Cerebus
Personally, I could care less if a man wants to have 'relations' with another man. In fact, my best friend in the world is openly gay and even HE doesn't want to see this movie... but that's not what I was getting at here.
For the record, I wasn't under the impression all gay males wanted to see this movie.Originally posted by Cerebus
How do any of you feel about this?
I personally don't feel homosexuality is evil, and I feel sorry for those who do...especially so for those who feel compelled to write at such length on the subject.
If you are by and large agreeing with this guy, then I also now feel there are two people in this world entirely too attached to the Marlboro Man. Last I checked there was...one (1) "gay cowboy" movie along with about five thousand "straight cowboy" movies.
How does growing acceptance of homosexuality affect those who are opposed? | Deputy Marshall
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| #11 Posted on 13.1.06 2207.43
Reposted on: 13.1.13 2207.47 | Originally posted by EddieBurkett
Originally posted by Cerebus' email
That is, when you
read a book, if you detect you're being lied to or
manipulated, you can always stop reading
And that's when I stopped reading the above post.
Well, you made it further than I did...
Originally posted by really long rant about a silly movie where Donnie Darko and the dude from First Knight are gay cowboys
And how do the movie-makers pull off such a dazzling feat? Simple. They do it by raping the "Marlboro Man," that revered American symbol of rugged individualism and masculinity.
OH NOES! NOT THE MARLBORO MAN! This is worse than when they released "Michael Collins," which resulted in the forced molestation of Lucky the Leprechaun.
Edit - I realize this may come across as over-the-top sarcasm, but it's my personal opinion that "rape" is the new "Hitler" when it comes to debate.
Is there anybody out there that REALLY thinks this movie is suddenly going to swing the tide of power towards the gay agenda? C'mon, now. If you're against homosexuality, I can't see how a film about two men who cheat on their wives with each other could potentially sway your opinion.
(edited by Deputy Marshall on 13.1.06 2319) | BigSteve
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| #12 Posted on 13.1.06 2218.50
Reposted on: 13.1.13 2218.58 | Originally posted by Deputy Marshall
C'mon, now. If you're against homosexuality, I can't see how a film about two men who cheat on their wives with each other could potentially sway your opinion.
Which would assume that such people would watch the film in the first place.
Anyway, this movie does seem sort of overhyped, and I more than likely won't be seeing it, but it is prefereable to the guy who goes on for thirty eight paragraphs about how Hollywood is out to brainwash everyone. | Freeway
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| #13 Posted on 14.1.06 0023.47
Reposted on: 14.1.13 0024.01 | | This is a huge year for "issue" movies. Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Good Night And Good Luck, Munich, Syriana, The Constant Gardener, North Country, Mrs. Henderson Presents and The 40 Year Old Virgin all deal (to varying degrees), with issues. All have recieved good reviews. All are contending for Oscars. All were seen by some people who enjoyed them, and others who did not. | Nuclear Winter
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| #14 Posted on 14.1.06 0154.58
Reposted on: 14.1.13 0155.19 | | 40 Year Old Virgin is contending for Oscars? | Freeway
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| #15 Posted on 14.1.06 0203.24
Reposted on: 14.1.13 0203.25 | Originally posted by Nuclear Winter
40 Year Old Virgin is contending for Oscars?
It has a Writers Guild nomination. The guilds dictate the nominations, therefore it has a pretty good chance at an Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. | PerthHeat
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|  #16 Posted on 14.1.06 0343.57
Reposted on: 14.1.13 0344.36 | Is the cowboy the symbol of American manhood anymore?
I would have thought there were other icons that American boys look up to more... eg the local crack junkie, the guy ripping off the taxman or even the local football hero
Its drawing a long bow to imply that one gay cowboy movie will undermine the fabric of American society. Why didnt Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine in DeathTrap or Tom Selleck and Kevin Klein in In and Out ruin society before this movie? | oldschoolhero
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|  #17 Posted on 14.1.06 0359.44
Reposted on: 14.1.13 0401.25 | | erebus, seriously, if this is something you agree with, then that's fairly upsetting. That was basically a badly-written rant against any form of homosexuality being accepted in mainstream America, couched as a critical attack on a movie. That piece of "writing" was ridiculous in its bigotry and bullshit. | Stilton
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| #18 Posted on 14.1.06 0709.59
Reposted on: 14.1.13 0710.29 | Originally posted by oldschoolhero
erebus, seriously, if this is something you agree with, then that's fairly upsetting. That was basically a badly-written rant against any form of homosexuality being accepted in mainstream America, couched as a critical attack on a movie. That piece of "writing" was ridiculous in its bigotry and bullshit.
I absolutely agree, oldschoolhero.
And why is it that every rant I hear these days about gay themes, gay rights, gay stories in the mainstream--all this anger directed at gayness and gay people--always begins with some lame-duck disclaimer along the lines of "this isn't gay bashing or anything", or "I'm not homophobic, but..."
Bulloney! If people weren't homophobic they wouldn't bring it up in the first place, and even if they did, it wouldn't be as a plea to erase gay-themed narratives from the popular culture.
And do these Hollywood hating homophobes think Brokeback Mountain appeared out of thin air? Annie Proulx, one America's greatest living writers, wrote that story quite a while ago. Hollywood just adapted it into a film.
I just can't understand how people can get so upset and angry at the very idea that people who are different from them actually EXIST... let alone have films made about them from time to time.
Sheesh. Bigots, heal thyselves. | El Nastio
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| #19 Posted on 14.1.06 1118.41
Reposted on: 14.1.13 1118.49 | Originally posted by Stilton
If people weren't homophobic they wouldn't bring it up in the first place,
I disagree. If you're opposed to something rather strongly, it makes sense to speak up about it. For example, people speak up about Bush all the time.
I'll be the first to admit that, yes, I use strong words to express my feelings about things (this is one of those thongs), but those words aren't directed at the PEOPLE who are homosexual, rather they are directed at the ACTIONS. All people are to be loved. Christ loves everyone. But the actions that people do, those can't be loved sometimes. Sadly, some people have trouble with seperating people from their sins, which results in hate.
For example, I disagree with same-sex marriage. I disagree with same-sex sexual intercourse. I disagree with anal sex between a man and a woman. I disagree with abortion, contraceptives, capital punishment, and euthenasia.
I believe that those things are wrong. VERY wrong. But I've learnt in my Christian journey (sometimes the hard way sadly) that you CAN seperate your intense feelings about certian actions from the people that do them....and still love people.
And ultimatly, that's the key for Christians these days and the days to come until Christ comes again. Love all people, while still spreading the word of Christ and a message of repenting. Love all people, while still saying "we don't like what you're doing".
Originally posted by Stilton
Sheesh. Bigots, heal thyselves.
Friendly reminder to y'all to be careful about the tossing out the term "bigot", because you may be calling yourself one. People who sincerely have religous beliefs which date back for centuries and even millenias (The Jewish Nation and the Roman Catholic Church for example) and those beliefs encourage to NOT hate people but still be opposed to certian things that those people do shouldn't be lumped in with the same people as "they should all be burnt at the stake!". Otherwise you become a bigot yourself.
(edited by El Nastio on 14.1.06 1219) | Leroy
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| #20 Posted on 14.1.06 1410.54
Reposted on: 14.1.13 1411.00 | Originally posted by El Nastio
And ultimatly, that's the key for Christians these days and the days to come until Christ comes again. Love all people, while still spreading the word of Christ and a message of repenting. Love all people, while still saying "we don't like what you're doing".
Until you approach me as a human being first, you'll always have an agenda in which I'm not interested. I have no interest in anyone else's opinion on what I do in my private life, especially in the privacy of my own bedroom.
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