Ang Lee's "Gay Cowboy Movie" has garnered a lot of critical acclaim. I just saw it, and I can't help but think that the acclaim is more political than anything.
This movie could be seen as an assault on American cultural values. It's not even an original kind of assault: Take a sacred image, do something with it that conventional culture finds abbhorant, stir well and enjoy the furor. Maplethorpe did it with Jesus and urine. Ang Lee is doing it with machismo cowboys and homosexuality.
And I don't like it, not one bit. I think there is a real downside to exploring outrageous sexual possibilities - the next time two buddies want to go camping, anyone who's seen this movie may raise their eyebrows. That's unfortunate - just as unfortunate as how innumerable movies about child abuse make a father or a friend spending time with young children a questionable thing. Movies like this strip away the audience's innocence just a little bit. And I for one resent that.
This target is particularly juicy this year because of Bush. Part of his appeal to mainstream America is his accent, his sublminal appeal to "good ol' boy" reliability (before that phrase was vilified). This movie, by attacking those underpinnings of Bush's popularity, attack Bush himself.
Mind you, it's not the homosexuality that bothers me (although I have to admire the extra sharpness that this gives the assault, especially given the target) but the sexualization of otherwise platonic relationships.
Ironically, these men are portrayed as tortured lovers, but tortured more by their cowardice than anything else. As lovers they are wonderfully without reserve about their feelings for each other. But they are, in equal measure, reproachable for not shifting earth and sky to make their love work. Instead, they hide and marry and lie to their wives. That is just plain wrong. One may be tempted to villify the culture that increased the barrier to happiness. But it would be wrong to claim that the barrier was insurmountable: it could have been transcended, and it would have required courage from both Jack and Enus.
Dramatically, this failure to overcome allows the pair to remain unhappy in every aspect of their lives save the gay part, increasing the effectiveness of the cultural attack.
I'm not sure if this was Ang Lee's intent in making this movie. But that's what causes squeemish audiences and even anger. Let us hope that there is no embassy burning because of it, though.
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