By Melissa Dribben
Inquirer Staff Writer
"Liz Smith and her brother, Hugh Carberry, went to the movies Tuesday night at the Ritz Sixteen in Voorhees, one of the few local multiplexes where you could catch Brokeback Mountain this week.
Smith, a registered nurse who works at Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, wanted to see the film "because I have friends who are gay, and I wonder what it's like for them." Carberry, a psychologist in private practice in Mount Laurel, said, "I see a lot of gay kids who are in high school, and it's something I'd like to understand in order to help them."
The pulse of a nation can't be measured by the popularity of a single movie. But the early success of Brokeback Mountain, an anguished love story about two male ranch hands, is being interpreted by some as a sign that Americans are growing more compassionate and broad-minded about homosexuality.
"It's very clear from surveys that the country has been moving rapidly toward more acceptance," says William Doherty, professor of family and social science at the University of Minnesota. "Until the 1970s, homosexuality was considered a psychological deviance. Thirty years later, people are crying in theaters over the thwarted love of these two men."
The film, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, is based on a short story by Annie Proulx and directed by Academy Award winner Ang Lee. In its opening weekend, in five theaters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the movie pulled in more per theater than almost any film in the last two decades. Last weekend, in 69 theaters, it took in $36,354 per theater, according to Box Office Mojo, more than twice the average of King Kong (though Kong's total, $66 million, dwarfed Brokeback's $3.5 million).
Focus Features has been cautiously expanding the film's reach. Last week, after it drew sizable audiences in more conservative markets such as Plano, Texas, and St. Louis, Focus widened this weekend's release to 217 theaters. Early next month, the film is to open in 300 to 800, where it will have to perform on a much broader stage.
In Voorhees, Brokeback continues to do well, playing on three screens with 12 showings a day. Even on a weeknight, the theater was three-quarters full, with retirees, students, young and middle-aged professionals, and gay couples.
"Because it's the only film out there addressing this issue, with money behind it, it's been marked off as something different instead of Car Chase, Part 86," says Sean Griffin, coauthor with Harry Benshoff of the new book Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America.
"Besides being a very well-made film with name stars, it really stresses the emotional connection between the two men. If you can get people, whether heterosexual women or anyone, to recognize and understand that these people really love each other, that's progress."
Media buzz and awards - including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival; best picture, director and actor (Ledger) from the New York Film Critics Circle; and seven Golden Globe nominations - have oxygenated interest. Griffin says the clamor is not artificially manufactured.
"It's certainly not being marketed as heavily as King Kong," he says. "There are no Happy Meals at McDonald's for Brokeback Mountain - although wouldn't it be interesting to see what the surprise was inside that one?"
Several media analysts said the relatively frank scenes in which Ledger and Gyllenhaal are seen having sex and kissing passionately are a sign of major cultural change. The extent of the intimacy shown in the 1993 film Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas as a gay couple, was a scene of them dancing.
Others, however, view the film as a sign of only incremental progress.
"It's the half-full, half-empty problem," says Larry Gross, director of the school of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "Obviously, it indicates a change in attitude. But it still presents gay life or gay experience as problematic."
Traditionally, he says, society deals with minorities in art by having them play either comic parts, as in Will & Grace, or the roles of villain and victim.
"It's hard not to make a connection between Brokeback Mountain and Matthew Shepard, as the noble victim," Gross says, referring to the 21-year-old Wyoming man murdered in 1998 in an antigay hate crime. "It's a common trope in Hollywood to humanize the outsider by showing their suffering."
Gross points out that the film is set in the past, from 1963 until the 1980s, putting viewers at a comfortable distance from culpability. And both lead roles are played by straight men.
"If everyone is so accepting of gayness," he asks, "why aren't there openly gay actors in these roles?"
Doherty agrees in part, but says: "For many people, it is still hard [to accept]. And most major religions say homosexuality is wrong. So it's amazing that a movie like this would be so popular."
Surely, no one is proposing that Brokeback signals the end of the moral debate.
To the contrary. The Catholic News Agency's Web site quotes Robert Knight, director of the Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute, as saying: "Brokeback is the 'Perfect Storm' of Hollywood's war on morality. It combines high production values with a lowdown attack on morality. It's a mockery of the Western genre embodied by every movie cowboy from John Wayne to Gene Autry to Kevin Costner. I can't think of a more effective way to annoy and alienate most movie-going Americans than to show two cowboys lusting after each other and even smooching.
"Although the film reportedly portrays some problems with adultery, it comes down on the side of 'being who you are,' which means having whatever perverse and unfaithful relationship you want... If it encourages even one confused boy to engage in sex with another male, that makes it an instrument of corruption, not one of enlightenment."
The Catholic News Service's review was gentler: "While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true." That review was criticized as too favorable, and the initial rating by the United States Conference of Bishops Office for Film and Broadcasting was changed from "L," for limited adult audience, to "O" for morally offensive.
"A considerable amount of prejudice still exists," says Theresa Vescio, associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University. Vescio conducts research on prejudice and stereotypes of gender and sexual orientation.
Theoretically, Vescio says, most people believe in equality. "Our studies show that people will say vehemently that they refuse to endorse blatant discrimination and hateful statements, but they still feel intense discomfort about gay behavior... . Men, especially, can feel threatened and uncomfortable."
Coming out of the Ritz East on Thursday afternoon, Doreen Mosher, 37, said the movie focused on universal truths.
"If we don't focus so much on the fact that there are two men in the relationship, it's really a story about humanity and love," said Mosher, a lesbian who lives in Center City.
Perhaps, she said, the cowboy theme would attract unlikely viewers, like her father, who's in his 70s. But she wasn't holding out hope.
"My father is a fisherman and a hunter, but I can guarantee you he and his buddies are not going to see it," she said. "But if, somehow, they do, they'd be moved by the story."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/religion/13481026.htm
