The new cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain" received seven Golden Globe nominations yesterday.
According to the Washington Post, the movie is drawing rave reviews from it’s target audience: "This is our gay 'Gone With the Wind,' says Neil G. Giuliano, the former Republican mayor of Tempe, Ariz., and current president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a national organization that tracks the representation of gay men and lesbians in the media.”
The controversial movie is being billed as the first openly gay cowboy movie. (This was news to me, as I mistakenly had assumed "Young Guns" had beaten them to the punch.)
But, in truth, the most interesting question is: How will conservative pundits react to this movie?
I can only imagine social conservative Michelle Malkin, whom I read religiously, is chomping at the bit. On the other end of the spectrum, another blogger I regularly read, Libertarian-leaning, Radley Balco, will be right there to point out her predictably absurd overreaction. As usual, the truth will be somewhere between Michelle and Radley.
Sometimes, the best way to handle a situation like this is to protest, picket or boycott. And sometimes, the best way to handle something like this is to say nothing. So far, there hasn’t been too much talk about this particular movie, which makes me wonder: Where is Pat Robertson?
As for me, I guess I’m not likely to spout a bunch of controversial rhetoric, because I’m no longer shocked by this. We’ve become so desensitized by the mainstream media, that it’s hard to shock us, these days. I do believe that a film like this is the best form of propaganda there is, because, as Village Voice columnist, Michael Musto puts it in the Post, "Now we just have a love story that hits a lot of formulaic points that happens to be between two guys."
The truth is the lines are being drawn in America. And we are segmenting into (to paraphrase John Edwards), two America's. But the two America's aren’t the rich and poor, as Edwards wants you to believe. The two America’s are secular humanists and Christians.
This divide can be easily illustrated at your local movie complex. ... Brokeback Mountain or Narnia.
So which ticket are you buying?
