Okay, so a lot of this is cross-posted from yesterday's gushy Barbelith review but what the hey. There didn't seem to be a thread here on Brokeback Mountain and, finding myself still quite fascinated by the film (and the hoo-hah around it) I'm interested in TMO opinions.
First impressions, yesterday:
Saw Brokeback Mountain earlier today, and I'm still finding it difficult to articulate my thoughts on the film because I became caught up entirely in the huge emotional sweep of the thing to the extent that refocussing on the detail and (extremely minor) flaws feels somehow... to do it a disservice.
I honestly can't remember when last a film affected me as powerfully on such a visceral level. My partner's the same, and I'm wondering to what extent we're reacting as gay men - because Brokeback Mountain didn't seem like a 'gay movie'. It felt more universal than that, a more classic tale of doomed love, albeit love which arguably didn't need to be doomed - hence the element of tragedy.
I'd been attempting to avoid as much of the media hype as possible, but I did read Proulx's short story beforehand. I'm glad I did, because it helped me in the early stages: rather than straining to glean plot from Ennis's mumbly monosyllables, I could sit back and let the slowly unfolding story - and particularly the beautiful visuals - wash over me. As Twist coaxes Ennis gradually out of his taciturn carapace, his dialogue becomes clearer. It's the non-verbal stuff which truly dazzles, the glances and glances away, the oblique yet fluent body language in which car mirrors and cigarettes and hatbrims and belt buckles become extensions/expressions of the men's communication/courtship. Ennis, in particular, uses his stetson as a defence mechanism, from the initial extraordinary silent 'pose-off' onwards.
Since so much was communicated visually, and in terms of the luminous Wyoming scenery itself, I really appreciated Lee's having taken time to unfold his story with languor - so the film's wide-open spaces reflected the achingly (frighteningly) gorgeous emptiness of the mountainside itself. It felt spare but unhurried. To a certain extent I can understand some people having a problem with the paucity of explicit foreshadowing of the sex scene in the tent. I do think it's there, though, in the increasing physical and emotional intimacy ('stripping off') between the two men, and implicitly Ennis's talk of a coyote "with balls as big as apples" while rubbing down his own (presumably somewhat swollen) genitalia. There's definite sexual tension; it's just that Jack's so much more emotionally literate (and presumably one Kinsey numeral higher) than Ennis that he successfully manages the situation - avoiding frightening his nervy steer with frank attention - until events can no longer be resisted. When it does finally happen, it's a risk - Jack might get beaten to a pulp - but it's a (drunkenly) calculated risk which will be familiar to many gay men. I can absolutely recognise that inebriated sense of 'how the fuck did we get here?'. I think it works. There's a ring of truth (ho ho).
And yeah, it is close to rape, just as much of the open-air horseplay edges into fisticuffs. Isn't that part of the attraction, though? Like seasons on the mountain itself, Ennis and Jack's physicality is raw, elemental. It's a million miles away from 'gay' in any non-sexual sense.
On Barbelith, the question of the moment is, would saliva be sufficient lubricant for such enthusiastic bumsex? Possibly, I suppose, depending on the sizes involved. In the short story, there's also allusion to precum, in which case Ennis has either been dozing with a big, dripping stiffy or goes from zero to sixty pretty damn sharpish...
Although much has been made of the hott sex scene, I actually found myself more affected by the urgency and hunger of the 'four years later' moment. For me, that was the film's emotional pivot, and it puzzled me slightly when some of my fellow cinema-goers laughed at Alma's reaction. While Ennis's penchant for anal sex is clearly something of an ongoing pain in the arse (ho ho) for her, witnessing the cowboy clinch is the point at which Alma truly glimpses the lie at the heart of her marriage. Or rather, the impossible compromise.
(My partner wondered whether the people who tittered at that point also cried at the end. Valid question. There seemed as many non-weepers as weepers in the Vue audience.)
Accusations of "rampant misogyny"? Well yes, I guess so, in the sense that, in the context of Ennis and Jack's twenty-year love affair, wives and daughters are (at least notionally) symbols of duty, impediments - and part of Alma's/Lureen's pain is that they're able to recognise that. I thought pretty much all the women were intelligently drawn, and I don't think they were portrayed by Lee himself in a misogynistic way. From Alma Junior to old Ma Twist, they read the situation on at least some level, partly intuited The Problem With Men Like Ennis/Jack - even as they were drawn to the romantic outsider archetype. I agree that, at times, it seemed implicit that every cowboy marriage included a tacit understanding/denial of necessarily discreet man-to-man lust - although Jack's bar scene with the 'rodeo clown' suggests that any such understanding is by no means universal. One mustn't frighten the horses, particularly in Texas.
One might conceivably level a charge of misogyny at the portrayal of Lureen and her increasingly ludicrous hairdos, but I think this is part and parcel of the new What Jack Did scenes (Jack's outfits and hair - particularly his facial hair - also morph through varying degrees of '70s/'80s dodginess). Her increasing chilliness, particularly in that final, devastating 'phone call, is betrayed by the little sound she makes in her throat when the origin of 'Brokeback Mountain' is revealed. As with the other women, she knows.
*sigh*
It's still weirdly difficult talking about these scenes without twinges of the massive emotional wrench I experienced in the cinema. During the latter part of the film, I found myself holding my breath while tears and snot welled. Ennis's visit to the Twists is almost unbearable. I've never particularly been one to romanticise the iconography of the American West, but in Lee's film I felt I could genuinely appreciate the savage beauty of the open country, and the hardship (hardons) of those lifestyles which depend upon it.
We left the cinema utterly poleaxed - but neither of us felt unduly manipulated. Heath Ledger, in particular, deserves an Oscar. He's been quoted in the UK gay press as saying that, on viewing the finished article, he was proud of his acting for the very first time - and he's 100% justified in expressing this. Every lead was strong, but his was a shattering, career-defining performance. Outstanding.
-----
24 hours later, it's still with me. I'm reading some interesting reviews on Christian fundie websites: it would appear that Lee's admirable attempts to make this not another gay polemic in which his characters are chaste plaster saints (a la Philadelphia) or a semi-hysterical 'sexual predators' portrayal of TEH TWILIGHT WORLD OF TEH HOMOSEXUAL (a la Cruising) mean Brokeback Mountain can be variously interpreted/'claimed' by gay groups and US conservatives alike (although the latter reviews read as somewhat... strained). There's a predictable 'John Wayne is spinning in his grave' element.
Anyway.
Anyone here seen it? I'm particularly interested in what the hets thought.
Posted by London (Member # 29) on :
Wow, great review. I wanted to see this just for Jake Gyllenhaal being a homo cowboy - I didn't realise it might actually be good as well. I shall check it out this week.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
I'm really looking forward to seeing this too. It's got good reviews on my fave neo-nazi movie review site, Stormfront.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
quote:now days you can not go anywhere or do anything with out having to witness them. TV has lamost become unwatchable for the most part. The Media is pushing.. no.. shoving Homosexual tolerance down the people throats.where does it stop.. pretty soon our kids will be taught the being a Homo is a goodthing, a PURE thing. Society is now no longer sickened by it.. we accept it with open arms.. NOT ME.
Oh dear, isn't Stormfront getting in a (possibly trouserial) lather? I love the following:
quote:But cowboys are last bastion of decent manhood. They should not mess with that. Apparently this movie doesn't have just sex, it has cuddling too.
*gasp*
They're right, though; they shouldn't mess with cowboys. Ah well, at least we still have policemen, Red Indians, bikers and construction workers. They'll never claim those bastions of decent manhood.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
Posted by LowLevel (Member # 30) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: bikers
Young man, there's no need to feel down...
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Thaaat would be the reference, then.
Posted by LowLevel (Member # 30) on :
I guess it would have made more sense if you knew that I was a biker...
Sorry...
It's been a while...
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Ahhh. Sorry.
And, erm, phwoarrr!
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Skimming my favourite Christian blogs and forums, I'm intrigued by the number of people hijacking discussion of the film to inform all and sundry, at some length, that they have no intention of going to see it - but it's crap because blah blah assumptioncakes. I'm uncertain whether this is some kind of fundie pissing contest ("yeah, well, I'm gouging my eyes and ears out so I don't accidentally witness its foul immorality") or the fear of contracting 'gay' by celluloid transmission.
I'm guessing it'll do incredibly well on DVD.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
I was looking forward to this film until I found out that the cowboys in this film were modern cowboys. Is that accurate? I thought they were like old West cowboys or something, which would have been great. Like a gay Django and The Man With No Name, riding round together and gunning people down.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
They're 1960s cowboys, which is somewhere in-between - sadly not yer old-fashioned true-blue icons of American masculinity. Curse you, Ang Lee, for sissifying a pure archetype.
Howdy, chaps!
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
Heh. One of the Sturmfronters expressed a desire that the film would "bottom out" at the box office. The next chap along also stated that he hoped it would be "a flop".
Goddamn I hope there's some serious trolling going on there, otherwise imma fastbleep Dr Freud.
Posted by Carter (Member # 426) on :
And no, I don't think it was intentional. Because funny on SF seems to be calling it "Buttfuck Mountain". Or "Brokeass Mountain". And adding a lolling smiley.
Posted by Benny the Ball (Member # 694) on :
I called it bareback mountain for ages while talking to somebody about going to see it - they thought I was trying to be funny, but I was just being stupid... Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
That's okay. I still refer to you as Benny the Ballsac. Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carter: And no, I don't think it was intentional. Because funny on SF seems to be calling it "Buttfuck Mountain". Or "Brokeass Mountain". And adding a lolling smiley.
Man that's weak. They should at least think to change 'mountain' to 'mounting'. Ballsac's Bareback Mounting works best for this I reckon.
[ 03.01.2006, 09:07: Message edited by: Thorn Davis ]
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
Why is straight America so touchy about this? Cowboys weren't nearly as tough as pirates (British pirates, I might add) and everyone knows pirates were queer.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Those Sturmfrunters just can't do innuendo. Not intentionally, anyway.
Bet they all buy it on DVD and get turgidly furious in the privacy of their own SS shrines...
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
And the SS..?! Don't get me started. The SS are camp sine qua non, heartface.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: And the SS..?! Don't get me started. The SS are camp sine qua non, heartface.
Indeed. Cowboys may have given us arseless trousers, but the SS gave us leather, caps and dodgy moustaches.
Posted by omikin (Member # 37) on :
stern eeks, but bona nonetheless.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
I saw a great TV spot for this last night, where they went to extreme lengths to hide the fact that this film was about bummers. The whole thing was carefully edited so that shots of Heath and Jak hugging only showed one of their faces, while dialogue of the "I can't live wihout you" sort was overlaid over shots of Heath hugging his wife, playing with his daughter etc. All this despite the fact that Brokeback Mountain has been known as "that gay cowboy film" for about the last two years.
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I was looking forward to this film until I found out that the cowboys in this film were modern cowboys. Is that accurate? I thought they were like old West cowboys or something, which would have been great. Like a gay Django and The Man With No Name, riding round together and gunning people down.
Now that would have been cool.
Whilst it's not the Wild West, you can get a bit of that sort of action in The Wire, in the form of the seriously bad-ass shot-gun toting black gay stick-up man Omar.
Will reserve judgement on Brokeback Mountain until I see it, though I can't say I'm in a special hurry.
Posted by Roy (Member # 705) on :
I keep calling this film Bareback Mountain by mistake. I was corrected last week and it made me feel like my Dad.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: I saw a great TV spot for this last night, where they went to extreme lengths to hide the fact that this film was about bummers. The whole thing was carefully edited so that shots of Heath and Jak hugging only showed one of their faces, while dialogue of the "I can't live wihout you" sort was overlaid over shots of Heath hugging his wife, playing with his daughter etc. All this despite the fact that Brokeback Mountain has been known as "that gay cowboy film" for about the last two years.
Dear oh dear. On the one hand, I suppose it's reasonable to try to shed the reductive "gay cowboy" label (technically they'd be ranch hands rather than cowboys, and neither would identify as gay, despite bumming aplenty); on the other, the editing you describe is actively misleading as to who can't live without who.
Surely no-one who enters the cinema to see Brokeback Mountain can't know what it's about?
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
I'm going to see this tomorrow night. If I don't emerge a moral degenerate, ready to thrust perverted homosexual behaviour down the throats of decent folk I shall want my money back.
Mmmmmm. Gaymo on horseback.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: Those Sturmfrunters just can't do innuendo. Not intentionally, anyway.
Bet they all buy it on DVD and get turgidly furious in the privacy of their own SS shrines...
Why is it like really funny to invent ridiculous, mocking fantasies about the home lives of internet fascists and fundamentalist Christians?
It seems about as weak a strategy as those groups laughing about their misconceived notions of gay lifestyle.
It's good that you found the film enriching, but why are you offended that certain Christian reviewers -- who you must know are going to disapprove of physical homosexuality on screen just as you seem to dislike, and certainly parody, the way they express their faith -- have reservations which they put forward on a website for like-minded Christians?
Is a website like PluggedInOnline actually bothering you, offending you, oppressing or affecting you through its existence as a reference point for Christian families?
Why do you have to poach into their cultural territory, bringing stuff back to ridicule and hold up for attack, rather than just enjoying what the film gives you as a happy gay man?
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Why is it like really funny to invent ridiculous, mocking fantasies about the home lives of internet fascists and fundamentalist Christians?
It seems about as weak a strategy as those groups laughing about their misconceived notions of gay lifestyle.
I'm not sure that it is a) "like really funny" or b) "a strategy" for me to take the piss. It's me taking the piss. I could well claim that it's not outwith the bounds of possibility that those who loudly profess a deeply excitable loathing for the cowboy-on-cowboy action (such as it is) of Brokeback Mountain might, in fact, be moderately (turgidly) 'interested' in those scenes in private - in the few plethysmograph studies of strongly homophobic individuals, it's not an uncommon finding. My main motivation in taking the piss is, however, to take the piss.
quote:It's good that you found the film enriching, but why are you offended that certain Christian reviewers -- who you must know are going to disapprove of physical homosexuality on screen just as you seem to dislike, and certainly parody, the way they express their faith -- have reservations which they put forward on a website for like-minded Christians?
Am I "offended"? Is my face "offended"? I don't think so. I'm unsurprised, mildly irritated, slightly amused by the reaction - but I don't think I'd claim to be offended. That sounds a little too huffy for me, and isn't my usual way of processing mild irritations.
What I am is interested. I see Brokeback Mountain as something of a cultural phenomenon, and am absolutely intrigued to see how straight/gay/bi/whatever people - of various cultural backgrounds - react to it. It seems to be splitting the Christian Right in ways that are quite difficult to predict, which I'm finding fascinating.
quote:Is a website like PluggedInOnline actually bothering you, offending you, oppressing or affecting you through its existence as a reference point for Christian families?
Perhaps you can point out where I claimed it was? Of course, I could start banging on about the influence of the Christian Right on the leader of the world's sole hyperpower and argue that that hyperpower exerts a global (if indirect) influence over us all. I could also, with a little memory-wracking, cite gay friends in the US whose lives have been directly, materially affected by that Christian Right influence, and with whom I share a certain non-solipsistic empathy. I'm not sure I'm that wanky, though; I'm happy enough just to take the piss.
quote:Why do you have to poach into their cultural territory, bringing stuff back to ridicule and hold up for attack, rather than just enjoying what the film gives you as a happy gay man?
Hahahah, I think I'd quite like my tagline changed to "a happy gay man".
Am I 'poaching into their cultural territory' merely by quoting and ridiculing them? Are you 'poaching into' my 'cultural territory' here by commenting on my gayness? Am I 'poaching into' yours by posting on TMO? Where does 'cultural territory' begin and end? Does every quote or link or image held up for ridicule constitute 'poaching'? If so, I pity the gamekeeper...
Are you seriously suggesting that pisstaking be considered beyond the pale, on TMO or elsewhere? Perhaps you might expand on this a little, Kovacs? I'm interested in when it becomes cultural 'poaching'. Wasn't there that incident with you and that black community forum not so long ago? Was that 'poaching'?
As for whether I have to take the piss, no, not really. I choose to, though, because I like taking the piss - and because I find many of the attitudes expressed (particularly the bizarre perceptions of homosexuality) rather ridiculous. I suppose I see it as a relatively harmless way of managing my own mild exasperation with the attitudes expressed. It's arguably less of an imposition than my starting I'm Not Going To See Narnia (But Here's Why It's Wrong) threads, or lobbying our Government to stop Christians marrying.
Of course, if you don't feel TMO is an appropriate place for me to ridicule things I find annoying, then let me know. I'll actually appreciate the irony of this forum being the one to impose TEH CENSERSHIP!1!! on someone from Barbelith...
(PS: I'm not kidding; I really do want my tagline changed to "a happy gay man". Could whoever does these things do it, please? Pleeeease?)
[ 07.01.2006, 12:12: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
saw this and thought of you...
good night!
[ 05.01.2006, 18:30: Message edited by: vikram ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
I'm in gayer country.
Posted by Modge (Member # 64) on :
Don't worry Ganesh, I just went into the bedroom and a half-asleep kovacs asked "can we play 'Brokeback Mountain'?"
[I said 'no']
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Are you rectally poaching him?
Posted by Modge (Member # 64) on :
I-I-I don't know what that means
I am glad it was the first post of a new page though!
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Are you poaching his anal territory?
(I don't know what it means either, even with "cultural" substituted for "anal". Perhaps Kovacs will explain...)
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Thanks for replying so swiftly, Ganesh. I don't like talking about films I haven't seen, but I was commenting more on your response to it than the movie itself, so I hope to get back to you in turn very soon. I am going to Vienna in an hr (!)
Actually I corrected my request to "can we play Kovacs Mountain". A telling slip? I think not. However, this was at 11pm and Modge then went away, and stayed up watching TV until 3am, so perhaps it was unwise.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
It's okay, Kovacs, I wasn't seriously claiming you're into sleepy bumsex.
(Although it's fiiine if you are.)
I await your response - although I don't think seeing the film is especially vital to unpacking your previous comments. As you say, you've speculated more on my motivations than on Brokeback Mountain itself.
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
I'm not sure, but I think I may have bought the ideal tshirt to go and see this movie in:
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Ahh, Vivienne Westwood's classic Tom of Finland rip-off! Yeah, one of my friends wore that to see the fillum.
Posted by Gemini (Member # 428) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: Although much has been made of the hott sex scene, I actually found myself more affected by the urgency and hunger of the 'four years later' moment. For me, that was the film's emotional pivot, and it puzzled me slightly when some of my fellow cinema-goers laughed at Alma's reaction. While Ennis's penchant for anal sex is clearly something of an ongoing pain in the arse (ho ho) for her, witnessing the cowboy clinch is the point at which Alma truly glimpses the lie at the heart of her marriage. Or rather, the impossible compromise.
Anyone here seen it? I'm particularly interested in what the hets thought.
Yes I've seen it. I enjoyed it much to my surprise, my prefered movie genre usually comprising of americans with guns making supposedly witty asides to each other. Firstly the suppose gay hott sex scene. I must have blinked or something, I didn't see anything that came close to a sex scene, all there was were a couple of close ups of flys being opened and a position that suggested anal sex was about to take place before the camera cut away to the outside of the tent. Also I think there should have been more build up to this moment and some of the later bits of the film cut. Even tho you do see the 2 starting to open up to each other, I still don't think Jack would have taken the risk at that point, however I am thinking about this from a heterosexual female point of view.
I agree the passion wasn't really shown until the kissing scene 4 years later, who on here couldn't empathise with the "I just can't wait any longer" urgency. Watching that turned me on.
As for Alma seeing them, people in the cinema I was in laughed as well, I admit I did too and I remember thinking at the time - why the hell am I laughing? To be honest I still don't know. If you care to ask any questions to try and get to the root of it ask away but 5 days later I still dont know. Maybe for others it was the embaressment of watching 2 men kiss like that and they could let it out until that moment for fear of un-PCness? However I don't think that applies to me as I'm quite happy to watch 2 men snog without issue as I frequent places such as GAY. Or maybe that's as bad as saying I don't hate blacks I have a friend that is black in response to a racist commment. I also remember thinking why the hell are they so afraid of coming out, and kept having to remind myself this was America 40 years ago and not London 2005.
Anyway, some very rambling thoughts on the matter.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Gemini: Firstly the suppose gay hott sex scene. I must have blinked or something, I didn't see anything that came close to a sex scene, all there was were a couple of close ups of flys being opened and a position that suggested anal sex was about to take place before the camera cut away to the outside of the tent.
Yeah, it's like 15 seconds or thereabouts. From what I read on my cultural poaching trips, the much-discussed 'ick factor' tends to be more in the imagination of those (mostly heterosexual-identifying men) who haven't seen the film. Onscreen, it's quicker - and there's less prick - than one's BCG test.
quote:Also I think there should have been more build up to this moment and some of the later bits of the film cut. Even tho you do see the 2 starting to open up to each other, I still don't think Jack would have taken the risk at that point
I take your point, but I don't think it stretches credulity much that he did. I'm certainly aware of situations where gay men, past and present, have taken enormous risks in making advances to 'trade' which could result in a sound bludgeoning (and not in a good way). Perhaps he thought the two-in-a-tent night was his one chance to seize the moment? And the age-old presence of alcohol as a factor meant they could theoretically do the "I was sooo drunk last night" thing the following day, if they hadn't wanted to repeat the encounter.
quote:I agree the passion wasn't really shown until the kissing scene 4 years later, who on here couldn't empathise with the "I just can't wait any longer" urgency. Watching that turned me on.
Me too, but probably more in a meltyquivery way than in a crotchstiffy way. Having done the long-distance relationship thang, I could empathise.
quote:As for Alma seeing them, people in the cinema I was in laughed as well, I admit I did too and I remember thinking at the time - why the hell am I laughing? To be honest I still don't know. If you care to ask any questions to try and get to the root of it ask away but 5 days later I still dont know. Maybe for others it was the embaressment of watching 2 men kiss like that and they could let it out until that moment for fear of un-PCness? However I don't think that applies to me as I'm quite happy to watch 2 men snog without issue as I frequent places such as GAY. Or maybe that's as bad as saying I don't hate blacks I have a friend that is black in response to a racist commment.
I don't think so. In fairness, since writing my review, I've talked to a few people who laughed at that point and, generally speaking, I think it genuinely is an expression of shock rather than a Nelson Munce-ish "ha-ha, your husband's a gayer!" moment.
quote:I also remember thinking why the hell are they so afraid of coming out, and kept having to remind myself this was America 40 years ago and not London 2005.
I think it wasn't just time and place but also background. You get a little more backstory on this in Proulx's short story (from which it's very faithfully taken). Both men have had very hard lives from an early age, with fathers who (perhaps sensed and) discouraged any hint of 'softness' in their sons - Jack's by physical abuse and Ennis's by showing him the murdered cowboy.
Posted by Gemini (Member # 428) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: In fairness, since writing my review, I've talked to a few people who laughed at that point and, generally speaking, I think it genuinely is an expression of shock [/QB]
Which just really goes to show how good the film is at drawing you in and making you care and feel about the characters as that type of laughter would happen in real life as well.
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
there are a few semi-positive christian reviews.
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
Just got in from seeing this and I thought it was a beautiful film. I went and saw it with a friend who is always really impatient to leave a movie as soon as the credits start to roll so I was dragged out of the auditorium into the glaring light of the foyer with tears streaming down my face, and both nose and mascara running.
I don't want to discuss the movie in detail at this point since it's all still a bit close to me, but I wanted to ask if anyone knows if it's true that the studio aren't pushing Jake Gyllenhaal for any gongs e.g. Oscars for this movie, since they don't want to dilute the best actor votes for Heath Ledger and they don't want to rank Jake's part as that of a supporting actor? That seems so unjust - whilst both actors were terrific, Heath Ledger mainly had to be a wooden block with occasional outbursts of passion of one or other form, whereas I felt Jake Gyllenhaal had to do more, you know, actual acting.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Hadn't heard that rumour, H1ppychick. I think all the lead performances were extremely strong. Heath Ledger had a lot less dialogue to work with, though, and had to communicate the big emotional stuff non-verbally. I'd like to see both male leads up for gongs, and Michelle Williams too.
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
Yeah, I don't know where I picked that up from, it may have been something to do with Golden Globe nominations? Not sure. Perhaps you're right about Heath Ledger, I can't make up my mind. He absolutely nails the final act, hence the mascara-streaming early doors on my part.
By the way, the friend that I went with, who is a straight man, referred to the gay sex scene as "explicit" when we discussed the movie on the way home - perhaps there's something in what you say about homonervous men imagineering more content than was actually present in the film.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
I guess it's 'explicit' in that it's signally about one man sticking his cock up another's arse. The fact that cocks and arses are never shown - there's not a great deal of nudity period - may not defuse its 'explicitness' for some people.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by vikram: there are a few semi-positive christian reviews.
Yeah, that one's fairly reasonable - although I don't agree that "it's the movie's greatest weakness that it never fully develops the wives' characters, and they're often relegated to clichés". I thought Brokeback Mountain did a pretty good job of avoiding cliches, and even those female characters with a relatively short screen time (Cassie, Alma Junior, Ma Twist) came across as people rather than ciphers.
It's interesting also that the point is made, at the start of that review, that the three-star rating "is only in reference to the quality of the filmmaking, the acting, the cinematography, etc. It is not a "recommendation" to see the film, nor is it a rating of the "moral acceptability" of the subject matter". One wonders whether they make this stipulation before reviewing every film containing 'morally-dubious' material (such as people killing people, heterosexual infidelity, deceit, etc.) or whether it's the same-sex element that merits it, in this case.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Gemini: As for Alma seeing them, people in the cinema I was in laughed as well, I admit I did too and I remember thinking at the time - why the hell am I laughing?
I saw Brokeback Mountain again last night, this time in the Convent Garden Odeon, with a much more visibly gay audience - and, if anything, they laughed more at that point. It's interesting, though, that as the door closes but the camera stays on Alma and it becomes clear how devastated she is, the laughter quickly dies. Perhaps the switching of camera viewpoints (outside the house with Jack and Ennis to interior shot with Alma) it was Lee's intention to manipulate audience sympathies? If so, it works incredibly well.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Covent Garden, dammit. Get out of my brain, God!
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
lol
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
you'll like this.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Um, wow.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: Why is it like really funny to invent ridiculous, mocking fantasies about the home lives of internet fascists and fundamentalist Christians?
It seems about as weak a strategy as those groups laughing about their misconceived notions of gay lifestyle.
I'm not sure that it is a) "like really funny" or b) "a strategy" for me to take the piss. It's me taking the piss.
a) Taking the piss is meant to be funny. Surely something is wrong if you're not sure about the connection between "me taking the piss" and "funny".
b) As well as being funny, taking the piss is often meant to expose and in some way attack the target.
You are not dumb or innocent enough to get away with the idea that you don't understand the connection between these concepts.
quote: I could well claim that it's not outwith the bounds of possibility that those who loudly profess a deeply excitable loathing for the cowboy-on-cowboy action (such as it is) of Brokeback Mountain might, in fact, be moderately (turgidly) 'interested' in those scenes in private - in the few plethysmograph studies of strongly homophobic individuals, it's not an uncommon finding.
You're bringing in jargon from one of your own specialist fields here ("plethysmograph", a beautiful name it sounds like a cousin of the plesiosaur) -- but the idea that vocal homophobes are secretly gay is a familiar stereotype that circulates without medico-scientific support, and I don't really think you were attempting a serious social diagnosis when you proposed that critics of this film were "getting in a (possibly trouserial) lather."
I'm sure we could scrape up evidence for all sorts of stereotypes, and try to claim case studies for (eg.) Scots being miserly (Taylor, 1966a, did find some ethnographic support for this hypothesis in a study of male subjects in Fife...) . I believe there was medical evidence for homosexuality being treated as a sickness curable by electric shocks. It is not really an honourable precedent.
Your brand of mockery is apparently so innocent that it has nothing to do with being funny, nothing to do with strategy either -- OK, but it's a bit much to whip on a scholarly hat, then whip it off when you want to repeat that your "main motivation in taking the piss is, however, to take the piss", heavens it's a torrent of the yellowstuff, like one of those "pissing contests" you mention above.
quote:
It's good that you found the film enriching, but why are you offended that certain Christian reviewers -- who you must know are going to disapprove of physical homosexuality on screen just as you seem to dislike, and certainly parody, the way they express their faith -- have reservations which they put forward on a website for like-minded Christians?
Am I "offended"? Is my face "offended"?
Whuh? Oh, you're -- ha ha! -- you're doing that comedy programme. That's very good. Have you seen where the fellow goes "I want that one!" "No but yeah but." Ha. OK now we have the impressions out of the way.
Do you seem offended. Well, alright, I allow that you were "mildly irritated", enough to write
- one post suggesting that Stormfront's annoyance at this film may mean a secret wanking frenzy
- one mocking "fundie" discussion boards and their stupid assumptions, their attempts to point-score by being more-homophobic-than-thou, their beliefs that gayness can be caught via celluloid
- one, again parodying either Stormfront or "fundie" convictions or both, about "sissifying" the cowboy archetype
- one more about Stormfront contributors wanking off over gay films they claim to despise.
To be fair, maybe you were bored. I frequently get bored and post all sorts of things in a row, on a theme. It doesn't mean I'm obsessed with it -- it might mean the forum is slow at that moment.
quote: What I am is interested. I see Brokeback Mountain as something of a cultural phenomenon, and am absolutely intrigued to see how straight/gay/bi/whatever people - of various cultural backgrounds - react to it. It seems to be splitting the Christian Right in ways that are quite difficult to predict, which I'm finding fascinating.
I AGREE this is interesting. However, most of your posts on page one are simply running the same old line about how conservative Christians are stupid, and right-wing homophobes are secretly gay. You are not really investigating the way the right wing has claimed this film through a different reading, as you mention briefly in your first post.
Of course you have no duty to do that... but the way your pisstaking posts on page 1 engage only with a few easy internet targets (and misrepresent & stereotype the people on those website forums until they become even broader, perhaps meaninglessly caricatured targets) doesn't relate to much of your more considered paragraph just above.
quote:
Is a website like PluggedInOnline actually bothering you, offending you, oppressing or affecting you through its existence as a reference point for Christian families?
Perhaps you can point out where I claimed it was?
Well, a parody is a form of attack, isn't it. If you repeatedly quote those sites and stereotype their positions, and exaggerate their attitudes until they seem daft ("yeah, well, I'm gouging my eyes and ears out so I don't accidentally witness its foul immorality"), then yes I do assume you have some problem with them.
Not necessarily to the extent I stated above, I agree. But of course you don't have to claim something explicitly for someone to get a certain impression of your views.
quote: Of course, I could start banging on about the influence of the Christian Right on the leader of the world's sole hyperpower and argue that that hyperpower exerts a global (if indirect) influence over us all. I could also, with a little memory-wracking, cite gay friends in the US whose lives have been directly, materially affected by that Christian Right influence, and with whom I share a certain non-solipsistic empathy. I'm not sure I'm that wanky, though; I'm happy enough just to take the piss.
I don't really get this distinction you keep making between taking-the-piss and any kind of personal, political, polemical point.
Here's a review from an Illinois newspaper.
quote:Ennis’ tragedy is that he cannot find the courage to admit to the world (and probably himself) that he is gay. Ledger conveys this through terse mumbling that unfortunately sounds too much like Billy Bob Thornton in “Sling Blade.”
Did you take the piss out of that review? You did not.
Here's the Charlotte Observer.
quote:That's why the film should be universal: Any of us can imagine a forbidden passion so sweeping that it carries us off at flood tide, never allowing us to question it. Whether the object of our affection would carry a purse, a lariat or both is beside the point.
Again, you're not quoting this review and wondering aloud whether Lawrence Toppman picked up his chaps after seeing the movie.
Your taking-the-piss is clearly not just a bit of mockery at random reviews you found online -- it is only directed at the more reactionary and homophobic reviews you discovered, and I don't see why you seem wary of agreeing that your pisstake has some political point.
You seem to want to have it both ways -- you could provide evidence and solid argument if you wanted to, but you don't want to, because you just love being puckish and your joking around has no other connotation, it's just HAVING A LAUGH.
I think it would be more effective if you said that your mockery was targeted at specific websites and social positions, for a reason, because their attitudes do encroach in some way upon your life, and they deserve to be undermined. But that is presumptuous of me.
Oh now here is the meat of it, the "cultural poaching" bit you're chasing me into other threads to talk about. I'm afraid it might not be that interesting after all this wait.
quote:Why do you have to poach into their cultural territory, bringing stuff back to ridicule and hold up for attack, rather than just enjoying what the film gives you as a happy gay man?
Am I 'poaching into their cultural territory' merely by quoting and ridiculing them? Are you 'poaching into' my 'cultural territory' here by commenting on my gayness? Am I 'poaching into' yours by posting on TMO? Where does 'cultural territory' begin and end? Does every quote or link or image held up for ridicule constitute 'poaching'? If so, I pity the gamekeeper...
You ask some valid questions here. I used the term swiftly and loosely.
"Poaching" in this sense is associated in cult studs with this book TEXTUAL POACHERS by Henry Jenkins, who was borrowing ideas from Michel de Certeau.
Usually it is taken to mean the tactics of the relatively powerless as part of what you will often see described yawnsomely as "semiotic guerrilla warfare" against the relatively powerful.
In Jenkins and those millions who use his model, it is more specifically about popular media fans and producers.
A classic and appropriate example might be a fan who re-edits a sequence from Star Trek: Search for Spock so it seems that Kirk and Spock are enjoying a loving (happy) gay relationship. As the official text Star Trek doesn't embrace and allow gay relationships, the fan is "poaching" from that text and "making do" with the official culture they've been given, creating something of their own based on what was handed down.
Whether that metaphor is useful or not, you must take up with the billions of profs and students repeating the notions of H Jenkins in classrooms across the world at this very moment.
Anyway... you have a good point, as I said, in that really the model is meant to apply to relatively powerless and powerful groups, and as someone posting on the internet, you are not really much less powerless than someone else posting elsewhere on the internet (with the minor distinction that they might have their own review page, read by more people than your thread on TMO.)
Are you "poaching" from me by quoting my post? Not in the sense I explained above, no, though you could be taking my material and twisting it into something that better suits your argument -- however, we're both on the same power-level (approx! a cat may talk to a king on here) so I'm not really a landowner to your peasant.
Is someone "poaching" when they take an image from McDonalds or Microsoft websites, photoshop it and post it up here with a new meaning? YES, actually they are.
So, if the metaphor depends on power, then I would feasibly be "poaching" if I took something from the NY Times website and made something of my own from it here, but not so much if I pasted in something from another bulletin board.
What I meant, more, to say, was that you are deliberately going into a territory, or neighbourhood of the internet that you know will hold different views to your own -- and bringing back their views to this context where you know your mockery will reach an appreciative audience (Vikram saying for instance).
It's perhaps more like going to another country and then doing impressions of their accents to your friends when you return -- or telling funny tales about their weird customs, or showing off their quaint artefacts. It's just easy laughs, isn't it. It doesn't get a laugh on their website, but if you bring it back here, it's ripe for humour.
Your example doesn't really serve you well --
quote: Wasn't there that incident with you and that black community forum not so long ago? Was that 'poaching'?
-- because while it's an example of what I'm talking about, it was exactly that, easy laughs and colonialist humour (and remember -- I got banned from TMO for it). That's similar to what you're doing if you go onto that silly simpleminded "fundie" website and paste in their comments, telling us these folk reckon they'll get GAY by watching a movie, and these ones beat off about how queer those cowboys are.
quote: As for whether I have to take the piss, no, not really. I choose to, though, because I like taking the piss - and because I find many of the attitudes expressed (particularly the bizarre perceptions of homosexuality) rather ridiculous. I suppose I see it as a relatively harmless way of managing my own mild exasperation with the attitudes expressed. It's arguably less of an imposition than my starting I'm Not Going To See Narnia (But Here's Why It's Wrong) threads, or lobbying our Government to stop Christians marrying.
Of course, if you don't feel TMO is an appropriate place for me to ridicule things I find annoying, then let me know. I'll actually appreciate the irony of this forum being the one to impose TEH CENSERSHIP!1!! on someone from Barbelith...
As I've said, your argument is more persuasive to me when you present it as a kind of political case. I can understand why you'd have a beef against some of the sites you mock, and why it would seem a witty work-out to pummel them a bit.
Boiling down, here are the three key... reservations? Not "issues" or "problems"... perhaps best to say reasons I am entering into dialogue with you about your mocking of the above reviews of Brokeback Mountain and the sites they derive from. To think that I, representing TMO, could censor you is of course ludicrous and anyway why would I want to, because I posted to your thread in order to get a discussion going.
1. Too obvious. Of course a right-wing website or a Christian film review page are going to have objections to a mainstream film about a homosexual relationship that includes relatively explicit sex scenes between two men. You might as well make a meal out of PluggedIn: Focus on the Family's reaction to Sin City or even Closer. We all know they're going to have reservations about and probably express a dislike for films that show explicit sexuality, whether hetero or homo, and that diverge from their own idea of moral behaviour.
2. I do feel some sense of "trespass" is involved, the idea I tried to express above of laughing at the funny foreign people. I don't muster much sympathy for a fascist website, but the people on that Christian site hold sincere beliefs that I don't, mostly, find all that abhorrent. Is it OK to make fun of people and caricature them because your faith and its associated values differ from theirs? Because they hold to Christian teachings, are they really idiots who think you can catch gayness from watching a film?
I'm sure many contemporary films would be offensive or unacceptable to many contemporary Muslims. Is it decent of me to quote reviews from websites written by and for members of that community, exaggerating their opinions for my own fun?
3. I don't feel you're really engaging in an interesting or honest way with what these websites are actually saying. By making out that anyone who finds homosexuality distasteful is probably secretly gay, or really stupid, you're just batting at stereotypes of your own creation, rather than examining the actual nature of their views and how they try to rationalise them.
I don't see that what you're doing here is so different from me visiting a website for gay men and finding, say, that the review of Closer included a paragraph about the relative hotness of the male protagonists, and quoting it here with some fancy about how the reviewer was probably sitting in a pink tutu whooping and waving a rainbow flag whenever Clive Owen came on-screen.
That's about how close it gets you to an interesting truth about a community different to your own.
-----------------------
I have another point but I think I may break for air now.
[ 09.01.2006, 16:17: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I will make my other point briefly. There has been a fair bit of talk in reviews about how Brokeback Mountain threatens, undermines, "sissifies" a bastion of heterosexual masculinity, and some counter-talk about how the Western was always queer from the start. I have read at least one article in the Guardian along these lines and if you can't easily find it, I'm sure I can link it for you.
It seems to me that the Western is usually an exploration of different types of heterosexual masculinity. Whether Brokeback Mountain is a Western, or a "cowboy film" either literally or generically (whether it has "cowboys" in it at all; whether it revisits any of the key themes and iconography of the conventional Western), I do not know.
But if it is a kind of Western, and one that centrally explores a sexual/romantic relationship between two men, then I think that is undermining and threatening the heterosexual basis of almost every other film we call a Western.
Whether it's bad or positive to undermine and threaten generic conventions is another matter.
But there seems no point to me, if this movie is generically a Western, in denying that it's going against what the Western has traditionally been about. The claims that the genre has always been queer seem like mildly clever manipulation to me.
As such, Brokeback Mountain would be like a "straight version" of, say, Kenneth Anger's movies, or the Derek Jardin's The Jarman, excuse me Derek Garden's The Jardin. It is (again) a kind of cultural trespass, a claiming of familiar land for new uses, and here I don't use the metaphor with any negative connotations.
However, in those terms, I don't see it as so ludicrous if some aficionados of the "original" form felt threatened, even outraged. The reasons for their feeling threatened would be interesting. We could ask what the Western has historically, traditionally said about different varieties of heterosexuality, and whether it does weaken that history and tradition at all to tell a story within that genre about varieties of homosexuality -- what the overlap is, what similarities are due to genre, what common ground exists in that they're all tales about men, whoever those men love.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: One wonders whether they make this stipulation before reviewing every film containing 'morally-dubious' material (such as people killing people, heterosexual infidelity, deceit, etc.) or whether it's the same-sex element that merits it, in this case.
I hope this question wasn't rhetorical, because there is an answer: yes, in my experience they do tend to express such reservations about films featuring (yet not condemning) all other forms of "immorality", and not just gay sex by any means.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: a) Taking the piss is meant to be funny. Surely something is wrong if you're not sure about the connection between "me taking the piss" and "funny".
It was the "like really" bit I was questioning there. You seemed to be suggesting that, in order to achieve some level of validity, a particular level of funniness is required. How this precise level of funniness might be measured - other than your own subjective opinion, Kovacs - I have no idea.
quote:b) As well as being funny, taking the piss is often meant to expose and in some way attack the target.
Perhaps, but "often meant" does not = "always meant", and terms such as "expose and in some way attack" are rather stretchy. To what extent is assuaging one's own minor irritations - scratching an itch - an "attack" on the source of that irritation?
quote:You are not dumb or innocent enough to get away with the idea that you don't understand the connection between these concepts.
No - but I'm intelligent enough to understand that the connection is not one-size-fits-all. I'm self-aware enough to know how they apply to me.
quote:You're bringing in jargon from one of your own specialist fields here ("plethysmograph"
Of course I am. 'Erectionometer', then, if you prefer.
quote:but the idea that vocal homophobes are secretly gay is a familiar stereotype that circulates without medico-scientific support
Not without "medico-scientific support" - which was the point of my making reference to studies of erectile response in individuals claiming to be repulsed by certain imagery.
quote:and I don't really think you were attempting a serious social diagnosis when you proposed that critics of this film were "getting in a (possibly trouserial) lather."
No, but it's not simply for laffs either. There is sound research evidence for the "stereotype" of extreme homophobia frequently being related to elements of sexual attraction, and I am aware of this evidence base even as I make an obviously humorous comment as above.
quote:I'm sure we could scrape up evidence for all sorts of stereotypes, and try to claim case studies for (eg.) Scots being miserly (Taylor, 1966a, did find some ethnographic support for this hypothesis in a study of male subjects in Fife...) . I believe there was medical evidence for homosexuality being treated as a sickness curable by electric shocks. It is not really an honourable precedent.
I'm sure you could - in which case I'd have the option of either accepting this as a humorous aside for which there is apparently an evidence base, or I could take issue with that evidence base and we could go on to discuss methodology.
I'd probably be curious. Perhaps we could talk about this, in another thread?
quote:Your brand of mockery is apparently so innocent that it has nothing to do with being funny, nothing to do with strategy either
And your brand of criticism is apparently so omnipotent that you're able to objectively divine the global funniness of any given comment - as well as reach into my own psyche and decide that I am operating a "strategy" (somewhat loaded term, not unreminiscent of the ol' Gay Agenda, no?)
quote:OK, but it's a bit much to whip on a scholarly hat, then whip it off when you want to repeat that your "main motivation in taking the piss is, however, to take the piss"
I don't think it is "a bit much". I think it's perfectly reasonable to say my main motivation is to take the piss while getting "scholarly" when someone asks about the evidence base upon which I'm taking the piss (in this case, the possibility that strongly homophobic individuals might be turned on by that by which they profess to be disgusted).
Not seeing a fatal contradiction here.
quote:Whuh? Oh, you're -- ha ha! -- you're doing that comedy programme. That's very good. Have you seen where the fellow goes "I want that one!" "No but yeah but." Ha. OK now we have the impressions out of the way.
Yes, because surely quoting 'comedy programmes' is well out of order here on TMO.
Hopefully now we've got the snarkiness out of the way.
quote:Do you seem offended. Well, alright, I allow that you were "mildly irritated", enough to write
- one post suggesting that Stormfront's annoyance at this film may mean a secret wanking frenzy
- one mocking "fundie" discussion boards and their stupid assumptions, their attempts to point-score by being more-homophobic-than-thou, their beliefs that gayness can be caught via celluloid
- one, again parodying either Stormfront or "fundie" convictions or both, about "sissifying" the cowboy archetype
- one more about Stormfront contributors wanking off over gay films they claim to despise.
To be fair, maybe you were bored. I frequently get bored and post all sorts of things in a row, on a theme. It doesn't mean I'm obsessed with it -- it might mean the forum is slow at that moment.
Well, you're rather assuming that 'pisstaking' = 'mildly irritated' = 'offended' - in which case this entire forum is presumably a seething hotbed of offendedness. Which might be the case, I suppose. It's rather a one-note interpretation of the function of humour, though, isn't it? One can appreciate the irony of cowboy archetypes being held up as icons of masculinity without that irony being founded on being 'offended'. I also took the piss out of gay culture and its appropriation of macho stereotypes - so, by your analysis, this too presumably 'offends' me.
To be honest, I think you're the one coming across as offended here. I've had similar Brokeback Mountain discussions across a number of message boards, and you've put far more energy into this particular line. Which interests me. Following your line of reasoning, you are perhaps oppressed by me?
quote:I AGREE this is interesting. However, most of your posts on page one are simply running the same old line about how conservative Christians are stupid, and right-wing homophobes are secretly gay. You are not really investigating the way the right wing has claimed this film through a different reading, as you mention briefly in your first post.
Are we talking about paucity of serious analysis and critique on TMO? Forgive me, but I'd always been under the impression that this place was more relaxed/informal/humour-orientated than Barbelith or Cross+Flame (wherein we've taken a more analytical approach to this). I think we have begun to talk more about the different right-wing reactions, but you rather leapt in before any of that had taken place.
quote:Of course you have no duty to do that... but the way your pisstaking posts on page 1 engage only with a few easy internet targets (and misrepresent & stereotype the people on those website forums until they become even broader, perhaps meaninglessly caricatured targets) doesn't relate to much of your more considered paragraph just above.
Again, perhaps I've fundamentally misjudged the tone of TMO here; perhaps "easy targets" are verboten - in which case slappy wrists for Vikram, who first linked to the (fascinating) Stormfront forum.
I don't see taking humorous potshots at particularly irritating/powerful targets as particularly antithetical to serious analysis. I think one can make one's point and still be funny. Whether or not I've succeeded in that is surely not your opinion alone, Kovacs.
quote:Well, a parody is a form of attack, isn't it. If you repeatedly quote those sites and stereotype their positions, and exaggerate their attitudes until they seem daft ("yeah, well, I'm gouging my eyes and ears out so I don't accidentally witness its foul immorality"), then yes I do assume you have some problem with them.
I'm irritated by those viewpoints, as I've said, for a number of reasons. This is not the same as claiming victim status, as you've suggested I've done.
quote:Not necessarily to the extent I stated above, I agree. But of course you don't have to claim something explicitly for someone to get a certain impression of your views.
Certainly not for them to make misassumptions about how "oppressed" I feel...
quote:I don't really get this distinction you keep making between taking-the-piss and any kind of personal, political, polemical point.
Let me help you, then.
I'm talking about my personal motivations - partly because you have attributed motivations to me ("strategy", "attack", "offended", "oppressed") on the basis of assumption. You attach a number of assumed motivations to my pisstaking, and I think you're rather presumptious in doing this.
I am therefore attempting to unpack my motivations as I see them, exploring why I'm taking the piss here. It's partly about being irritated, it's partly amusement, it's partly appreciation of irony, but it's largely because I enjoy being silly. Which doesn't seem heeyooogely out of place here - or so I thought.
I wasn't particularly motivated by seeking victim status at all - but, when you suggest that the viewpoints expressed on right-wing sites do not impinge in any way upon me or my life, it is incumbent on me to point out that you're frankly wrong.
quote:Did you take the piss out of that review? You did not.
Lacking your omnipotence, Kovacs, I had not read that review.
quote:Here's the Charlotte Observer.
Again, you're not quoting this review and wondering aloud whether Lawrence Toppman picked up his chaps after seeing the movie.
Again, I hadn't read the Charlotte Observer. I actually pretty much agree with that paragraph, though, so it wouldn't necessarily press my Pisstake Button. I didn't see as much comic potential there either.
If you're claiming selective 'cultural poaching', though, I might reasonably point out that you're being rather selective in holding me to standards which seem rather out of keeping with TMO in general. There are numerous examples of rather frivolous pisstaking at the 'expense' of other sites - including Vikram's Stormfront link in this very thread. As far as I can recall (and I might well be wrong here), this is the first time you've challenged someone doing so in this particular way.
How come?
quote:Your taking-the-piss is clearly not just a bit of mockery at random reviews you found online -- it is only directed at the more reactionary and homophobic reviews you discovered, and I don't see why you seem wary of agreeing that your pisstake has some political point.
It's not only pisstaking - but it's mainly pisstaking because I enjoy silliness and ridicule in themselves. My selection of targets is undoubtedly linked to that which irritates/amuses me - and it stands to reason that that which irritates/amuses me most is most likely to be a target.
Whether it has a "political point" is surely something of a moveable feast. I don't think it has in the sense that I'm consciously thinking "I must combat this attack with an attack of my own" but in the sense of the personal being political, yes, I suppose it is.
quote:You seem to want to have it both ways -- you could provide evidence and solid argument if you wanted to, but you don't want to, because you just love being puckish and your joking around has no other connotation, it's just HAVING A LAUGH.
Again, Kovacs, it ain't all-or-none. I can HAVE A LAUGH and also be aware of the "evidence and solid argument" underpinning my LAUGH. It's largely dependent on context, though: if this were the Barbelith Head Shop, for example, I'd probably downplay the humorous element and buff up the analytical aspects. If it were the Laboratory, I'd probably choose to focus on the plethysmograph stuff, and have a serious discussion on the evidence base for the 'homophobia relates to homosexual attraction' theory.
I'm surprised to be having this discussion here. Pleasantly so, though. Possibly my own fault for thinking of TMO as more fluffy than it is. Next time, I'll leave out the fluff and try to raise my game from the outset.
quote:I think it would be more effective if you said that your mockery was targeted at specific websites and social positions, for a reason, because their attitudes do encroach in some way upon your life, and they deserve to be undermined. But that is presumptuous of me.
It is presumptious of you, and it'd be a misrepresentaion of how I feel. I do think those attitudes impinge upon my life, but relatively peripherally. It'd be overstatement to make this a central pillar of my claimed motivations.
quote:Oh now here is the meat of it, the "cultural poaching" bit you're chasing me into other threads to talk about. I'm afraid it might not be that interesting after all this wait.
I'm guessing it might be a bit jargony, particularly as you've recommended I do some extra reading...
quote:"Poaching" in this sense is associated in cult studs with this book TEXTUAL POACHERS by Henry Jenkins, who was borrowing ideas from Michel de Certeau.
Usually it is taken to mean the tactics of the relatively powerless as part of what you will often see described yawnsomely as "semiotic guerrilla warfare" against the relatively powerful.
In Jenkins and those millions who use his model, it is more specifically about popular media fans and producers.
A classic and appropriate example might be a fan who re-edits a sequence from Star Trek: Search for Spock so it seems that Kirk and Spock are enjoying a loving (happy) gay relationship. As the official text Star Trek doesn't embrace and allow gay relationships, the fan is "poaching" from that text and "making do" with the official culture they've been given, creating something of their own based on what was handed down.
Whether that metaphor is useful or not, you must take up with the billions of profs and students repeating the notions of H Jenkins in classrooms across the world at this very moment.
That's interesting. Whether or not I've substantially re-edited the Christian/Stormfront comments is somewhat moot. I wouldn't say I have. If I have, it would appear to be somewhat endemic on this board, and on the Internet in general.
quote:Are you "poaching" from me by quoting my post? Not in the sense I explained above, no, though you could be taking my material and twisting it into something that better suits your argument
I guess we're then into deciding when quoting becomes quoting out of context becomes "twisting". There's also the assumption of a clear, specific "argument" as well as the necessity to gauge respective 'power levels'.
quote:Is someone "poaching" when they take an image from McDonalds or Microsoft websites, photoshop it and post it up here with a new meaning? YES, actually they are.
What about when they don't photoshop it, but post it as it is with a funny caption? Or with no caption at all, but within a discursive context wherein the juxtaposition is funny?
quote:So, if the metaphor depends on power, then I would feasibly be "poaching" if I took something from the NY Times website and made something of my own from it here, but not so much if I pasted in something from another bulletin board.
Again, we need to quantify how one measures "power" on the Internet. Number of clicks? Ability to sue?
quote:What I meant, more, to say, was that you are deliberately going into a territory, or neighbourhood of the internet that you know will hold different views to your own -- and bringing back their views to this context where you know your mockery will reach an appreciative audience (Vikram saying for instance).
Okay. I'm happy to accept that's cultural poaching then, as it appears to happen freely and widely throughout the Internet.
quote:It's perhaps more like going to another country and then doing impressions of their accents to your friends when you return -- or telling funny tales about their weird customs, or showing off their quaint artefacts. It's just easy laughs, isn't it. It doesn't get a laugh on their website, but if you bring it back here, it's ripe for humour.
I don't think it's just "easy laughs". Your description of the power dynamic would seem to suggest that it's like going to a much more powerful country wherein one is comparitively powerless. I'm happy to accept this analogy, but would reject the implication that there's necessarily something 'too easy' or 'unfair' about the process.
quote:Your example doesn't really serve you well --
because while it's an example of what I'm talking about, it was exactly that, easy laughs and colonialist humour (and remember -- I got banned from TMO for it). That's similar to what you're doing if you go onto that silly simpleminded "fundie" website and paste in their comments, telling us these folk reckon they'll get GAY by watching a movie, and these ones beat off about how queer those cowboys are.
It would seem to serve me remarkably well, then - as would the example of your returning here to complain about mistreatment in the Barbelith Nathan Barley thread, secure that you'd be received more sympathetically here.
And, as I've stated above, I'm not simply going for easy laffs in suggesting a fear of 'catching' homosexuality or homosexual attraction underpinning homophobia. I'm happy to discuss either or both of these topics in more depth if you so wish. It's just a little unexpected to be asked to do so here.
(Are you banned from TMO, then? How long did that last for? You appear to be posting now.)
quote:As I've said, your argument is more persuasive to me when you present it as a kind of political case. I can understand why you'd have a beef against some of the sites you mock, and why it would seem a witty work-out to pummel them a bit.
I think we understand "political" to mean different things, and that's clouding the issue. I don't think of myself as primarily motivated by wanting to present a "political case". If that were my motivation, I'd have been rather less flippant.
quote:1. Too obvious. Of course a right-wing website or a Christian film review page are going to have objections to a mainstream film about a homosexual relationship that includes relatively explicit sex scenes between two men. You might as well make a meal out of PluggedIn: Focus on the Family's reaction to Sin City or even Closer. We all know they're going to have reservations about and probably express a dislike for films that show explicit sexuality, whether hetero or homo, and that diverge from their own idea of moral behaviour.
In the case of Brokeback Mountain, however, I'd argue that it's rather less obvious, because the film can be read in ways that support a 'wages of sin' argument. It's also a subject on which I'm directly knowledgeable - which is not necessarily the case with Sin City, etc.
Also, if we're going to take issue with targets that are insufficiently challenging, you may wish to take a look at some other threads here.
quote:2. I do feel some sense of "trespass" is involved, the idea I tried to express above of laughing at the funny foreign people. I don't muster much sympathy for a fascist website, but the people on that Christian site hold sincere beliefs that I don't, mostly, find all that abhorrent. Is it OK to make fun of people and caricature them because your faith and its associated values differ from theirs? Because they hold to Christian teachings, are they really idiots who think you can catch gayness from watching a film?
I think some of them probably are, and I honestly do think this is the unconscious fear underlying several of the 'I'm not going to watch it' arguments.
And yes, I think it is OK to make fun of these viewpoints, for a number of reasons. I don't agree that I've unduly 'trespassed' on the sites involved, for reasons outlined above. I'd point out also that this rather nebulous concept of 'trespass' could reasonably be applied to any post wherein someone says, "look at this weird stuff I found on X site" - on TMO and on the Internet generally.
quote:I'm sure many contemporary films would be offensive or unacceptable to many contemporary Muslims. Is it decent of me to quote reviews from websites written by and for members of that community, exaggerating their opinions for my own fun?
Arguably yes, if 'decency' is to be our yardstick here, and depending on how one goes about defining 'decency'.
quote:3. I don't feel you're really engaging in an interesting or honest way with what these websites are actually saying.
I'd disagree - but then, what I consider honest or interesting may not be what you consider honest or interesting. I'd argue that your assessment of my 'honesty' rests on a host of assumptions regarding what motivates me ("strategy", "offended", "oppressed", etc.) and you are not the long-distance telepath you might appear to be.
quote:By making out that anyone who finds homosexuality distasteful is probably secretly gay, or really stupid, you're just batting at stereotypes of your own creation, rather than examining the actual nature of their views and how they try to rationalise them.
Fair point - but would be fairer if I were indeed claiming that "anyone who finds homosexuality distasteful" is covered by the above. That's another extension of (what you assume to be) my viewpoint, based on my reaction to some rather specific expressions of distaste coming from specific subgroups of the population.
quote:I don't see that what you're doing here is so different from me visiting a website for gay men and finding, say, that the review of Closer included a paragraph about the relative hotness of the male protagonists, and quoting it here with some fancy about how the reviewer was probably sitting in a pink tutu whooping and waving a rainbow flag whenever Clive Owen came on-screen.
There are plenty of gay stereotypes expressed here on TMO, and I've generally reacted to them based on how funny I find them rather than how "honest" I perceive them to be, or how much "trespass" I feel has taken place. The informality of TMO is one of the things I rather like about the place.
If you said the above, I'd react according to how amusing I felt you were being, because that's how the online environment makes me feel like behaving. If we're to move into theory bitch mode, I can do that too - and would do, in your example above - but I'd be more likely to react in that way in Barbelith's Head Shop.
As I've said above, perhaps I have a responsibility to approach TMO in a more analytical, less humorous manner? Perhaps others will also modify their posting habit?
quote:That's about how close it gets you to an interesting truth about a community different to your own.
And I maintain, again, that "interesting truth" and pisstaking are not mutually exclusive.
[ 09.01.2006, 18:53: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Glad I'm not the only one who can't get all that UBB right on the first edit.
Thanks for replying; I shall have to get back to you when I have another two hours solid to devote to this thread, ie. not before tomorrow evening I expect.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
However! Two initial, interesting and key points occur to me and I think they can be addressed more quickly.
I also hope you may reply to my post about whether and how Brokeback Mountain is indeed undermining, redefining (or similar) the conventions of a genre that is traditionally about heterosexual masculinity, or
i) whether it's not part of the Western/"cowboy" genre at all (I don't know about this but would be interested to hear)
or ii) whether the Western has never been mostly/exclusively about heterosexual masculinity in the first place (I would disagree with this).
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
POINT ONE
You say I have (wrongly) imagined you as adopting a victim status of complaint.
quote:I'm irritated by those viewpoints, as I've said, for a number of reasons. This is not the same as claiming victim status, as you've suggested I've done.
Certainly not for them to make misassumptions about how "oppressed" I feel...
you have attributed motivations to me ("strategy", "attack", "offended", "oppressed") on the basis of assumption. You attach a number of assumed motivations to my pisstaking, and I think you're rather presumptious in doing this.
I wasn't particularly motivated by seeking victim status at all
But you also take... can I say "offence"? You are "mildly irritated", perhaps, at what seems to be the opposite stance on my part, ie. I assume right-wing Christian websites don't affect you negatively in any way.
quote: when you suggest that the viewpoints expressed on right-wing sites do not impinge in any way upon me or my life, it is incumbent on me to point out that you're frankly wrong.
There does seem a contradiction here, but I didn't really mean to suggest either.
I said, above: Is a website like PluggedInOnline actually bothering you, offending you, oppressing or affecting you through its existence as a reference point for Christian families?
That isn't a statement that such websites and the attitudes they espouse don't impinge in any way on your life. It's a question that expects a reluctant negative answer, I suppose ("well, n-no, now you point it out... THEY DON'T!") but it's not a denial that they could... what: bother, annoy, irritate, and in some way (to the extent to which those attitudes may be the dominant in the world's only remaining superpower) offend, alarm you.
I don't want to play victim myself here, but I'm feeling it's hard to win in my word-choice. You could reject my use of "offend" and "alarm" above, refusing the idea that I might be depicting you as a victim.
However, you brought up the possibility that the Christian Right can affect all of us in alarming ways, and may have a more directly... oppressive? influence on someone who identifies as gay.
quote:the influence of the Christian Right on the leader of the world's sole hyperpower and argue that that hyperpower exerts a global (if indirect) influence over us all. I could also, with a little memory-wracking, cite gay friends in the US whose lives have been directly, materially affected by that Christian Right influence, and with whom I share a certain non-solipsistic empathy
You brought this last point in only to dismiss it as "wanky", but you did bring it in, and I accept there's sense & reason in it. (Perhaps you felt it would only seem wanky in a jokey discussion; not that it wasn't a valid point. That's something I hope to come back to below.)
Anyway, I didn't mean to, and don't think I did portray you as someone seeking victim status. What I suggested is that your pisstaking was directed at homophobic attitudes, the conservative right (or indeed fascism), ignorance and hypocrisy.
I did assume that this position and the target of what I saw not as random pisstaking but as parodic attacks were based on you being a gay man.
I accept that's a presumption, but people meeting as you and I are meeting, in text, as relative strangers, do inevitably make assumptions and see each other (reductively) in terms of cultural positions. Surely there's some of that in your request "I'm particularly interested in what the hets thought," which sounds weirdly patronising to me. That line obviously reduces those replying to their sexual preferences -- "hi Ganesh, I'm a het and thanks for asking for my opinion! Here's what I thought, as a str8 man."
To be honest, I think your whole opening post is written as a gay man, stressing that aspect of your cultural position, so while I shouldn't make assumptions that you're mocking homophobic websites because you're gay, I can certainly see why I did it, and I can see the logic I followed there.
POINT TWO
Interesting that your own understanding of TMO keeps coming up in this post. You would have brought your A-game, if you'd known... you thought this was the place for... look at the other threads, by comparison... surely this is allowed on TMO of all places.
Your misapprehension of TMO is interesting. I think the crux is this: Barbelith has a powerful, overbearing sense of what it is, what it's worth, what it's not, who its people are, and what goes where. Things must go in their place. This thread would now be subject to debates about whether it should be moved from Conversation or Film and TV to Head Shop. You may adopt a different, lighter tone and less thoughtful approach on Barbelith, depending where you post. You may be policed for missing the tone, and posting with inappropriate levity.
TMO is far more fluid and shapeless. Sometimes, it is a flat inner-tube. For weeks! Sometimes it is pumped up to its limits, a fluorescent space hopper that feels like it's carrying the funniest, cleverest fuckers in the universe across the internet. (Admittedly... not so often anymore).
Unlike the big city of Barbelith, I would suggest that TMO is usually grateful for a thread reaching any decent length, even if it's just reduced to 2-man chat by the end. That it starts with a fine personal review, moves into a bit of group joshing, goes through some more serious head-to-head for a few pages and tails off with a weak pun would be par for the course -- in fact, I think I'm right in saying that would be regarded as a surprisingly good thread by Dec 05 standards. (Jan 06 standards are slightly higher. Why? Look at who wasn't posting then, who is now. Smart men know.)
Anyway, I think you are making a little too much about what TMO "is", and what is fitting here. TMO doesn't have a policy statement, a subtitle about 21st century subcultural engagement, a police force. It is just what people give to it at any one time. You are not bound to fit in with TMO -- you are making TMO.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
Ganesh should post here more often. Ganesh rocks!
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I will make my other point briefly. There has been a fair bit of talk in reviews about how Brokeback Mountain threatens, undermines, "sissifies" a bastion of heterosexual masculinity, and some counter-talk about how the Western was always queer from the start. I have read at least one article in the Guardian along these lines and if you can't easily find it, I'm sure I can link it for you.
I've read it, yes.
quote:But if it is a kind of Western, and one that centrally explores a sexual/romantic relationship between two men, then I think that is undermining and threatening the heterosexual basis of almost every other film we call a Western.
Possibly - if, as some would claim, heterosexuality's primary way of defining itself is as 'not homosexuality'. It depends to a certain extent on the viewer's frame of reference and the extent to which one considers the possibility of homosexual contact to be 'tainting' of homosocial encounters.
quote:But there seems no point to me, if this movie is generically a Western, in denying that it's going against what the Western has traditionally been about. The claims that the genre has always been queer seem like mildly clever manipulation to me.
I'd say it was generically a love story rather than a Western.
I'm not sure that I'd argue that Westerns, as a genre, are inherently queer. For a start, any such analysis would be largely retrospective, so labels can only ever be approximations. There are certainly elements which come across as screamingly camp (singing cowboys) and there are others which are perceptibly homoerotic. Whether or not this was ever a conscious intention is difficult to say.
quote:As such, Brokeback Mountain would be like a "straight version" of, say, Kenneth Anger's movies, or the Derek Jardin's The Jarman, excuse me Derek Garden's The Jardin. It is (again) a kind of cultural trespass, a claiming of familiar land for new uses, and here I don't use the metaphor with any negative connotations.
It's good that you're using the metaphor neutrally.
Again, I see it as a fairly universal love story with a vaguely Western setting (I'm well aware of the 'they're not cowboys, they herd sheep' gripes). It seemed to me more akin to a same-sex Brief Encounter, with elements of The Go-Between, maybe a sprinkling of Far From Heaven.
quote:However, in those terms, I don't see it as so ludicrous if some aficionados of the "original" form felt threatened, even outraged.
"Ludicrous" is perhaps a little strong, but I do feel a staunch defence of the Western genre as in-no-way-queer-nuh-uh is a little... narrow in terms of perception. Perhaps wilfully so, perhaps not.
(Which is all slightly academic since, as I say, I don't consider the film to fit comfortably into the Western genre.)
quote:The reasons for their feeling threatened would be interesting. We could ask what the Western has historically, traditionally said about different varieties of heterosexuality, and whether it does weaken that history and tradition at all to tell a story within that genre about varieties of homosexuality -- what the overlap is, what similarities are due to genre, what common ground exists in that they're all tales about men, whoever those men love.
Yes, those are reasonable points - and now we've established that this is to be a properly analytical discussion in which humorous asides are - if judged to be too 'easy of target' - just not on, we could go on to discuss them.
This board doesn't seem to have the formal structure of Barbelith in terms of Conversation/Head Shop division, though. Perhaps you could indicate somewhere where humour is to be permitted within the discussion, and which forms are to be considered legitimate, honest or interesting...
[ 09.01.2006, 19:49: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Glad I'm not the only one who can't get all that UBB right on the first edit.
Mm. You need a Preview button. Correcting all those sodding quote doodahs does allow for extra channelling of yer old esprit of the escalier, though.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: Perhaps you could indicate somewhere where humour is to be permitted within the discussion, and which forms are to be considered legitimate, honest or interesting...
If you don't think the humour's useful just ignore it, that's what everyone's been doing to me... for years.
...
...*sigh*
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: POINT ONE
You say I have (wrongly) imagined you as adopting a victim status of complaint.
I do. While I do not perceive myself as outwith the global influence of the religious right, they're peripheral to my life - certainly compared with the way they impact on the lives of other gay people.
quote:But you also take... can I say "offence"? You are "mildly irritated", perhaps, at what seems to be the opposite stance on my part, ie. I assume right-wing Christian websites don't affect you negatively in any way.
I'm irritated by you making this assumption, yes. I still wouldn't say "offended", though; that seems too strong a term for my itchyscratch.
quote:That isn't a statement that such websites and the attitudes they espouse don't impinge in any way on your life. It's a question that expects a reluctant negative answer, I suppose ("well, n-no, now you point it out... THEY DON'T!") but it's not a denial that they could... what: bother, annoy, irritate, and in some way (to the extent to which those attitudes may be the dominant in the world's only remaining superpower) offend, alarm you.
Okay. I think it's your choice of wording that's problematic here. You're using terms that are overly loaded - "oppress", "offend", etc. - whereas I feel greyer shades are involved.
quote:I don't want to play victim myself here, but I'm feeling it's hard to win in my word-choice. You could reject my use of "offend" and "alarm" above, refusing the idea that I might be depicting you as a victim.
I don't see it as a case of 'winning'. I see it more as using the right words to articulate a fairly subtle situation. "Offend" and "alarm" are too strong, because they entail shades of hurt and fright which I don't really feel. "Mildly irritate", "impinge" and "influence" are the terms I'd go for.
quote:However, you brought up the possibility that the Christian Right can affect all of us in alarming ways, and may have a more directly... oppressive? influence on someone who identifies as gay.
Potentially so - certainly in the US. Only indirectly here, but I suspect quite a few of us are watching the skies, as it were, in terms of the waxing/waning power of that bloc.
quote:You brought this last point in only to dismiss it as "wanky", but you did bring it in, and I accept there's sense & reason in it. (Perhaps you felt it would only seem wanky in a jokey discussion; not that it wasn't a valid point. That's something I hope to come back to below.)
It seemed wanky in the context of a discussion which, prior to your contribution, was moderately light-hearted - and it also seemed a little like victimy shroud-waving.
quote:Anyway, I didn't mean to, and don't think I did portray you as someone seeking victim status. What I suggested is that your pisstaking was directed at homophobic attitudes, the conservative right (or indeed fascism), ignorance and hypocrisy.
I did assume that this position and the target of what I saw not as random pisstaking but as parodic attacks were based on you being a gay man.
Again, you're seeing this in terms of "attack", "strategy", taking a "political" stance at something. That may be a perceived effect of my post but it's not my primary intention here. Again this comes down to how political one decides the personal to be at any given time.
quote:I accept that's a presumption, but people meeting as you and I are meeting, in text, as relative strangers, do inevitably make assumptions and see each other (reductively) in terms of cultural positions. Surely there's some of that in your request "I'm particularly interested in what the hets thought," which sounds weirdly patronising to me. That line obviously reduces those replying to their sexual preferences -- "hi Ganesh, I'm a het and thanks for asking for my opinion! Here's what I thought, as a str8 man."
That's largely in flippant response to what I perceive to be an accepted way of talking about sexuality here on TMO. There's plenty of reference to "benders", "bummers" and the like which I might choose to interpret as patronising or even offensive - but, by and large, I don't. I do, however, chuck back a "het" or "straight" or "breeder" rejoinder, though, on occasion. One has to prove that one isn't entirely PC GONE MAAAD!1!, even coming from Barbelith.
quote:To be honest, I think your whole opening post is written as a gay man, stressing that aspect of your cultural position, so while I shouldn't make assumptions that you're mocking homophobic websites because you're gay, I can certainly see why I did it, and I can see the logic I followed there.
And I could employ similar logic to suggest that your contribution here is written as a straight man interested in 'attacking' a gay viewpoint because he's straight.
quote:Interesting that your own understanding of TMO keeps coming up in this post. You would have brought your A-game, if you'd known... you thought this was the place for... look at the other threads, by comparison... surely this is allowed on TMO of all places.
It is indeed interesting.
quote:Your misapprehension of TMO is interesting.
I don't think this is entirely misapprehension on my part.
quote:I think the crux is this: Barbelith has a powerful, overbearing sense of what it is, what it's worth, what it's not, who its people are, and what goes where. Things must go in their place. This thread would now be subject to debates about whether it should be moved from Conversation or Film and TV to Head Shop. You may adopt a different, lighter tone and less thoughtful approach on Barbelith, depending where you post. You may be policed for missing the tone, and posting with inappropriate levity.
TMO is far more fluid and shapeless. Sometimes, it is a flat inner-tube. For weeks! Sometimes it is pumped up to its limits, a fluorescent space hopper that feels like it's carrying the funniest, cleverest fuckers in the universe across the internet. (Admittedly... not so often anymore).
Sure. We touched on some of this in the 'What Do You Think Is Wrong With Barbelith' thread over there. I enjoy the differences.
quote:Anyway, I think you are making a little too much about what TMO "is", and what is fitting here. TMO doesn't have a policy statement, a subtitle about 21st century subcultural engagement, a police force. It is just what people give to it at any one time. You are not bound to fit in with TMO -- you are making TMO.
Fair enough - but it's noticeable, to me at least, that several of the charges levelled at me in your first post aren't hugely consistent with the way you've approached other instances of 'cultural poaching', etc. on TMO. It seems that, within this thread, you're holding my posting to different standards of humour, fairness, 'decency', honesty and 'interestingness' from those elsewhere. Even taking into account the whole freeform, fluid blahdeblah vibe, I'm a little uncertain why this should be.
[ 09.01.2006, 19:51: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: If you don't think the humour's useful just ignore it, that's what everyone's been doing to me... for years.
...
...*sigh*
I actually do like and appreciate the humour here. What I don't entirely understand is why Kovacs is apparently taking me to task for my use of (what I thought to be fairly TMO-appropriate) humour when he doesn't do so elsewhere.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Fuck It: The Wife Has Brought Me A Cup of Tea So I Might As Well Battle On
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: And your brand of criticism is apparently so omnipotent that you're able to objectively divine the global funniness of any given comment - as well as reach into my own psyche and decide that I am operating a "strategy" (somewhat loaded term, not unreminiscent of the ol' Gay Agenda, no?)
What you're "reminiscent" of, with this sort of comment, is a PADAWAN OF HAUS -- I'm sure I've seen that titan of Barbelith frequently using this dismissive tactic, ie. "you seem to assume the ability to see long-distance into others' heads and tell us what they are thinking on any given point."
?? I can say it now when I know his (?) eyes are turned upon The Policy board of Barbelith... this is a mean and redundant swipe! To try to sum up what you see as someone else's position in a debate is not to pretend telepathic insight into their minds.
Neither is identifying a "strategy" in someone's rhetoric (Haus: I admit to being perplexed by the reference to 'rhetoric'; I personally noted no examples of Platonic ρήτωρ in the discussion to date -- don't try that on me Mister I am wise to it) equivalent to labelling them with a "Gay Agenda". Either you have some notion about gayness being tied up with strategy and agenda, or you think I have. I would say I had an "agenda" and a "strategy" when I seek to attack or undermine something, and I'm as straight as they come, not gay at all.
quote:To be honest, I think you're the one coming across as offended here. I've had similar Brokeback Mountain discussions across a number of message boards, and you've put far more energy into this particular line. Which interests me. Following your line of reasoning, you are perhaps oppressed by me?
I was initially irritated by what I saw as an easy attack on broad, false, caricatured representations, which were not true strikes because they failed to engage with the actual nature of the Stormfront or conservative Christian website communities -- which dealt in stereotypes ("if you hate gays, you secretly are one") that I found tired and pointless -- which told us nothing much about those websites' actual reasons for fear, distrust or dislike of this film and what it represented.
If you're moving towards some idea that I feel threatened by you, that's a dull avenue that I don't recommend. Why not look at it more positively. I replied to your post partly because I like to discuss things that interest me. And now we are engaging in a worthwhile conversation.
quote: I might reasonably point out that you're being rather selective in holding me to standards which seem rather out of keeping with TMO in general. There are numerous examples of rather frivolous pisstaking at the 'expense' of other sites - including Vikram's Stormfront link in this very thread. As far as I can recall (and I might well be wrong here), this is the first time you've challenged someone doing so in this particular way.
I hope others here will swiftly back up my assurance that I have challenged very many people on this forum over the years, not that it's always a good thing by any means, but you are probably #507.
quote:
How come?
I hadn't posted for some time -- TMO hadn't had a decent discussion thread in some time -- you are relatively new, yet I have an acquaintance with you from Barbelith -- I know you have potential to join a debate -- &c -- nothing bad.
quote:in the sense of the personal being political, yes, I suppose it is.
That is the sense I meant.
quote:I do think those attitudes impinge upon my life, but relatively peripherally. It'd be overstatement to make this a central pillar of my claimed motivations.
This is now relatively clear to me, and sensible.
quote: Is someone "poaching" when they take an image from McDonalds or Microsoft websites, photoshop it and post it up here with a new meaning? YES, actually they are.
What about when they don't photoshop it, but post it as it is with a funny caption? Or with no caption at all, but within a discursive context wherein the juxtaposition is funny?
Then I would say that was also "poaching", forming new and "resistant" (perhaps progressive, radical, challenging) meanings from the texts of the dominant culture.
quote:Again, we need to quantify how one measures "power" on the Internet. Number of clicks? Ability to sue?
More the latter, I think, in practical terms -- eg. numerous cases of Star Wars fans vs Lucasfilm.
quote: Your description of the power dynamic would seem to suggest that it's like going to a much more powerful country wherein one is comparitively powerless. I'm happy to accept this analogy, but would reject the implication that there's necessarily something 'too easy' or 'unfair' about the process.
I suppose concepts of power on the internet are also relative (though a usual workable measure would still be the one above). If you frequent the Comic Book forum on Barbelith you may see people going on "guerilla raid" type visits to the bulletin boards of reactionary John Byrne and his reactionary fans.
On that board, those individuals are outnumbered and liable to be shouted down, so they are relatively powerless.
When they troll up an exchange, goad someone on JB board into looking stupid or prompt an argument, and paste that into Barbelith, the power structure has then changed: the raider is back among his own community and the quoted posters now represent a laughable minority opinion.
Perhaps my idea that it was too easy or unfair was based on these ideas:
i) the people on the Stormfront and Christian websites seemed a bit stupid ii) I didn't think you were representing them accurately
These things may be linked. I cannot claim my own position here is without internal contradictions.
quote:It would seem to serve me remarkably well, then - as would the example of your returning here to complain about mistreatment in the Barbelith Nathan Barley thread, secure that you'd be received more sympathetically here.
Well, I don't remember that... it sounds unlikely given that I am not really King Rollo on this board, and half the folk here openly hate my guts.
But before you go looking for a link and quotes to back yourself up -- can I say I think it's frankly unendearing to have to rummage around old threads to make a point. You'll notice I'm not going through your Barbelith history, trying to see if you've said anything here that contradicts what you said there. We are not dirty lawyers looking through each other's rubbish. That is charmless.
quote:(Are you banned from TMO, then? How long did that last for? You appear to be posting now.)
A weekend. Though it was for the thoughtless creation of a "loop" really (a link on here to there, and vice versa) rather than anything in the content.
quote: I'd argue that your assessment of my 'honesty' rests on a host of assumptions regarding what motivates me ("strategy", "offended", "oppressed", etc.) and you are not the long-distance telepath you might appear to be.
Thank you for saying I appear to be one, rather than just imagine myself to be one -- but you must stop this "if you attempt to summarise my position you must reckon you can read minds" nonsense.
What I meant by "honesty" is not that you were being dishonest (ie. a gay man "lying to himself" in another tired stereotype) but that this approach didn't bring us to the truth of what those websites were saying, and why.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Please don't "keep me up" any longer before bed, Ganesh... I must retire, but I get the sense you're suggesting I'm giving you harsher treatment because I know you're gay. That isn't the case. It's more that I believed you could take my criticisms and respond in an interesting way to them.
As for humour it is acceptable when I find it funny, if you look at my posts you will find some hearty funny stuff and by copying that "Style" you may raise a chuckle though perhaps not a full, "honest" belly laugh like what my own writing affords Me.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Fuck It: The Wife Has Brought Me A Cup of Tea So I Might As Well Battle On
God, that's sooo written as a straight man. Etc.
quote:What you're "reminiscent" of, with this sort of comment, is a PADAWAN OF HAUS -- I'm sure I've seen that titan of Barbelith frequently using this dismissive tactic, ie. "you seem to assume the ability to see long-distance into others' heads and tell us what they are thinking on any given point."
... none of which diminishes its validity, though, does it?
(At what point does saying, "that's just like Haus" become in itself a "dismissive tactic"?)
quote:To try to sum up what you see as someone else's position in a debate is not to pretend telepathic insight into their minds.
To persistently tell other people what motivates them is, however, to assume and patronise.
quote:Neither is identifying a "strategy" in someone's rhetoric ... equivalent to labelling them with a "Gay Agenda".
And "not unreminiscent of" doesn't map onto "equivalent to". You're not always so good on the nuances, Kovacs.
quote:Either you have some notion about gayness being tied up with strategy and agenda, or you think I have. I would say I had an "agenda" and a "strategy" when I seek to attack or undermine something, and I'm as straight as they come, not gay at all.
The term "strategy", in the context of discussion of Brokeback Mountain, is a loaded term. It is commonly used by those who believe in a global Gay Agenda to suggest that Ang Lee is advancing said agenda. A lot of the 'battlefield' language you've employed here ("strategy", "attack", "strikes", "tactic", etc.) to describe to me my motivations sounds not unreminiscent of that. Surely not your intention, but there we go.
quote:I was initially irritated by what I saw as an easy attack on broad, false, caricatured representations, which were not true strikes because they failed to engage with the actual nature of the Stormfront or conservative Christian website communities -- which dealt in stereotypes ("if you hate gays, you secretly are one") that I found tired and pointless -- which told us nothing much about those websites' actual reasons for fear, distrust or dislike of this film and what it represented.
If you're moving towards some idea that I feel threatened by you, that's a dull avenue that I don't recommend. Why not look at it more positively. I replied to your post partly because I like to discuss things that interest me. And now we are engaging in a worthwhile conversation.
It's more of a DO YOU SEE? point. You suggest that the fact that I've elected to criticise Christian sites means I'm "offended" or feel threatened by said sites. I point up the problematic nature of such a suggestion by suggesting that you've elected to negatively critique my use of humour because you are "offended" or threatened by it. Equally possible, equally absurd.
quote:I hope others here will swiftly back up my assurance that I have challenged very many people on this forum over the years, not that it's always a good thing by any means, but you are probably #507.
Not consistently, and not that I've seen - but hey ho, I'll look more closely.
quote:That is the sense I meant.
In the broad sense, then, that any expressed personal opinion is a political one, yes, I was being "political". I was not, however, consciously making a "political case" as I would understand the phrase.
quote:Then I would say that was also "poaching", forming new and "resistant" (perhaps progressive, radical, challenging) meanings from the texts of the dominant culture.
If you're using "poaching" in a neutral sense, as with "trespass", then fine. I have no problem with this.
quote:I suppose concepts of power on the internet are also relative (though a usual workable measure would still be the one above). If you frequent the Comic Book forum on Barbelith you may see people going on "guerilla raid" type visits to the bulletin boards of reactionary John Byrne and his reactionary fans.
On that board, those individuals are outnumbered and liable to be shouted down, so they are relatively powerless.
When they troll up an exchange, goad someone on JB board into looking stupid or prompt an argument, and paste that into Barbelith, the power structure has then changed: the raider is back among his own community and the quoted posters now represent a laughable minority opinion.
So "power" would also seem to equate to one's status within one's 'home community'. Okay.
quote:i) the people on the Stormfront and Christian websites seemed a bit stupid ii) I didn't think you were representing them accurately
These things may be linked. I cannot claim my own position here is without internal contradictions.
Well, no. I would question
a) your ability to blanket-label whole communities of posters "stupid",
b) if stupidity is indeed pervasive, whether it confers immunity to criticism or ridicule,
c) whether I have a specific responsibility to represent entire communities accurately when I take the piss out of particular elements of those communities
and
d) if I were to try to represent organisations like Focus on the Family or Stormfront accurately within the context of a flippant posting, how I might feasibly go about this.
quote:Well, I don't remember that... it sounds unlikely given that I am not really King Rollo on this board, and half the folk here openly hate my guts.
But before you go looking for a link and quotes to back yourself up -- can I say I think it's frankly unendearing to have to rummage around old threads to make a point. You'll notice I'm not going through your Barbelith history, trying to see if you've said anything here that contradicts what you said there. We are not dirty lawyers looking through each other's rubbish. That is charmless.
Perish the thought that I might fail to endear! Don't worry, I can't be arsed. I remember it pretty well, though: you misheard "urrgh face" as "whole face", I was facetious with you about it, you returned here and posted about your experiences, linking to the thread and attracting the odd sympathiser. Cultural poaching ahoy!
quote:Thank you for saying I appear to be one, rather than just imagine myself to be one -- but you must stop this "if you attempt to summarise my position you must reckon you can read minds" nonsense.
There's tentatively summarising someone's position and there's making assumptions - then making negative comments on their integrity based on those assumptions. You must stop that nonsense.
It might also be useful for you to go see the sodding film.
quote:What I meant by "honesty" is not that you were being dishonest (ie. a gay man "lying to himself" in another tired stereotype) but that this approach didn't bring us to the truth of what those websites were saying, and why.
... which, again, rather hinges on your personal appraisal of those websites (whether they're "stupid", say), your perception of the accuracy/'twistedness' of my quotes from them, and your assumptions regarding what motivates me to post.
[ 09.01.2006, 22:53: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Please don't "keep me up" any longer before bed, Ganesh... I must retire, but I get the sense you're suggesting I'm giving you harsher treatment because I know you're gay.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Yes, I truly am the only Ali Gay in the Village.
I'd no idea why, on contributing to this thread, you seemed to rip into (what I perceived as fairly good-humoured) pisstaking, when you'd apparently ignored other examples of similar 'poaching' elsewhere. I'm not painting you as a homophobe, though. I do think this is, in some sense, about online cock size, however...
quote:As for humour it is acceptable when I find it funny, if you look at my posts you will find some hearty funny stuff and by copying that "Style" you may raise a chuckle though perhaps not a full, "honest" belly laugh like what my own writing affords Me.
In the manner of certain good Christian friends, then, I will ask myself, "what would Kovacs do?" before posting anything that might be construed as overly easy, dishonest, unfair, insufficently decent or unrepresentative of the communities from which I am poaching.
Now.
1) Has anyone else seen Brokeback Mountain yet?
2) Could my tagline be changed to "a happy gay man"? The phrase makes me smile.
Posted by Modge (Member # 64) on :
wow, that was really long. So much scrolling of quote/reply/quote/reply gave me a ben/rick flashback.
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: 2) Could my tagline be changed to "a happy gay man"? The phrase makes me smile.
It could, but you have to send Darryn a donation. See the link on the left.
[ 09.01.2006, 20:43: Message edited by: Modge ]
Posted by Modge (Member # 64) on :
eep.
[ 09.01.2006, 20:45: Message edited by: Modge ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Modge: It could, but you have to send Darryn a donation, see the link on the left.
I did that, during the Great Barbelith Collapse of '05. Couldn't immediately think of a tagline, though, so he gave me a temporary one that I never got around to changing. Now I'm a "happy gay man" I want my online persona to reflect this!!
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: [QUOTE]I hope this question wasn't rhetorical, because there is an answer: yes, in my experience they do tend to express such reservations about films featuring (yet not condemning) all other forms of "immorality", and not just gay sex by any means.
Missed this one.
No, it wasn't rhetorical. A quick shuftie around the website didn't tell me whether 'we weren't sure about reviewing this film, but..' was or was not a common way of framing celluloid depictions of 'immorality'.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: I don't think seeing the film is especially vital to unpacking your previous comments.
quote:Subsequently posted by Ganesh: It might also be useful for you to go see the sodding film.
It's a bit unfair that you're now implying I'm overdue in seeing the film -- there was only a day or so between those comments.
I am also a little saddened that I felt all my posts to you yesterday were made in a spirit of enjoyable argument, and that many of them contained explicit remarks about how I respected your ability to respond in an interesting manner, &c -- indeed, because I take pleasure in debate, much of what I wrote was a little overblown, grand, rhetorical, playful or even tongue in cheek. Like a performance. (I would say all this is inherent in my persona on TMO.) Your post above seems to take all of that on a rather flat, literal level -- although perhaps that too is performance, a kind of straight-faced putdown of my attempts to be jocular, who knows! -- and you do seem to be now adopting a "why me" status, asking repeatedly why I'm taking this tone with you when I haven't addressed anyone else in that way. I gave reasons for that. One of which is that I haven't posted this much (I think) in some months.
However, you have raised a couple of interesting points that can be replied to without having seen this film, and I hope I may come back to them later.
[ 10.01.2006, 03:33: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: No, it wasn't rhetorical. A quick shuftie around the website didn't tell me whether 'we weren't sure about reviewing this film, but..' was or was not a common way of framing celluloid depictions of 'immorality'.
I may not be able to find exactly that in a hurry (I do remember that this website prefaced a review of the South Park movie with remarks that even to discuss it enough to condemn it -- even to mention its title -- was distasteful) but I saw an interesting example recently in the review of Munich:
quote:Before he leaves to begin his mission, Avner and his wife share a moment of sexual intimacy. Their act is a beautiful one—a gift that God freely gives to a man and his bride. The problem is that it is depicted for others to observe.
Even the sanctified sexual love married, heterosexual couples sometimes practice, then, is problematic if depicted on screen.
Similarly, Walk the Line's implication of straight sex outside marriage is frowned upon:
quote:Johnny and June ultimately racked up three wrecked marriages between them, and that makes it pretty hard to rejoice with them when they finally fall into each others arms seconds before the credits roll.
And here's the report on Grandma's Boy, a film I probably won't see -- again, the sexuality is mostly hetero-, but the review is horrified.
quote:Jokes, comments and verbal gags involve male and female anatomy, foursomes, bondage, prostitution, homosexuality, masturbation, manual stimulation, oral and anal sex, and STDs. When Mr. Cheezle hires a young woman (Samantha) to manage game production, she instantly becomes a target for leering come-ons and misogynist outbursts. Naturally, since this is an R-rated sex comedy, she's perfectly fine with such obscene treatment and eventually falls for Alex's nearly nonexistent charm. While high, and seconds before passing out, she performs an extremely sexual dance.
A statue of a nude woman's torso is seen mounted over a fireplace as if it's a hunting trophy.
A dozen or so s-words. More than twice that many f-words. A multitude of other crudities and a few obscenities assail viewers. Characters make obscene gestures and profane God's name.
And the disastrous result is now available for all to see. Or not. A recent nationwide study of more than 6,500 children and 532 movies reports that 38% of smokers ages 10 to 14 started their cigarette habit after seeing it on the big screen. And that those who witnessed the most smoking onscreen were two-and-a-half times more likely to smoke than those who saw the least. I can only wonder if the same statistics apply to marijuana. Because we already know that lots of 10- to 14-year-olds see R-rated movies.
These brief extracts may start to indicate why I think this is an interesting website whose attitudes, fears, dislikes and so on could be examined further, beyond simple caricature. (NB. I now accept entirely that you can be excused for making jokes and not going into deeper analysis on what was a jokey section of thread).
Is it really so bad or laughable, for instance, that this website worries about 10 year-olds seeing a film that glorifies drugs? Isn't its concern about "sexual" content mostly a condemnation of sexist content? Is it so ridiculous and outdated if a Christian website bemoans the amount of casual swearing in teen-oriented movies?
My point is that I often find quite valuable, though traditional, viewpoints on that website's review page, and at least part of me agrees with at least some of their opinions.
[ 10.01.2006, 03:48: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
I would be interested to discuss how "that gay cowboy film" fits into the Western genre, but I will have to go and see it first- probably not until the weekend.
Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
"Hey, hey, newbie, stay away from the edge. You wanna get washed away on your first day? Don't look at me like that, ya damn chip, I'll shave you down to a splinter soon as look at you. OK, that's better, get in closer, there's safety in numbers, ya understand me? We there? Damn right. You wanna stay alive in this place then you listen to Uncle Wedge here. Ah ah ah, questions will be answered when I say the word. We there? We there, little fella? Good. Now, old Wedge has been lining this pit since your were a tickle in ya momma's trunk. When you were nothin' but a bud, I was a beefy slab of two-by-four heading for the blades of our Lord the Carpenter. Chopped me up real good he did, but not that good. You wanna know my secret? Wanna know where ole Wedge gets his Loooong Jevity? I mean, I ain't boastin' kid but, you wanna know? Sure you do. Well, that day I went through the blades, the blades didn't wholly go through me, you see. We there? Nosiree, didn't go through me at all. All them other blockheads closed their eyes and thought of Sherwood but not old Wedge. Kept my damn eyes open every step of the way and you know what I saw? What? Don't answer that, splint, it's Ret Oracle, we there? It's the kinda question don't need no answer. Of course I saw those blades spinning like a goddamn iron twister, not three inches from my smooth edge, but I kept my eyes open all the same. Of course I saw my friends and family, my own mother, go through ahead of me, from table leg to powder in less time than it takes to sand down a knot. Damnit if I didn't see my brother caught in a gust and scattered to the four corners of the workshop. Bud to dust. God rest his wooden soul. But what else did old Wedge see, eh? He saw it all, son, he saw it all. He saw how the gate of that there mincing machine was kinked to the southwest and one tooth of that gyrating blade was as loose as a bandit's backdoor. And I don't mean a Mexican, kid, we there? We there yet, little fella? Well I saw my chance, my boy, and I took it. Pushed a pair of wall shelves to one side, jumped over a fat bedknob crying for his life and shimmied myself into that very spot. Blade jammed real good and the conveyor belt to the afterlife was, how shall I put it, temporarily out of order. OUT OF ORDER! Ha ha ha. Shoot, even the good wood weren't goin' nowhere that day. 'I'm sorry you pious pulp, the stairway to heaven is officially closed. Please try again tomorrow….if you ain't been dumped in a landfill to meet the Devil or thrown on his bonfire to have your soul burnt out at the end of Satan's Garden.' Ha ha ha. Oh my. And old Wedge here? Well, kid, he just rolled into the afterlife as fat and firm as a dollshouse doorstep. He aint no shredded whsiper, no shaved down dust mite, he's a loud, proud bellowin' piece oh solid pine, you there? Old Wedge is a boney fidey, card carryin' chunk of kindlin', child. He ain't no sawdust, chip, he's a goddamn piece of wood! What do you say to that? Hmm? You there? Look around you, son, folks here at TMO ain't no bigger'n you. Hell, some of 'em are even smaller. And this aint no afterlife like the scriptchers say. Does this look like a ballroom floor to you? Does that drippin' wet sack of despair over there look like he's makin' to be recycled into a bespoke sideboard? Do you feel like you're in the pages of a classic work of art? No, no and Hell no! This ain't what you were promised, you lil splinter, but it could be worse. Once you're washed away from here, you're gone for good. It's the pits, fella, but it ain't over till it's over. And old Wedge been here for years. So, hows about I show you the ropes. First rule, eyes up, splinter. Always gotta watch the skies. That's where it comes from, see. That's why we're here. When the gods get to afightin' well, that's when the skies burst. I seen it rainin' so thick with god goo you wouldn't recognise your own mother if she was a giant redwood steppin' on your toe. I seen balls of hot sexxus fizzin' through the air and burstin' in puddles so thick on the ground they suck up entire families of matchin' bedroom furniture and are still as wet as you are behind the ears. See that big fella over there? Damn fine sliver of oak he is too. Well, he weren't the only one. Once upon a time that guy had a whole family down here in the pit - the Tallboys, as they was known. Big argument up there amongst the high and mighty and a bead of cream the size of a ripe horse chestnut done make him the last of his kind. Damn shame. That's why we here for, son. You there yet? That's all we are. Open your eyes, chip; you there yet? Holy Mahogany, here they go again. Keep sharp, kid, when this Kovacs and Ganesh set to a cockfightin' the skies open up like the balls of a blue whale. Yeehah! Lookit that kid. Look at' em dance. 'Lectric tadpoles, I call 'em. See how they come together in shoals? See how hey wrap 'emselves together like they were dancin' or, pardon old Wedge's language kid, like they were fuckin'. Well, I tell you, boy, when those lil fishies get too excited you're gonna know what fear is because when they explode… hell, you'll find out soon enough. What? What the hell you talkin' about kid? You mean to say you ain't there yet? Sweet Jesus and the wood he was nailed to, kid, ain't you been listening? We here to keep things clean, son. We the lino of the gods; the goddamn X pendables; the silent audience; the idiots; God's janitors, boy. We there now? We there? Look out! Look out now! Look to the skies. We there? In the name of Black and Decker, listen up kid! Where the hell are ya? We're here to soak up the spunk! There's them up there, the Chosens, and then there's the Forgottens, there's us. We're….the….sawdust….who….soak….up…. the spunk! We there yet, kid? We there?
Kid…kid…..kid, you there? Kid!
Damnit, kid, why didn't ya just listen?….God damnit!
Hey you, hey newbie, get your arse into the crowd before they start again up there."
[ 10.01.2006, 09:04: Message edited by: jonesy999 ]
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
woot ! Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Big argument up there amongst the high and mighty and a bead of cream the size of a ripe horse chestnut done make him the last of his kind. Damn shame.
lol - him am teh deranged.
Chin up, Ganesh - I'm off to see Brokenbacked Milmcowl tomorrow night. I will endeavour to provide a D'Artagnanesque gay blade of my own to the spume-flecked cut-and-thrust over this film. En garde! Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: It's a bit unfair that you're now implying I'm overdue in seeing the film -- there was only a day or so between those comments.
A day or so, but a whole loooad of analysis of the Western genre blahdeblahdeblah when only one of us has seem enough to know this ain't a Western.
Assuming that 'it'd be useful' = 'you're overdue', of course.
quote:I am also a little saddened that I felt all my posts to you yesterday were made in a spirit of enjoyable argument, and that many of them contained explicit remarks about how I respected your ability to respond in an interesting manner, &c -- indeed, because I take pleasure in debate, much of what I wrote was a little overblown, grand, rhetorical, playful or even tongue in cheek. Like a performance. (I would say all this is inherent in my persona on TMO.) Your post above seems to take all of that on a rather flat, literal level -- although perhaps that too is performance, a kind of straight-faced putdown of my attempts to be jocular, who knows! -- and you do seem to be now adopting a "why me" status, asking repeatedly why I'm taking this tone with you when I haven't addressed anyone else in that way. I gave reasons for that. One of which is that I haven't posted this much (I think) in some months.
Perhaps you're just not terribly good at "jocular"?
It's all well and good to raise a glass to the wonder of "performance" at this point, but this is a relatively recent development in the thread. Until then, you'd taken more than a few swipes at me, some of which might now be laughed off as overblown playful tongue-in-cheek JOKE!!!1!ery, some of which seemed a little snarkier, at least at the time.
While I'm glad you're now being so benign about it, the "why me?" question remains pertinent. Why did you descend on my comment like fire from TMO heaven, when you've ignored other examples of 'easy targetting', 'poaching', etc.? Initially, I half-wondered whether you had something invested in the right-wing viewpoints I'd 'attacked' but this was never a serious theory.
You say that your main reason for selectively criticising this "upstart" is because you like a good debate and reckoned I'm a good debater. This is flattering, and largely convincing. I still think that, to a certain extent, you decided to selectively criticise my comments - not having seen the film itself - because I dared to unfurl my Kongular online penis in a part of the Internet world you regard as at least nominally your territory. We may be bestest of online buddies now, but I think that, earlier, it was a case of slapping our respective dongs on a virtual table and seeing who flashed his blue-buttocked rear first.
I reckon it's you.
[ 10.01.2006, 17:49: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: Is it really so bad or laughable, for instance, that this website worries about 10 year-olds seeing a film that glorifies drugs? Isn't its concern about "sexual" content mostly a condemnation of sexist content? Is it so ridiculous and outdated if a Christian website bemoans the amount of casual swearing in teen-oriented movies?
Are these rhetorical questions, or are you wanting/expecting answers?
quote:My point is that I often find quite valuable, though traditional, viewpoints on that website's review page, and at least part of me agrees with at least some of their opinions.
That's nice, and interesting scenery - if not necessarily immediately relevant to the differences between my perception of Brokeback Mountain and theirs.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: a whole loooad of analysis of the Western genre blahdeblahdeblah when only one of us has seem enough to know this ain't a Western.
To be fair (to me)
-- a number of reviews and articles do seem to discuss this film as a Western
-- my post above wasn't really a loooad of analysis of the Western genre based on any assumption that this film qualified as such, but was constantly asking whether it was a Western, and stressing that I couldn't say.
quote:Whether Brokeback Mountain is a Western, or a "cowboy film" either literally or generically (whether it has "cowboys" in it at all; whether it revisits any of the key themes and iconography of the conventional Western), I do not know.
But if it is a kind of Western...
Given that the film's been discussed widely in those generic terms, it didn't seem a pointless question; but it was a question, not some construction of mine based on a misunderstanding.
In fact, whether you feel it's a Western (and I'm inclined to agree) is only relevant up to a point -- it's been treated by (most?) other reviewers in the "public sphere" as a Western, and that's the discourse within which this film seems (perhaps incorrectly) to be circulating.
Discussing masculinity in the traditional Western is also interesting, but you might see it as off-topic.
quote:Perhaps you're just not terribly good at "jocular"?
I am quite good at "deadpan", though?
quote: Until then, you'd taken more than a few swipes at me, some of which might now be laughed off as overblown playful tongue-in-cheek JOKE!!!1!ery, some of which seemed a little snarkier, at least at the time.
I think that was a two-way thing.
quote:YOU Am I "offended"? Is my face "offended"? I don't think so.
Perhaps you can point out where I claimed it was?
Wasn't there that incident with you and that black community forum not so long ago? Was that 'poaching'?
Of course, if you don't feel TMO is an appropriate place for me to ridicule things I find annoying, then let me know.
I mean, look at all the italics there. I take each one as a spit in my eye.
quote: Why did you descend on my comment like fire from TMO heaven, when you've ignored other examples of 'easy targetting', 'poaching', etc.?
I don't see how this is hard to understand really, or why you seem to find it hard to let go of the idea that there's some conspiracy behind it.
I hadn't posted for some time. Your thread was interesting to me and slightly irritating to me in some aspects. My posting on it only seems like thundering down from heaven because I had refrained from any other contribution in recent weeks. In the last few days I can recall that I've
- called one-night stands the province and pursuit of idiots
- blamed anyone who watches Celeb BB for perpetuating a freak circus
- attempted to undermine London's hip and edgy list of bands I'd barely heard of
- parodied Vikram and London's use of an internet board for an exchange of parochial information about the area they live in
- painted an unkind picture of Rick/Norton compiling his list of "entities"
- asked stoneyfaced and unappreciative questions about Benny the Ball's entertaining Chicago story.
This isn't an attempt at a Greatest Hits of Jan 06, though I'm sure future historians will include all those examples under that heading. It's just an apparently-necessary demonstration that after I started posting last week, others apart from you, and threads apart from yours, have received my ungenerous attention.
That your thread was one of the first is just testament to your thread being 1. there 2. interesting. Why respond specifically to you? Because 1. you started the thread and posted most on it 2. I didn't think I would get so much extensive response from Vikram, and as he and I have a history of antagonism, it'd be more likely to read as a jibe in that context, rather than a response to the actual content.
quote:I still think that, to a certain extent, you decided to selectively criticise my comments - not having seen the film itself - because I dared to unfurl my Kongular online penis in a part of the Internet world you regard as at least nominally your territory. We may be bestest of online buddies now, but I think that, earlier, it was a case of slapping our respective dongs on a virtual table and seeing who flashed his blue-buttocked rear first.
I can't and wouldn't want to deny there's an element of that -- that is par for the course in internet debate, and part of the fun. As nobody much is reading the thread apart from you and me, it's not like there could genuinely be much alpha-male sparring to our discussion, but yes if there wasn't any element of competition, of course I wouldn't be so inclined to do it.
[ 10.01.2006, 18:30: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: Are these rhetorical questions, or are you wanting/expecting answers?
I'm not expecting you to provide answers -- they are I suppose interesting avenues for discussion, but if you think the thread should focus only on talk about the film, among people who've seen the film, they will be "scenery".
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I'm not expecting you to provide answers -- they are I suppose interesting avenues for discussion, but if you think the thread should focus only on talk about the film, among people who've seen the film, they will be "scenery".
I think they're a rather limited backdrop to central discussion of the film itself but, if you insist...
quote:Is it really so bad or laughable, for instance, that this website worries about 10 year-olds seeing a film that glorifies drugs?
Not sure, having not seen the piece in question and not remembering making any point about the badness/laughableness of pre-teens and glorious drugs.
quote:Isn't its concern about "sexual" content mostly a condemnation of sexist content?
Dunno. Haven't spent much time checking it out.
quote:Is it so ridiculous and outdated if a Christian website bemoans the amount of casual swearing in teen-oriented movies?
Depends on one's understanding of what "Christian" means.
If you think the thread should include general discussion of the website to which you refer, among people who've specifically examined the website in question, my answers will be "scenery".
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: To be fair (to me)
-- a number of reviews and articles do seem to discuss this film as a Western
-- my post above wasn't really a loooad of analysis of the Western genre based on any assumption that this film qualified as such, but was constantly asking whether it was a Western, and stressing that I couldn't say.
Yes - and the "constant asking" is what's making me think, "just go see the fucking thing, why don't you?" There comes a point where the asking seems beyond-the-point. See it and form your own conclusion.
quote:Given that the film's been discussed widely in those generic terms, it didn't seem a pointless question; but it was a question, not some construction of mine based on a misunderstanding.
In fact, whether you feel it's a Western (and I'm inclined to agree) is only relevant up to a point -- it's been treated by (most?) other reviewers in the "public sphere" as a Western, and that's the discourse within which this film seems (perhaps incorrectly) to be circulating.
Discussing masculinity in the traditional Western is also interesting, but you might see it as off-topic.
Yes yes yes yes yes. But there comes a time when one must stop reading second-hand accounts of something and view that thing directly.
quote:I am quite good at "deadpan", though?
Matter of opinion, dear.
quote:I think that was a two-way thing.
Am I "offended"? Is my face "offended"? I don't think so.
Perhaps you can point out where I claimed it was?
Wasn't there that incident with you and that black community forum not so long ago? Was that 'poaching'?
Of course, if you don't feel TMO is an appropriate place for me to ridicule things I find annoying, then let me know.
I mean, look at all the italics there. I take each one as a spit in my eye.
Yeah, because obviously there I'm directly commenting on your penchant for 'easy targets', your honesty shortfall, the weakness of your "strategies", and how uninteresting you are.
As opposed to responding to a charge of 'cultural poaching' by pointing to instances of 'cultural poaching' in the one doing the charging.
quote:I don't see how this is hard to understand really, or why you seem to find it hard to let go of the idea that there's some conspiracy behind it.
Not conspiracy, really (words, mouth, etc.) It's just a question I find worth asking, since your tone seemed, to me, to change in the course of a few posts. Your first appeared to come out of the blue, a rather unexpected 'challenge'. Your second was slightly snarkier. Subsequent posts have been more conciliatory, which makes me interested in the underlying process.
quote:- called one-night stands the province and pursuit of idiots
- blamed anyone who watches Celeb BB for perpetuating a freak circus
- attempted to undermine London's hip and edgy list of bands I'd barely heard of
- parodied Vikram and London's use of an internet board for an exchange of parochial information about the area they live in
- painted an unkind picture of Rick/Norton compiling his list of "entities"
- asked stoneyfaced and unappreciative questions about Benny the Ball's entertaining Chicago story.
My, you're quite the charmer. Point taken, though, regarding needlessly antagonistic posting. I guess my thread offered the opportunity for that plus a spot of dickswingy cult studs theory bitching.
quote:I can't and wouldn't want to deny there's an element of that -- that is par for the course in internet debate, and part of the fun. As nobody much is reading the thread apart from you and me, it's not like there could genuinely be much alpha-male sparring to our discussion, but yes if there wasn't any element of competition, of course I wouldn't be so inclined to do it.
Which is all fine and well and good, and fun once one recognises the dynamic and gets into the swing of things. It wasn't particularly my intention in starting a Brokeback Mountain thread. I was hoping to discuss impressions of the film itself and its wider effect.
[ 10.01.2006, 19:03: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
If I hadn't done those things you're still snarking at me for, your discussion of Brokeback Mountain would have stalled on page one in a rut of wank jokes. But it would have been broadly "on-topic"!
I think I've been remarkably good-natured towards you on this page, and your showy wasting of a reply with flat, dunno, ho-hum, isn't-this-boring responses to questions that I presented as potentially interesting (to a broader readership, should they turn up), rather than enquiries I insist you answer, is petty & ungracious.
quote:You, in seven hours' time: Heaven forfend I should be ungracious towards you, Kovacs. That would never do. I was merely trying to match your charm in waving your textual dick for three pages rather than talking about Brokeback Mountain. Now. Has anyone seen this film.
IT IS GETTING A BIT PREDICTABLE NOW; I think I have exhausted my contribution to this thread ("I think you did that on page 2, dear") unless anyone else comes along. But, thank you for the good discussion in parts.
Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
Serious question:
What does Kongular mean?
Is it something to do with having the attributes of a giant ape?
[ 11.01.2006, 04:19: Message edited by: jonesy999 ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: If I hadn't done those things you're still snarking at me for, your discussion of Brokeback Mountain would have stalled on page one in a rut of wank jokes. But it would have been broadly "on-topic"!
Nothing lost, nothing gained, then, in terms of what I actually wanted to talk about. I'd certainly be interested in hearing your impressions as and when you've seen the film.
quote:I think I've been remarkably good-natured towards you on this page, and your showy wasting of a reply with flat, dunno, ho-hum, isn't-this-boring responses to questions that I presented as potentially interesting (to a broader readership, should they turn up), rather than enquiries I insist you answer, is petty & ungracious.
I disagree - but then, it's been established that we find different things interesting (and/or funny and/or 'decent', etc.). The implication that I'm insufficiently grateful for your 'saving' my thread rather hinges on my agreeing with you on the usefulness of your contributions. I might find your views on Brokeback Mountain useful or interesting. The other stuff? Not enormously.
quote:
quote:You, in seven hours' time: Heaven forfend I should be ungracious towards you, Kovacs. That would never do. I was merely trying to match your charm in waving your textual dick for three pages rather than talking about Brokeback Mountain. Now. Has anyone seen this film.
You're so adept at putting words in my mouth, you could probably have this discussion with yourself. Perhaps you should.
quote:IT IS GETTING A BIT PREDICTABLE NOW
YES ISNT IT!!1! Etc.
quote:I think I have exhausted my contribution to this thread ("I think you did that on page 2, dear") unless anyone else comes along. But, thank you for the good discussion in parts.
I'm afraid I see it rather as a detour, a distraction - and, from my point of view, a slightly frustrating, pointless one, in that it's been more about repeatedly correcting your assumptions regarding my personal motivation than in advancing my own understanding of Brokeback Mountain, Westerns or anything else, really. I suppose I'm now acquainted with the cult studs definition of 'poaching' but that's about it.
I like discussion as much as the next man, but not back-and-forth for its own sake. If I hadn't found your assumptions and general tone so itchyscratchy, I doubt I'd have persisted. Call me 'on-topic Nazi' by all means, but Brokeback Mountain's one of the most powerful films I've seen for years, and I genuinely wanted to talk about it here, rather than defend myself at length. I honestly do think you should see it, if only so we can have a discussion from which I'll gain something.
I'm appreciative of those others who did 'come along', discussion-wise.
[ 11.01.2006, 07:58: Message edited by: Ganesh ]
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: Serious question:
What does Kongular mean?
Is it something to do with having the attributes of a giant ape?
That was the idea. It may not be in the Oxford Dictionary, though.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Want More? Simply go to www.barbelith.com and type 'TMO' in the offers box for unrestricted 24/7 access. Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: I would be interested to discuss how "that gay cowboy film" fits into the Western genre, but I will have to go and see it first- probably not until the weekend.
As I've probably conveyed, I don't really think it does fit into the Western genre. It's more of a classic story of 'doomed love' in a particular time and place. Visually, I guess it's pretty good at evoking certain elements of the old Western myths (wide-open spaces, gruff-but-sensitive cowboys, 'closeness to nature', etc.).
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
But... lots of westerns weren't 'about' herding cows, or shooting Indians, they were about vengeance, love, baked beans, etc, also in a Western setting.
But... the actual 'Western' parts of BM, with hard-core herding and slightly limp rodeo, take up the minority of the film. So in that way too, it's not really a Western.
I absolutely loved this film. Perfect in every way. I loved the spare language, very E Annie P, and the contrast between the lush and endless possibilities of the Wyoming scenery and the dry, claustrophobic home towns. I blubbered from about two-thirds in, and couldn't speak for 30 minutes afterwards due to the lump in my throat.
I have a question, but it would be spoiler-tastic, so will wait until others have seen it.
Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
Is the spoiler that there's bumming in it?
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
Damn you Joan. Now you've spoiled it for everybody
[ 11.01.2006, 08:07: Message edited by: herbs ]
Posted by dance margarita (Member # 848) on :
i dont think its a spoiler to say that this film features some very excellent shirts.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by herbs: But... lots of westerns weren't 'about' herding cows, or shooting Indians, they were about vengeance, love, baked beans, etc, also in a Western setting.
Yeah, I get that. It wasn't about "vengeance", though, was it? Brokeback Mountain was primarily about love, the ability to give and receive it and the imperfect compromises one makes in life.
The baked beans were certainly there, though.
quote:But... the actual 'Western' parts of BM, with hard-core herding and slightly limp rodeo, take up the minority of the film. So in that way too, it's not really a Western.
I saw the latter mainly as set-dressing - although its limpness does also establish Jack's relative mediocrity at being a 'real' cowboy (which mirrors his half-arsedness at being a 'real' husband or father).
quote:I absolutely loved this film. Perfect in every way. I loved the spare language, very E Annie P, and the contrast between the lush and endless possibilities of the Wyoming scenery and the dry, claustrophobic home towns. I blubbered from about two-thirds in, and couldn't speak for 30 minutes afterwards due to the lump in my throat.
I was much the same. Went to the pub afterwards, but kept worrying I'd suddenly burst into tears. Agree with you on Brokeback Mountain itself as metaphor for youth, possibility, etc. as compared with the arid harshness of day-to-day life and its inevitable compromises.
quote:I have a question, but it would be spoiler-tastic, so will wait until others have seen it.
Well, I've been comparitively spoilerrific already. Maybe with a big, flashy SPOILER WARNING?
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by dance margarita: i dont think its a spoiler to say that this film features some very excellent shirts.
And Jack is, literally, a shirt-lifter.
I wondered, at times, whether I was guilty of reading gay in-jokes into the film. As well as the shirt-lifting, closets feature at key plot points - and one of the farming machines we see Jack riding (with his young son) has 'VERSATILE' emblazoned across the front...
Posted by herbs (Member # 101) on :
OK then.
++++SPOILER AHOY++++++
When Lureen is telling Ennis about Jack's death by tyre ring, and E imagines a 'queer-bashing', was the film saying that J was really killed by being beaten up, and that L was too ashamed to admit it, or was it Ennis's interpretation, based on his childhood experiences?
L is very tight-lipped during the convo - does she know already about J&E, or is the penny only then dropping about the significance of Brokeback Mountain?
+++++END OF SPOILER. MOVE ALONG+++++++
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
SPOIIIIIIILERS!!
...
...
...
...
...
quote:Originally posted by herbs: ++++SPOILER AHOY++++++
When Lureen is telling Ennis about Jack's death by tyre ring, and E imagines a 'queer-bashing', was the film saying that J was really killed by being beaten up, and that L was too ashamed to admit it, or was it Ennis's interpretation, based on his childhood experiences?
L is very tight-lipped during the convo - does she know already about J&E, or is the penny only then dropping about the significance of Brokeback Mountain?
+++++END OF SPOILER. MOVE ALONG+++++++
That's ambiguous in both short story and film. The first time we saw it with friends who hadn't read Proulx's story, they wondered whether Lureen had arranged Jack's death. Initially, I couldn't see how they might've formed this impression but, if one takes the 'phone calls flashback to be happening in Lureen's mind rather than Ennis's, that skewed interpretation would make a certain kind of sense.
In the short story, it remains ambiguous to the reader: did this really happen, or is it Ennis's paranoid fantasy based on that formative childhood fear? In the story, Ennis remains unsure until he goes to the Twists and hears about Jack's longstanding boasts that he's going to return with Ennis one day to do up the Twists' place - with a more recent shift from Ennis to "some ranch foreman neighbour of his". This suggests that Jack began 'fishing' closer to home, and began attracting hostile attention (as in the earlier rodeo bar scene) which eventually resulted in his death.
This confirms, in Ellis's mind, that Jack died from lynching. It's left to the reader to decide on the likelihood of his interpretation being the correct one.
Lureen's chilliness on the 'phone - with hints of bitterness - suggests she's aware that something had been going on ("Jack kept his friends' numbers in his head") and the little noise she makes in her throat indicates she's more emotionally affected by Ennis's revelation (Brokeback Mountain's a real place where her husband spent such 'quality time' with another male that he wants his ashes scattered there) than might be audibly apparent. In that sense, I think the penny's just dropped.
...
...
...
ENNNND OF SPOILERS!
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
I saw this at the weekend and enjoyed it, although I am aware that I automatically enjoy most "Westerns" because they have horses and nice scenery in. If the story had taken place in some other cinematically distinct setting, say amongst the gangs of 1930s Chicago, I doubt I would have cared so much. The first thing I did when I got home was to look at my Colorado pictures from the summer I worked there. This film was the closest thing in 7 years to remind me of how the mountain air tastes, and how quickly the weather changes, and of what those small towns are like (the way a flimsy door sounds when it's slammed in a cheap building). So the depiction of Wyoming affected me at a deeper personal level than the actual narrative.
I liked the final song on the end credits, but thought the score throughout was a bit lame- I found the twanging gee-tar chords a bit distracting, and kinda lazy. Both leads put in great performances. Who says the pretty boys can't act?
I would actually argue that the film can be fairly confidently classified as a Western, with regard to its setting, iconography and the way it uses a frontier/wilderness location to explore moral conflicts between the individual and society within the greater context of changing American history. I don't know if anyone is interested enough in Westerns to want to discuss this further.
[ 16.01.2006, 07:28: Message edited by: Vogon Poetess ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I love Westerns VP, but you would have to discuss them on another thread just about Westerns (that's not being "itchyscratchy"; I agree it'd be disruptively off-topic) because I still haven't been to the cinema since King Kong. I have watched a film every night at home, though, so I don't think I should be sacked from my job yet.
I very much like your writing in the above post
[ 16.01.2006, 11:50: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: I would actually argue that the film can be fairly confidently classified as a Western, with regard to its setting, iconography and the way it uses a frontier/wilderness location to explore moral conflicts between the individual and society within the greater context of changing American history. I don't know if anyone is interested enough in Westerns to want to discuss this further.
See I can totally see how this would be the case, but like Kovacs I've not seen the film and so I can't really discuss it in context.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Westerns bore the tits off me.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
Isn't the film simply creating a metaphorical frontier of attitudes and opinions?
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: Westerns bore the tits off me.
Have you never watched The Wild Bunch or Django? What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
aye, I've seen the Wild Bunch. My dad always used to bang on about it. It's alright, but didn't excite me. I addmit that I do quite like High Plains Drifter and Outlaw Jonesy Whales, but overall I don't think I get Westerns. They just seem... I don't know.. dreary.
[ 17.01.2006, 05:08: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: aye, I've seen the Wild Bunch. My Dad always used to bang on about it. It's alright, but didn't excite me.
If the entire Mexican army getting slaughtered by a Gatling gun doesn't excite you, I...I don't know what to say. I worry about you sometimes, Benway.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
Anyone who uses the word 'dreary' in relation to The Wild Bunch deserves to have their eyes confiscated. If one had to place everything in the universe in order of merit, then The Wild Bunch would be a long way ahead of Dr Benway.
Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: ...westerns. They just seem... I don't know.. dreary.
I feel terrible now. I once forced Benway to watch For a Few Dollars More.
Admittedly, we were so drunk he could have been watching live Murderape and wouldn't have known the difference.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Mmmm. Sorry.
Posted by Louche (Member # 450) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: but overall I don't think I get Westerns. They just seem... I don't know.. dreary.
You've obviously forgotten - or by some cruel, cruel quirk of fate never seen - the seminal and as yet unparallelled Young Guns and its similarly inspiring sequel, the fantastically imaginatively named Young Guns II. Some people may feel that the appeal of these films is based in collecting a small posse of the then brat pack of highly fuckable young male actors and chucking them together in a film where they got to wear leather trousers and bare their chests. These people are obviously wrong, as the Young Guns films are amongst the best ever made and I remain unable to comprehend how they didn't garner all the oscars they patently deserved.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
Maybe I will watch the Wild Bunch again. It's been a few years, and all I remember is the gatling gun scene.
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
Benway you should blatantly watch The Wild Bunch again - it's got little kids playing with scorpians in it FFS - and Django.
I'd also suggest you check out Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid and Once Upon a Time in teh West and a whole fucking load of Italian stuff other than just Leone or Corbucci.
But I love Westerns.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: So the depiction of Wyoming affected me at a deeper personal level than the actual narrative.
That's interesting. I thought the sometimes-criticised slowness with which the plot unfolds allowed time to drink in all that visual imagery. Apparently it was shot in Canada, but Proulx has confirmed that, in terms of landscape, it's very similar to Wyoming.
quote:I liked the final song on the end credits, but thought the score throughout was a bit lame- I found the twanging gee-tar chords a bit distracting, and kinda lazy.
I recently bought the soundtrack, and would agree that there are few stand-outs, the final Willie Nelson song being pretty much it (I like Rufus Wainwright's King of the Road, but I think it's the original they use in the film). I quite liked the plangent gee-tar refrain, though. During the film, I was aware at several points of the sound of wind in the trees: I think that particular sound effect's employed almost throughout.
quote:I would actually argue that the film can be fairly confidently classified as a Western, with regard to its setting, iconography and the way it uses a frontier/wilderness location to explore moral conflicts between the individual and society within the greater context of changing American history.
Certainly in terms of setting and iconography. I'd argue that, otherwise, it's a fairly conventional romance akin to the 'weepies' of the 1950s/'60s - Sirk-era 'women's movies'.
I suppose I tend to think of Westerns in terms, also, of specific plot elements: conflicts solved or exacerbated by use of firearms; some sort of 'enemy' (even if it's the wilderness/nature itself); more of a 'circling wagons'/'defending the frontier' feel.
If, as a subsequent poster suggests, we take the 'frontier' to be a sexual one, or the prevailing cultural views of sexuality in that place at that time, then I guess one could indeed make the case for Brokeback Mountain being a Western. I still tend to think of it as a hybrid, really: a 'woman's film' in Western macho drag? A celluloid Danny the Street?
quote:I don't know if anyone is interested enough in Westerns to want to discuss this further.
I'm interested, certainly, so long as it's possible to relate discussion back to the film itself.
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh: I'd argue that, otherwise, it's a fairly conventional romance akin to the 'weepies' of the 1950s/'60s - Sirk-era 'women's movies'.
I believe the term is melodrama.
It is certainly possible to to have a Western Melodrama.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I had one last time I went to Shepherd's Bush!!!!! Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I think "women's pictures" in quotation marks is used quite regularly as synonymous with melodrama. It's clumsy but I suppose it's because that's what they would have been called on their release.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
Yeah.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: Shepherd's Bush
Coincidentally, the working title of Brokeback Mountain.
Posted by Boy Racer (Member # 498) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: I think "women's pictures" in quotation marks is used quite regularly as synonymous with melodrama. It's clumsy but I suppose it's because that's what they would have been called on their release.
I wasn't suggesting that Ganesh was incorrect in his use of the term in his original post, I know women's pictures is generally used in film theory to describe movies like Now Voyager or Mildred Pierce, which also happen to be melodramas. I merely felt that the term melodrama was more appropriate in this context.
[ 19.01.2006, 06:33: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
True, it makes more sense to say Brokeback is a Western Melodrama than a Western "women's picture." I expect
Mildred Pierce is actually a noir melodrama I think... a surprisingly successful hybrid.
Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
A little melting moment of hot cowboy-almost-on-cowboy action, for your delectation.
Well, you would, wouldn't you?
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Hmmm. Looks like that horribly showy-offy man-kissing-man joke snog thing that Tony Slattery used to do a lot on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Man, that was a bleak time for comedy-flavoured weekend television.
[ 30.01.2006, 16:26: Message edited by: ben ]
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
That's not a good kiss whether it comes from a man or a woman.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Then again, I think I'm finding any excuse not to see a film whose gay intimacy I might find erotic, or uncomfortable, or erotically uncomfortable or vice versa.
This week: Munich Posted by Ganesh (Member # 685) on :
In context, it's actually quite a joyous kiss, a four-years-later kiss. I agree, though, that two-minute snatch (stop tittering at the back) doesn't really do the moment justice.
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
Slashy film parodies are two a penny, but this is surprisingly good Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
If the link worked. Anyway, google "Brokeback to the Future". It is not nearly as cheap as it sounds.
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