Here at HogBlog we have a proud tradition of saying things about stuff. Or, to be more precise, we had a proud tradition; so overheated was our rhetoric and so brightly did blaze the flames of our bloggish passion that HogBlog Headquarters, in fact, burnt right down. This came as something of a surprise.
...Perhaps that would be a catchy new tag-line: 'We're on FIRE!'
What with one thing and another, HogBlog fell almost silent. The fertile fields of blogdom have here lain fallow for far too long; just as a forest fire clears away the dead wood and ushers in a frantic burst of new growth, just as torching Iraq brought about a golden age of peace and enlightenment in the Middle East, so too shall this blog rise phoenix-like from its ashes and reclaim its rightful place as whatever the hell it used to be. Only better.
Speaking of the hot and flaming, how about that Brokeback Mountain?
You should see it. It's quite good. A couple of things...
It's the saddest movie I've seen in a long time. I'm not afraid to admit that I cried like a goddamn lawn sprinkler. I'm allowed to do that, because I'm a big homo. You should too. It's good for you. You need to emote during the film because the characters have such trouble emoting themselves. There must be balance. And it really just rips your heart right out to see them...So full of love and fear, so bound up in their steely-eyed Marlborough Man masculine identities that they can never let themselves grow, never accept what they feel, never allow themselves to be happy; they can hardly talk about it, let alone live with it. A bulbous fool of my acquaintance hated the movie, and complained that the characters never developed. That's the whole point. That's the tragedy. This unwillingness, this refusal, warps their lives and their souls. And then it's just too late, and Heath Ledger is left with a belly full of grief and can hardly talk about that either...
I've heard a lot of talk about how masculine the movie is. The men are very butch, the pick-ups very rusty, the chests very buff, the ass sex very forceful. All of this is true. There's very little indicative of any kind of gay identity or culture in the film, nothing camp or swishy. But masculinity does not come out of the movie looking good, since it's the root of all the cowboys' problems. It gets them lives of misery and isolation. They feel so much, but can say so little. Let this be a lesson to you, manly men. Being a little less Heath Ledger and a little more John Inman will serve you well in life.
It's a slow movie. Like the landscapes, the timeless rock and changeless dust, like the characters themselves who just can't get it...We cry out to the uncaring heavens at times as the movie, like the land, like the men, refuses to develop, changing coming so achingly slowly, in the end too little and too late...
The sex is hot, though. Like, wow. Really hot. Hot and rough and sweaty and asstastic. I don't want to hear any hetero males out there going all squeamish on me now. I've put up with hundreds and hundreds of movies in which people put things into vaginas, and you don't hear me complaining. You can damn well sit still with your eyes wide open and watch two men's chests as they hump. It's not like you can even see anything juicy. And if it gives you a woody well then that's just too fucking bad. You can whip yourself silly begging forgiveness from your cruel God later on if you want, but that won't make ass sex any less hot and deep down inside you know it.
Jake Gyllenhaal's moustache, however, is not hot. I wanted to reach out and rip the bastard right off his face. Moustaches are evil, and this is proof. Don't grow one.
It's a love story, and as such it is universal. It's about intimacy and enduring bonds. But it is also gay. This is a gay movie about gay people doing gay things, and that's important. It is at the heart of why they act the way they do and why things develop the way they do. Don't try to draw parallels with Romeos and Juliets and star-crossed breeders. It's not just parents or money or class or creed that keep these barebacking cowboys apart. It's something inside. They can barely conceptualise their love. They simply don't have the words to say it, or even to think it. They won't let themselves understand what it is they feel. They find their own souls alien, incomprehensible, other.
Cry.
Posted by aloysius at January 22, 2006 01:06 AM |