Reviewing Brokeback Mountain
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: "...if you can't fix it, jack, you gotta stand it..."
Just got back from seeing Brokeback Mountain. I didn't really want to see it, but the person I was with really did, so in we went.

And it's a good movie. Maybe even important. Sorta sad, though. Definitely beautiful to look at with all the mountain scenery and all the beautiful faces and everything, but it goes on for too long. That's really my only complaint.

Otherwise, it's a bittersweet journey through the lives of two young gay men lived out in a cultural and temporal milieu that simply would not have it. As I watched, I thought back to all the rough old country boys I've known from my own life ---which is not all that far removed from that very same milieu--- and it made me sad to realize that I've probably known ---without knowing it--- quite a few homosexuals who knew better than to allow themselves to be hurt as these characters did. I regret, for their sakes, what they had to sacrifice to keep the peace.

Human beings have been gay since human beings have been. I can't remember a time now when I thought otherwise. It must be in our code and it cannot be deleterious, else it would have already faded from the race. I am as sure of this as I am of any other natural phenomenon.

Do we have closetedness to thank for Michelangelo and Shakespeare and all the other great artists and thinkers from our pantheon? If so, that pain and tension are the only good things I can think of to take from the homophobic insanity that has too often possessed the great heterosexual masses.

People should be free to love each other as they feel and consent. It is a loss to humanity to crush that spirit.