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Letters to the Editor

Published Thursday, 29-Dec-2005 in issue 940

“There are also those who are likely to realize that we gays can see and ‘identify’ with heterosexual films or read such books, and that there’s no reason why nongays can’t do the same.”

Dear Editor:

Sunday, Dec. 18’s issue of L.A. Times had three letters in response to an article titled “Can ‘Brokeback Mountain’ Move the Heartland?” Dec. 14, headlined

Cowboys in love and public tastes and while I readily admit my bias towards the film, the letters are, I think, both intelligent and amusing. They make the opinions in the article quite apparent in their letters.

Did the writers even see the movie? There are more heterosexual sex scenes in this movie than homosexual ones. There are several scenes with women’s breasts exposed. There even is heterosexual sex between unmarried people in the back seat of a car.

The profoundly sad and moving nature of the film is what will challenge viewers, not the fact that two men are in love. This is not a political movie. The fact that The Times ran a story on the film with reviews from the Family Research Council is sad. Stop inventing controversy about this great film.

Timothy Eckert—Los Angeles

Your article gives a surprising amount of credence to the question without ever considering that films can sometimes challenge and even change public tastes as well as cater to them. The question of whether the public is ready for something is certianly relevant to the economic considerations about filmmaking, but if filmmakers, and indeed other artists, let that question rule their endeavors, many of the works that the public now considers masterpieces would not exist.

Louis Pepe, Filmmaker, Silver Lake

Your article quotes Carlo Petrick of Marus Theater Corp. as saying, “It’s not about turning people off, but the degree of interest in seeing a love story between two men, if it comes down to choosing between “King Kong” and “Brokeback,” people who will go to the movies to be entertained will probably choose the former.”

Now, I’ll freely admit to being a sexual traditionalist (at least by California standards), but between a gay love story and a love story between a giant ape and a woman, the latter is just way too hetero for my tastes.

Steve Mills, Glendale

One of things about Brokeback that doesn’t get discussed is that it also tells of men who marry because of societal pressures and the urge to do “the right thing,” and the tragedies that happen to the entire family, including the wives. And certainly this is done much better than how that was handled in the m awkish soap opera “Far From Heaven” just a few years back.

And the article and letters seem to forget that many people will not see one OR the other film, but eventually see both.

As for the question of whether the public “is ready” for such topics—well, no one knows until it’s tried, and there’s just no way to predict. There are also those who are likely to realize that we gays can see and “identify” with heterosexual films or read such books, and that there’s no reason why nongays can’t do the same.

Mike Varady

Letters Policy

The Gay & Lesbian Times welcomes comments from all readers. Letters to the editor longer than 500 words will not be accepted. Send e-mail to editor@uptownpub.com; fax (619) 299-3430; or mail to PO Box 34624, San Diego, CA 92163. To be printed, letters must include the writer’s name, address and daytime phone number for verification.

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