From the Local High School Newspaper

The tagline for the new movie Brokeback Mountain, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, is “love is a force of nature.” Unfortunately it is never explained what kind of love they are referring to. I am robbed of space to explain the entire story here. However, because of all the buzz around the Venice film festival movie, most of us know the main idea. Two cowboys working for the summer in the mountains fall madly “in love.” The rest of the movie is spent spanning a twenty year time period in which the two marry women, build families and rendezvous with each other under the guise of ‘fishing trips.’

All the talk surrounding the film is mainly in regards to the fact that is the most publicized homosexual movie to date. In light of political conflict dealing with the issue of homosexual marriage, a movie of this subject matter would hardly go unnoticed. Gay rights groups are absolutely ecstatic about the attention the film is getting. However, my biggest beef with this movie is not the homosexuality that it sells. No, I don’t agree with it, but what I find especially disturbing about the film is that it does not deal with the pain that the two men’s adultery causes to the families they chose to build.

The film is labeled “real love is a painful burden, ” but it is made quite clear that neither know the true meaning of the word love. Love is an action, a commitment. Love takes work, effort, patience and self-sacrifice. Nowhere in the movie, other than on the behalf of the wives, are any of those characteristics practiced. The two men engage in adultery, lie to their wives and are often violent and cruel to their families. How is it that men of such dishonest and uncaring characters are lauded and adored and can be made the heroes of a socially significant film? What is so socially significant? Is it not deathly clear that the lesson being taught is that being homosexual gives you super rights? As long as you are committing adultery with someone of the same sex it’s ok? It seems that the tagline of this movie should be edited. “Lust is a force of nature” would seem to be more fitting.

Love does not compromise, love does not fail; the version of love sold in this movie does both. It compromises their health, their jobs, the well being of the ones they are supposed to be most interested in. The devastation of their own lives becomes apparent when their unhealthy attachment hold them both in a deep depression for the rest of their lives. Sorry to ruin the movie for you, but they aren’t together in the end.

Gay rights groups rallying for equal rights would unjustly be able to rally behind Brokeback Mountain. The move does not sell equal rights: it sells super rights. Most groups an any sexual orientation would not encourage cruelty or adultery but this movie promotes both while hiding under a pro-homosexual banner and no one seems to be speaking out against it. The zeal to promote the gay society is blinding society to what else this movie is selling. The idea of equal rights stops dead at this point. The boundary is crossed and the heterosexual group is put in its place. While most adulterous husbands in the majority of films are portrayed as the antagonist and not put upon a pedestal, the characters that Ledger and Gyllenhaal play are being given applause and marked as “important cultural and social advocates.” The hypocrisy is astounding.

—Summer M. White, Junior, Cortez High School