"The Gay Cowboy Movie"

Coming from a hometown where it seems like every day, news spreads throughout my high school of someone new “coming out of the closet,” I personally don’t find anything too incredibly immoral about the short story or the film, however, I can understand why some may take offense to this type of material.

Although Brokeback Mountain was a box office smash when it first hit theaters in late 2005, there was also much controversy and criticism from both the media and the rest of society. When the film came out, I remember people at my high school just referring to it as “the gay cowboy movie.” This comment in itself is controversial. We can take this simple phrase, break it apart, and find many different reasons why some people may be offended by this movie.

First off, are the two main characters really gay, or are they bisexual? One automatically assumes that they are indeed homosexuals, but really, they both lead other lives outside of their relationship with each other. They both have spouses (whom they cheat on- again, is the media sending the right message that it’s okay to cheat on your spouse if you’re gay?) and children. Or are they not gay at all; do they just have a special bond that they could not have with any other man? Personally, I believe this is open to the viewer’s interpretation.

Secondly, the fact that these men are cowboys makes this film quite controversial. Cowboys represent the typical “manly man,” the Old West and a true American. What could be more scandalous than two muscular, hardworking, cattle-roping men being homosexuals? This was an uproar waiting to happen. Everything our society knew was being put to the test of being able to handle a film of this nature.