The buzz over 'Brokeback'

~ Movie-goers in Cape Girardeau will get their chance to see the controversial film starting today.

For months the pundits have debated its moral ramifications while the Hollywood establishment has sang its praises.

If any movie in recent memory has caused as much of a stir as "Brokeback Mountain," anyone would be hard-pressed to name it. The film has been nominated for eight Oscars and cleaned house at the Golden Globe Awards.

"Brokeback Mountain" was released last year, but today the controversial film finally opens in Cape Girardeau. And while the debate over the Hollywood liberal agenda is alive here, "Brokeback Mountain" doesn't seem to be the cause celebre here it's been made out to be in the national media.

Just ask several of the local church leaders who have barely given the flick a thought.

"To be honest, I have heard of the movie, but I do not know what its content is about," said Zack Strong, pastor of Cape First Church. "To comment on it would be difficult."

Rumors have circulated that the male/male cowboy love story was blacklisted in Cape Girardeau, but the late start here was actually the result of a savvy business move, not outcry in a socially and religiously conservative area.

Distributor Focus Features -- a company that knows a little something about marketing artsy films without blockbuster appeal -- had its timing down right. This week "Brokeback Mountain" will be released in several smaller markets like Cape Girardeau, capitalizing on the buzz created by this week's Academy Award nominations.

Dr. Harvey Hecht predicted the release would come after the Oscars weeks ago in his film class at Southeast Missouri State University. Of course, after years of studying Hollywood, the pattern is easy to recognize.

"If it's nominated, it will come here, and it will be nominated," Hecht remembers telling his students. "It's no accident that the release comes with the nominations."

Hecht said in his years as a student of film, he doesn't remember a film that compares in controversy to "Brokeback Mountain," chiefly because there hasn't been a film that would compare in content.

"Philadelphia" came close with Tom Hanks' AIDS-afflicted protagonist. But the homosexuality of Hanks' character was much more subdued, said Hecht. "Brokeback" comes fully out of the closet.

"When you start breaking ground in area like this, you do it a small step at a time," Hecht said. "And the first is just as radical and as dangerous at the time as the tenth."

Hecht hasn't yet seen the movie. But he said the reviews he's read say the sexual aspect of the lead characters is less important than the love story. One review called it a "chick flick" because of the talky, emotional nature of the relationship, Hecht said.

"People who have seen it make sort of that point, that the, uh, 'erotic' scenes of the film are a very brief and minor part of the film, that it's much more about talk and feelings and emotions and struggles."

The sex, however, isn't necessarily what's bothering conservatives. The real issue for them is that "Brokeback" has turned the epitome of the American male -- the cowboy -- into a homosexual, said Hecht. For them the hubbub is more about a perceived Hollywood agenda to liberalize America and destroy the country's base conservative Christian value system.

Even though Strong hasn't heard much about the movie, he does perceive an agenda behind works like "Brokeback" and the recently canceled and controversial TV series "The Book of Daniel" -- a series about a troubled clergyman surrounded by immorality who talks to Jesus.

"I do believe that there is a subtlety to get us desensitized and it gets slipped into our society so easily," Strong said. "It breaks down everything that's moral and true and causes us to accept it before we even know it's under our noses."

Strong doesn't see the Hollywood agenda as the product of malicious humans, but spiritual forces.

The Rev. Ann Mowery of the Zion United Methodist Church in Gordonville hasn't heard much about "Brokeback," but she does have a negative view of Hollywood.

"I tend to be one of the people who falls on the conservative side of the debate," Mowery said. "It is true that Hollywood does have an agenda of eroding the values we've held firm ...

"'The Book of Daniel" was on my radar, and I was delighted to see it go off the air."

Lynwood Baptist Church Pastor Derek Staples has heard of the film, but hasn't preached about it to his congregation.

"I think it's going to be short-lived, but it's the typical program of Hollywood," Staples said. "They're going to continue pushing the boundaries, and God's people, with love and grace, need to stand up and say. 'This is what the word says, and as a result of that we're not going to promote, to endorse or to encourage Hollywood's message.'

"Their influence is minimal at best in our lives."

Jamie Sikorski, president of the Gay-Straight Alliance on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, agrees with Staples.

"I don't understand how big a deal has been made of it," Sikorski said. "It's not really a political film, it's not really overtly gay -- it's really a choice to go see it, it's a choice not to go see it."

Denise Eaker, an outspoken member of the local gay community, said the film just proves that homosexuality is a part of life. She doesn't expect protests outside the theater, since she sees Cape Girardeau as a civilized place.

However, she does think the movie can strengthen gay pride.

"A lot of closeted gay people do not go see gay-themed movies because they're afraid of being outed. This way they can see their culture in the cinema kind of setting, with the umbrella that 'I'm going to see the movie because it was nominated for an Oscar.'"

After the movie, Eaker said, there will be a party for people gay and straight at the Cape Club Complex.

Of course controversy has always been around in film, as in all art, said Hecht. In the '60s it was films about race. Now pushing the envelope has taken a different route.

"Art pushes envelopes, and art doesn't care," Hecht said.

"Brokeback" has been hailed by critics not just as ground breaking, but as artful.

And well-executed art isn't always moral, said Hecht. Just look at D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," an abjectly racist 1915 film that was a pioneer in how shots of film are weaved together to make a narrative.

Bryce Eddings, an occasional movie-goer, wonders whether "Brokeback" would have gotten the acclaim it has if not for the controversial subject matter. He compares it to "Jungle Fever," a 1991 film where the controversy overwhelmed the story for him.

Eddings does want to know what the fuss is about, but he'll wait for "Brokeback" to come out on DVD.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182