11/21/2005
Heath Ledger Not a Label Queen
Time begins priming folks for Heath Ledger's understated performance in Brokeback Mountain in an article that charts the sequence of cinematic duds he's appeared in...as well as the resurrection of his career in the landmark cowboy film.
Ledger makes some comments that are very similar to the much-commented-on statements that Jake Gyllenhaal made in articles that appeared last week with regard to the approach to the characters of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist:
Says Ledger: "I don't think Ennis could be labeled as gay. Without Jack Twist, I don't know that he ever would have come out. I think the whole point was that it was two souls that fell in love with each other."
This is perhaps a better articulation of what Jake was trying to say. While the Brokeback story and characters would undeniably be labeled as "gay" from our modern perspective, back then the labels weren't as prevalent.
Even now, Ledger offers, the labels of gay and straight, are too strict and marginalize people who may have attractions to both sexes:
"I don't think it's that black-and-white, and I think because we label it so harshly, there's just a lot of confused people running around thinking, Oh, f___, which side am I on?"
In a recent article in Newsweek, Ledger explained why he feels some straight men get uncomfortable at the notion of a film about cowboys in love: "I suspect it's a fear that they are going to enjoy it. They don't understand that you are not going to become sexually attracted to men by recognizing the beauty of a love story between two men."
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 10:28 AM EST by Andy in Film & TV | Permalink
Comments
Bravo, Heath!Thanks for voicing the truth for many people. There are probably more bisexual people out there than purely Gay. The younger generation is more cognizant of this fact, but Gays from older generations like to think in terms of everybody being Kinsey 1's and Kinsey 6's, which leaves out a lot of people in between.
Posted by: John | Nov 21, 2005 10:46:11 AM
"I think the whole point was that it was two souls that fell in love with each other"
It seems funny to me that everyone tries so hard to glorify this to "souls" and such such, as if not saying so, the subject will be cheaper. come on, love is love, love is physical. there's no need to always to push this matter to such a high level to beg its acceptance in the mainstream.
Posted by: sam | Nov 21, 2005 10:49:22 AM
Now kiddies, just watch the white Guppies cream all over Heath and Jake when they offer commentary on sexual identities and homophobia. But, when Kenye addressed his own issues, you all went ape shit and accused him of being disingenious and opportunistic. Methinks the self rightous PC queens need to look at their own racism.
Posted by: Jeff | Nov 21, 2005 11:25:31 AM
Say what ?
Posted by: Michael P | Nov 21, 2005 11:57:25 AM
It's a fair argument, Jeff, but don't forget that the actors have been talking about how they're not 'afraid' of same-sex love any more (or even open to the possibility), while Kanye will never go to a club with his cousin. He's acknowledging his homophobia but telling us not to expect him to get over it too quickly. Why then should anyone else?
Posted by: Scott | Nov 21, 2005 12:01:40 PM
hey jake, pay attention when heath speaks. you sound bush-esque by comparison.
Posted by: CriticalRN | Nov 21, 2005 12:18:07 PM
Taking a lead from Heath...here it goes:
In my late twenties, I spent most of my free time with my best friend Todd. Todd was going through a bad break up from a girlfriend of five years. We club hopped together (straight). I had dinner at his folks every Sunday for two years, we went fishing together etc. We were basically inseparable. That was back in 1984.
Today, Todd has been married for 19 years and has three children while I am openly gay and in a relationship. Todd never batted an eye when I told him I was gay. We recently had a very frank discussion about the years in which he describes: "all he needed was me."
Our relationship was never sexual, but Todd now admits he loved me. There was true attraction beyond friendship. It was a feeling that scared him. A feeling on which he didn't know how to act. He went on to admit there were many times he had the impulse to be affectionate, to hold me and kiss me. He vented this affection instead with aggression in wrestling matches that always ended with our eyes locked. But the most telling statement in our talk was Todd's admission he's never felt a fiber of attraction to any other male since then.
"For one time in my life there was a man. A man whose smile I longed to see. A man I missed when he was not around. A man who lived in my thoughts during the work day, a man I loved and trusted." Todd said.
Todd's candor was not only touching, but also speaks volumes about the notion that sometimes a "Jack Twist" can meet an
"Ennis del Mar" and the results can be something both never expected.
Posted by: Matthew | Nov 21, 2005 1:21:19 PM
What a sweet story, Matthew!
Posted by: Michael W. | Nov 21, 2005 1:35:29 PM
Heath is pretty dead on
Nature is PANSEXUAL ...across the spectrum
FLUID
we ourselves as a community do many men a diservice by not allowing tthem to experiment with their sexuality.. You kissed a guy 1 time you are a queen...blah blah blah
I have been 100% gay oriented for 18 years (came out at 16) recently woke up from a dream of having sex with a woman...eating her out...LOL and I enjoyed it for some weird reason....Does this all of a sudden make me closeted hetero? Hell no. Would I have sex with a girl because of it.....seriously maybe once to try it after so many years of never going near it. LOL
The point is that sex is fluid!!!!!!!!!!!!! animals do not use labels....they just have sex....and many switch between the sexes....
only humans use labels
Posted by: Jimmy | Nov 21, 2005 2:00:58 PM
hey jeff
I as a cracker/ honkey......totaly agree with you.
Heath and jake's comments on sexuality though interesting are in no way as powerful as kanye's
For a straight african american rapper/singer to say what kanye has is totaly amazing and powerful. COMPLETLY HONEST as well.......
No one should expect him to all of a sudden appear in gay bars and parades. That is simply ridiculous.......
Posted by: Jimmy | Nov 21, 2005 2:07:18 PM
>>"I suspect it's a fear that they are going to enjoy it."
I suspect many who fear it, have already enjoyed it, but don't want to admit how much they enjoyed it.
If only I had a nickel for every "straight" married man, who cheated on his wife with another guy ....
Posted by: Jay Croce | Nov 21, 2005 3:13:18 PM
how does jeff know those were only 'white guppies' trashing kanye? weren't a lot of presumed white boys (me included) supporting kanye? oh, sorry, i'm dealing with facts. sometimes that doesn't seem to matter.
Posted by: Jon | Nov 21, 2005 3:57:30 PM
Thankfully, there seems to be a good group of open-minded people posting comments on this topic. One of my big gripes with some gay men is that they tend to acuse straight guys of being gay for the slightest nuance of femininity in their actions. It scares many straight and bisexual men from the gay scene.
Perhaps "gay marriage" wasn't something that existed in Ancient times, but at least the Greeks and Romans seemed to be more fluid in their sexuality. I don't think it was a big deal for two guys to experiment with each other back then. Even in many European countries today it is more acceptable for a couple of guys to fool around. In the United States it seems that any thoughts of the same sex makes you 100% queer.
That reminds me of a joke that was made by Andrew Dice Clay when he remarked about his confusion of bisexual men. He joked,"either you suck dick, or you do not suck dick!" roflmao As funny as the joke was at the time, I don't really agree with that statement anymore.
I came out as bisexual to my gay best friend and he used to tell me that I was just "confused". He would say that I was just accepting my homosexuality and that I would eventually come to accept the fact that I am gay. Well, it's over 20 years later and I still swing both ways! It has nothing to do with putting up a front for my parents or worrying what others might think of me.
I just wish that people would realize that the majority of people are not all one way or the other. I think that Brokeback Mtn. is a perfect example of this. I certainly wouldn't consider the two guys who are in love with each as "homosexuals" or "gays". It is possible to have some attraction for the same sex and not be gay.
There must be a better way of explaining it - but then again - why does everything have to be labeled?
Posted by: Charles Roland | Nov 21, 2005 5:03:29 PM
i think heath and jake are trying to see it more as people falling in love rather than putting a label on it. we don't go around calling heterosexual love stories as ''straight love stories'' do we? no. we just call them love stories. we don't go on and on about how they're straight. why should this movie be any different? they're men, but do we need to drill that they're ''gay''??? they're human beings who fall in love. no need to label them. love is love. 'nuff said.
Posted by: davey | Nov 21, 2005 5:27:42 PM
http://www.houstonvoice.com/blog/index.cfm?type=blog&start=11/15/05&end=11/22/05#3655
related somewhat.
Posted by: john | Nov 21, 2005 5:55:00 PM
i found this off on IMDB.COM which shows the author of the book labels them as gay:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/olv5n1.html#proulx:
"Once I had in mind that I wanted to do a collection of stories about Wyoming, I knew I wanted to illustrate various parts of the State and various attitudes, and behavior, postures, character types, that sort of thing for the State, too. And homophobia is, as in almost every rural place, all rural places I guess, especially in very macho societies, which Wyoming, the cowboy state, is; homophobia is part of life. So I wanted to write a story about homophobia and it seemed to me that perhaps the most compelling way to do it would be through telling the stories of two men who loved each other but were themselves so infected with homophobia that nothing could ever happen. Then, too, I’d been going around to a lot of ranches, and there’s always, at a ranch, some old guy, who stands back, keeps to himself, very quiet, very competent, never married, always alone, always watching the younger guys, not in a lascivious or lustful way, but just watching them. And after I’d seen about my tenth old guy at the back of the corral, I began to wonder what it must have been like for a ranch kid who grew up in this kind of world who was gay. So that was the genesis of that story. And it took a long time to write it, and probably no story I’ve ever written has stayed with me so strongly sleeping or waking. It was one of those pieces of work that you just don’t put down and say, "I’ll come back to it in a couple of months." You just, you just saw it through all the way, until it was done. I have to say that that particular story has brought me more mail than anything I’ve ever written. Hundreds of letters, as a matter-of-fact, from gay cowboys in Wyoming. [laughter] So, it’s been interesting, but everywhere I’ve gone, there’s been a guy or two who came up and said, "That’s my story." It was very interesting to me, and a year later, the Matthew Shepherd incident, killing, took place twenty-five miles from where I live. Many people have commented on the similarities of the evil event in this story and in the real life event. The story happened a year before Matthew came to his dreadful end."
Posted by: no name | Nov 21, 2005 6:15:46 PM
From Marty's Musings:
Take your man to see Brokeback Mountain!
Your husband, boyfriend or Match.com date needs to see Brokeback Mountain. You must insist that he see this movie. Beg. Plead. Withhold sex. Do whatever you need to do. Watching two cowboys get it on will do him good.
If he resists, drop this line on him: “I’d wonder about the sexuality of a man who isn’t secure enough to watch a gay-themed movie.” In a world where straight men have evolved to be cool with pedicures, moisturizer and plucking their eyebrows, they can certainly get over their issues with a little same sex nookie on the big screen.
Yeah, sure, he laughs at Will & Grace, but his queasiness with male affection is why Will has had about as much on-screen romance as Jessica Fletcher. We’ll never have a truly open society until straight men get over their visceral reactions to seeing two men kissing.
Most people, especially men, are still way too hung up over man-on-man action. Heath Ledger, who plays the role of Ennis, knows why some men are uncomfortable with the movie. “I suspect it’s a fear that they are going to enjoy it,” he told Newsweek. “They don’t understand that you are not going to become sexually attracted to men by recognizing the beauty of a love story between two men.” Ladies, give your man permission to shed his macho veneer for two hours. And bring enough tissue for both of you.
The buzz is that this is a universal story of love that anyone can appreciate. You don’t have to be gay to relate to a gay love story any more than you have to be straight to cry at the end of Titanic. I didn’t watch As Good As It Gets just to see Greg Kinnear play the prototypical gay neighbor. I’m gay, but I could relate when Harry and Sally. Jerry Maguire had me at hello too.
In Details magazine, Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Jack, observes that the movie would have made just as much sense if his character had been a woman. Yes, but I’ve seen that movie—about a thousand times. It’s our turn.
I’m so excited about this movie, I can hardly see straight. Yes, I want to see some hot, steamy love scenes, but even more than that, I want to see your boyfriend cry.
Posted by: Marty | Nov 22, 2005 12:50:56 AM
Very nice statement, Marty!
Posted by: Markus | Nov 22, 2005 6:20:02 AM
I don't know about this 'just fallen into the situation' message that the media and the cast are promoting for this. I just finished reading the short story, and there is no confusion on my part about what went on in the book. They wanted it. They liked it. They feared it (because of Ennis' personal witnessing of a violent gay bashing). They struggled with it. And Jack paid the price for it in the end.
Posted by: Gary | Nov 22, 2005 11:43:12 AM
I anticipate seeing this movie as I am a straight married guy with a temporary past same sex relationship.
Watching the trailer brought back all the sensations, smells of sweat and sex and the companionship that I've yet to obtain again that way. While we both were in hetero relatinships, we were attached as really good friends who understood each other beyond words. One night while we were talking, I reached over to grab his hand and that begin a summer long behind the radar covert relationship. It was electrifying yet something was missing. I struggled with it, yet the passion would overcome us both. That relationship ended when he moved and married and had kids. I divorced mine and remarried and have a stepkid.
After 6 years, a death in his family brought him back to town and all those feelings came back up and in a moment of distraught over the loss, we connected sexually again..
Since then, we've met for dinner but haven't interacted sexually.
We're both married now and those thought come ever so often, but I had to close that chapter, as did he.
Posted by: Glenn | Dec 1, 2005 2:03:01 AM
Gee Gary, thanks for blowing the movie for us...
Posted by: Bud | Dec 3, 2005 4:49:01 PM
A lot of the arguments here could be resolved if we kept in mind that 'homosexual' and 'gay' are words that do not mean the same thing. "Gay" is a very young notion. It's a political and social identity constructed (consciously or otherwise) by a group of homosexual men who need to identify themselves as part of a distinct group - a necessity in a hostile world. "Homosexual" describes the direction of the attraction. A man can absolutely love another man - body and soul - without being gay. Gay men are always homosexual. But not every man with homosexual desires is gay.
The ancients would not have seen a real difference between a man who is attracted (mostly or exclusively) to one sex or to the other. Both behaviours were seen to to be perfectly appropriate results of the same male sex drive. And yes, even then - two men in love sometimes mated for life.
It is correct to say that Ennis and Jack aren't gay. They have none of the trappings of gay culture (even as it was then known) and none of it's desires. They are direct, unnaffected, unmaterialistic, and unashamedly - violence and all - male.
When Annie Proulx says that in creating her story she wanted to explore the difficulties of what it is like to be gay in rural America, she does not mean "gay" in the way that so many of the contributors to this page mean, she means a man primarily attracted to other men. The identity, "gay," does not apply to Ennis and Jack. Even if (wonderful miracle!) Jack and Ennis could have lived in complete safety and openness they still wouldn't be gay. They would be two men who love each other.
It is a great disservice to ourselves and to others to cling to gay identity. The gay identity is completely artificial and has long been stripped of moral strength by advertizing executives. It's time to retire it.
When we do - The distinction between gay and straight may finally fade away. Perhaps then Ennis and Jack can live their lives in peace.
Posted by: Theo | Dec 3, 2005 10:18:02 PM
I have to agree with Theo and all the others, how can there be a true gay identity? Me, as a bisexual, I always find myself trying to be on one side more than the other, when I try to push aside one side, to go for the other, I end up always finding myself stuck in the middle. Now while people see that I can "have the best of both worlds" I always felt this pressure to chose one side, to be either gay or straight. With lesbians saying that i dont really like women, i just like the attention, or just sex. And men thinking that either I'm nasty, or a waiting threesome for them. So now after this movie and all the support for some people to just not have a title, from people like this page, and Heath and Jake. I see that it isnt two genders falling in love, man to man, woman toe man , or women to women, it is really two souls that fall in love. Just two souls. And to just be. And that is who I am, I just am me.
Posted by: Cici | Jan 18, 2006 3:45:47 AM
These comments got me thinking... and since a few of those comments don't make sense to me, thought I'd try to clarify by going a little deeper on human sexuality theory... Without claiming it is true or complete of course (even Freud or Jung couldn't figure it out, so I don't expect to be spot on!)
Sexuality to me is a continuous spectrum (cannot be labelled), as opposed to discreet (e.g. gay, hetero, bi). There are all kinds out there. I personally don't like to be labelled as gay, straight, or bisexual.
The mistake that I believe most people make is to apply the same clear separation that exists in a spectrum depicting the physical appearance of people (going from male to female) to the spectrum of 'overall appearance' of people. That second spectrum is a representation of the different types of humans which combine physical, spiritual, tactual and other features. My predominant attractions 'going forward' are for one small part of this human types spectrum, which includes people who combine different features. At this current stage in my life, the type of people that I am predominantly attracted to happens to have certain specific manly physical features - But I believe that originally there weren't specific predominant physical features (man or woman) that I preferred. Instead there were spiritual features that I fell in love with and those spiritual features were always carried by a man. Over time, that is I think what has made me more interested in men, be it for friendship, sex, or full-relationship. Experiencing close relationships with men has in turn incited my preference for some quite specific male physical features, that the men that I spiritually loved in the past carried.
Does that make sense?
Posted by: Paul | Feb 19, 2006 9:17:52 AM
I recently purchased Broke Back and loved it. It was warm, caring, and cold as ice in some places. The end broke my heart. All I could think about was Jack(Jake)being murdered for hours. Love comes in all kinds of shapes and so does loneliness. They both find you. Grab hold of the love, it makes the loneliness easier.
Posted by: Ray | Apr 10, 2006 9:36:33 PM
Recent Comments