Brokeback

Last night I viewed the controversial, award nominated film Brokeback Mountain, by Ang Lee, on the one screen outsideof Chapel Hill showing it. I'm actually a fan of Ang Lee's work, for he is a man of vision, of cross-cultural interpretation. All of his films have a slow, building intensity with special attention to cinematography. Wyoming, the setting here, is the least populated, most destitute state in this country, and one of the most beautiful. The film is based upon a short story featured in the New Yorker, following the twenty-year relationship of two people, and the realities of what that relationship means in what could have been any small town in America in the 1960s. Cutting and tragic. Heath Ledger's perfomance alone is striking and incredible, and he will win at least one award for it. In sum: the film portrays gay men as human beings with feelings, and does so very well.

This issue, in my opinion, needs to be addressed. People are people, but people will be people. As a straight woman, I have been teased and bullyed for being and acting apart from the norm. No person is normal, just as no person is perfect. Everybody's just trying to figure it out. There is no dignity in treating anyone as an inferior. When their character shows them to be corrupted and parasitic, they can be left alone. A person's life is not over due to one choice they have made. Life is full of choices.

That being stated, I know that my many Christian friends have elected not to see this particular movie, for reasons I know well. There are several people in my life, whom I love very much, who are in the gay lifestyle, and as adults making decisions out of their free will, I respect them. I have always sought the heart of a person, crossing the boundary of personal choice and expression, to find what lies within. I could speak to the psychology of the situation, but in all the answer is very simple: so simple, in fact, that many see it as a near impossibility in the complexities of life. Yet there all of the time is the source of love and all answers: God. I believe that everything seems like a puzzle, the pieces scattered along the years of a person's exist'stance. You don't get it all at once. Each and every heart seeks love, acceptance, and stability in this world. Who will love me and care for me? Who will accept me as I am and understand me, and make me better? Everyone seeks these things, fumbling around in the dark until a light is turned on. It should start with one's parents and family as we start life, but [incredibly!] sadly it often does not. So we seek it elsewhere.

Love is the most powerful thing of all: it is what created us, what keeps us, and what we chase after. To quote Lauryn Hill, "From the dark night can arrive the sweet dawn." There is hope yet. Hope does not faid like our whims, or crumble at our misgivings. Take heart.