Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

Cheering for the Ku Klux Klan.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

As I sat in the still-dark college theater, I realized I had just finished cheering for the Ku Klux Klan. The end of the History of Film class was nearing with the wind-down of what was nearly my last semester in college, and the class had just finished screening D. W. Griffith's 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation.

In case you are wondering, no, I would not normally be cheering for the Klan. But, as good films go, I was introduced to the "good guys" and the "bad guys" were clearly marked as such, giving me all the visual cues I needed to find myself hoping, at the end of the film, that the Klan would rout the African Americans who were a threat to white women.

It sounds terrible, because it is.

I've taken a bit of flack for blogging on how I would not be going to see Brokeback Mountain. Despite seeing ads on TV calling this film a "great Hollywood love story" I refuse to buy into it, to believe the slick ad campaigns and the critics fawning all over it out of a love of their own selves.

I've already been duped into cheering for adultery in The English Patient, taken in by the forlorn clarinet in the background and the flickering fire light that framed discussions of Herodotus. In fact, over the years, through the skill and technique of great Hollywood directors, composers and actors, I've found myself on the side of: murder, theft, violent rampages, cannibalism, adultery, lies, casual sex, laziness, prostitution, euthanasia, drunkenness, drug abuse and a host of other attributes I would not normally cheer for. Oh, and the Ku Klux Klan.

Take another look at that list. That's what we're being trained to cheer for.

And always, after seeing such movies, I would describe them as "beautiful" and "heart-breaking" and silence my detractors with "but it showed how fallen we are." I will no doubt continue to make these excuses for future movies, but I have to start somewhere. And with Brokeback, I start.

So don't tell me about the great cinematography, the sweeping landscape views, the majestic music and the heart-rendering story of Brokeback Mountain as if that were supposed to prove a point. I know the power of a well-made movie. I've not doubt Ang Lee and company have put together a marvelous-looking film, a film to make you cry. And I'm sure there's some decent message to be taken from the film, perhaps one of how destructive things we can't have but refuse to let go can be in our lives. But great Hollywood love story?

What's really the story of Brokeback Mountain? Let's strip all the critical acclaim and music and panoramas and crocodile tears and attractive actors and get to the basic story : two cowboys are up on a mountain, get drunk, have sex, come down from the mountain, marry and start families, continue to periodically go back to the mountain for sex, and hurt their families in the process. They can't let go of something that can't be because, after all, unfulfilled love is always perfect; one life ends violently while one ends with sad realization, having lost his family.

That's it. That's the story. A powerful story, yes. But is it a great story?

What's great about that? Where is the greatness? How is this a great "love" story unless you define love as lust? Is that all love is, an uncontrollable desire to have sex with someone no matter who you hurt? An obsession with another person that can never be, an obsession that destroys what you have because it's never dealt with?

That's not love. That's weak and selfish. And we're going to be forced to celebrate it come Oscar time; it's going to be beat into our brains how magnificent this is, how noble. And anyone who doesn't "get it" gets a roll of the eyes.

As I sit in the audience, in any movie, I am at the mercy of the storyteller. And even if McMurty wrote the screenplay and I like some of his other work, I have to choose carefully what I will see. Because, by voting (i.e. buying a ticket) for a movie, I'm saying I want to hear more stories like that. I let the storyteller have power; I only hear what he wants me to hear. I only see what he wants me to see. If there is a message he wants to get across, he will do so using only the arguments that treat his story favorably and I won't even know it unless I start to compare what my senses are taking in with what I know and believe.

Did you know, for example, that not every Christian is a psycho who stalks people and hitches a ride on the bottom of the family car as they go to the beach? Did you know that not every serial killer or vicious mutilator can quote scripture and use scripture as their impetus for evil? Did you know there are a few honest preachers out there?

You wouldn't if you only went by what you saw in movies.

And now we have to weep and glory in two grown men who can't keep their pants zipped and can't make up their mind about who they want to screw, two people who can't "quit" each other and let their lives be directed by one moment in their past. We don't always see things for what they really are. Sometimes something that I would never cheer for finds its way into my heart through beautiful music, beautiful people and beautiful scenery; so much beauty for something so dark.

The Oscar was never more a golden idol than it is now.

UPDATE: As the email lectures and comments that won't ever get published on this blog pour in from people who hold themselves and their intelligence in far higher esteem than it deserves, telling me how awful it is for me to refuse to go to the movie yet make a judgement call on it, I ask them this: were you upset at the number of people, both from Hollywood and the coasts and cities, who refused to go see The Passion of the Christ and then listed all the reasons why they wouldn't support such a film? Did that bother you? No? Then shut the hell up and leave me alone. You're just the pot calling the kettle black.

UPDATE 2: Don't believe me, that the power of editing and music can make any story grand? Then check out Brokeback to the Future. After watching this clip I'm convinced Marty McFly and Doc were gettin' it on. The power of music and editing. Right there. Looks like Marty can't quit the Doc. (hat tip: Jim)

LINKS:
The hidden blessing of Brokeback Mountain