Brokeback film review

11 comments

• Hey, USCCB, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.

  I still like the idea of writing to the bishops with backbones and asking them to ditch the USCCB.

• Catholic News Service has this on the change (reformatted for easier reading):

  Editor’s Note: “Brokeback Mountain,” originally rated L (limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling), has been reclassified O—morally offensive.

  This has been done because the serious weight of the L rating—which restricts films in that category to those who can assess, from a Catholic perspective, the moral issues raised by a movie—is, unfortunately, misunderstood by many.

  Because there are some in this instance who are using the L rating to make it appear the church’s—or the USCCB’s—position on homosexuality is ambiguous, the classification has been revised specifically to address its moral content.

  There it is – it seems as if the classification was changed because many could not properly comprehend or understand what was in the glowing review and how it related to the “L” clasiification.  Nice!

• In other words, we’re just Philistines who can’t recognize that “While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true” is just a simple celebration of love, regardless of whether it involves two cowboys getting sweaty in a tent or not.

  We’re not sophisticated film critics, you know.

• When I read the review, I was pretty upset (now that I think about it, I’m still upset).  I thought a Catholic reviewer would have taken this film and really showed it for what it was – an attempt to lure people into thinking that same-sex “love” is the same as “love” which all seek.  Unfortunately, Catholicism, in general, has fallen into the mindset that we must try and find some good in these types of things – literature, music, theater, movies, etc.  All done to justify OR excuse the content.  It is a feeble and misguided understanding of what St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine does with something like pagan philosophy.  Whatever of value in these forms of art, they must be intergrated anew under the totality of Christian existence – typified through the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Movies like Brokeback Mountain or Rent or ….(fill in the blank here for most movies nowadays) are misguided, sinful, and seek to destroy the understanding of the human person.  No matter how wonderfully acted some people may think this film is, it is sinful and deserves a rebuke for its attempt at confusing and leading souls away from God.  The selfless love of Christ, as paradigm of love itself, gives us the understanding we need to see how filthy and degrading this film is.  The movie reviewer at the USCCB needs a severe rebuke. 

  Sorry if my rant is incoherent.

• There’s a great article on the controversy at:
  http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05121503.html

  It indicates that the USCCB reviewer was probably Harry Forbes, who heads their Film and Broadcast office.  Here’s how to contact them:

  USCCB Office for Film and Broadcasting:
  Harry Forbes
  (212) 644-1880
  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

• Going by the plot details in Ebert’s review, it seems the movie is a manipulative attempt to shame opponents of homosexuality—if you oppose the characters’ homosexuality, that puts you on the same side as the vile people who beat and murder gays. 

  Sounds like the writers didn’t waste any time on subtlety.

• Hey, CNS/Mr. Forbes/USCCB/whoever,

  Any movie that sympathetically portrays a “long-term” “homosexual” “relationship”, especially as its raison d’être, gets an “O”. If y’all are still Catholic. Are we talking about a “same-sex friendship”? No, we are not. If I need to draw you a picture, you need to go back to Moral Theology 101.

  >>SIGH<<

  “O” dear!

• The USCCB never fails to disappoint.

• Question:  Who are the employees at the USCCB, headquartered as it is in Washington, DC?

  Answer:  They are folks who are available for hire at that locale.

  Check the demographics of Washington, DC, the single-most liberal square mile in all of the United States.  Then remind me, again, why you’re surprised that this bureaucracy is in bed (if you’ll pardon the pun) with the Democratic Party establishment.

• In February, USCC gets its new Exec Director—happily, a Roman Catholic in the fullest sense.

  Stay tuned…

• When people think of gays they usually think of San Fran or New York but Washington DC is actually a major gay city. My single friends always complain how hard it is to find a man there. The DC diocese is very gay friendly so what Observer says makes a lot of sense.