Brokeback

Early last year, I had heard a lot of good things about the movie "Brokeback Mountain". I had to find out what all the fuss was about. A friend of mine from Lewiston, Shanon, came to town one day and asked if I would be interested in seeing a movie. I told him I wouldn't mind seeing "Brokeback". He said he had heard a little bit about it and would be interested in going. So off to Cinemagic we went to catch a matinee. I knew that the film dealt with a homosexual relationship between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.



I'm not sure what Shanon knew about the plot beforehand, but I wasn't gonna tell him the specifics and then have him refuse to go. We sat near the front of the theatre. The movie started and unfolded (as most movies do). The time came for Jake and Heath to have their batty boy scene and I noted Shanon's reaction. He basically couldn't watch the screen at that point, as if it was literally painful for him to watch. He looked away, off to the side. Once the scene ended, he was fine for the rest of the movie (other than the part where they passioniately kissed a little bit later on, oh, and the part where they jumped into the lake buck naked). Now I'm not homosexual, but I have nothing against it. Shanon, I think, might (though he doesn't have any problems with lesbians). In sum, though downbeat, I thought it was a great movie.

A week or two later, we went to the Macaroni Grill. It was me, Shanon, and my mom and dad. The MacGrill is an upscale Italian restaurant in which the waiter covers your table with a heavy duty type of paper as you are being seated. They also give you crayons so that if you want to write on the paper while waiting for your food, you can do so. When Shanon went to the bathroom, I wrote "Shanon loves Brokeback Mountain" right near his place setting. It took a while, but he noticed it and wanted it scribbled out as soon as possible. I wouldn't give him a crayon to do so, however. He got really P.O'd and demanded it (some of the other people observing wondered what the hell he was so bent out of shape about). I finally gave it to him and he crossed it out. He wasn't out of the woods yet, though.

Cut to a few months later. I had already seen "Scary Movie 4" 3 times, but wanted to see it again. Shanon hadn't yet seen it and was more than willing to go to an evening show. About 15 minutes into the movie was a scene that parodied "Brokeback". Shanon, knowing where the scene was going, said "Oh God..." and turned away his head as two black men undressed each other and then applied lotion to their bodies.