Brokeback Mountain and the USCCB

[Balance]

oops, random apostrophe - hate that. “it’s” should be “its”, of course. Sorry.

 

[Katie1723]

Balance:

Many of the comments posted about this film, in this thread and others, display a kind of arid rigorousness and a certain fearful narrowmindedness, about film (and by extension, about art in general) that is hugely discouraging. If you want to talk about “the problems in our church”, as many here do, this is one of the foremost problems; this rigorousness is crippling and suffocating. I know so many good and faithful Catholics who are nonetheless living half-lives because they are fearful of engaging with the world, fearful of thought - ultimatley, forgetful of the Church’s past - a past that has never been afraid to embrace art in all it’s challenging manifestations.

:clapping: It’s about time!
~ Kathy ~

 

[pnewton]

Balance:

this is one of the foremost problems; this rigorousness is crippling and suffocating. I know so many good and faithful Catholics who are nonetheless living half-lives because they are fearful of engaging with the world, fearful of thought - ultimatley, forgetful of the Church’s past - a past that has never been afraid to embrace art in all it’s challenging manifestations.

In my wildest imagination I can not imagine a person, without severe mental disorder, that would live a half-life (whatever this means) because what someone else considers art or not.

 

[carol_marie]

A movie that shows two guys having sex & cheating on their wives does not interest me in the least. Some may consider that art. I think it’s trash.

 

[cenpress]

Amen, Balance! Amen. I sense an unfortunate desire by many on this forum to live the sheltered (utopian even) lives of '50s b/w television … Ward & June Cleaver. The world is not something we need to shut out. It is something we need to embrace, in all its dirtiness and ugliness … because only then can we save it. Or at least help to mend it.

I asked a question a ways back on this board asking whether anyone had seen the movie Boys Don’t Cry. I can’t understand why not a single person has cared to respond. Not even to say, “No, I haven’t seen that one.”

That film dealt with gender identity and sexuality. But beyond that, it dealt with prejudice, homophobia, and unprovoked hatred. It was incredibly affecting. It didn’t glorify sinfulness. But it set it down, naked before you. Quivering. Like a toothache. The film challenged you to accept or reject it. It opened eyes. It was like rubbing alcohol into an open wound.

I could have said, “Ack, why would I want to see a movie about a gay woman who thinks she should have been born a boy? And besides, it’s got nudity in it.” Thank God I didn’t. By watching that film, I am not condoning their sins. I am not sinning myself.

I’m allowing myself to see Satan up close on a two-dimensional screen so that it’s easier for me to face him (and reject him) in the three-dimensional world.

 

[cenpress]

Emly, this is incredibly immature of you to say to a man admitting he is struggling with sin, while obviously displaying a sincere desire to follow Jesus … It’s something a six year old would say: “True love is between a man and a woman…it was Adam and Eve…not Adam and Steve”

And Cathgal, your sarcasm disgusts me: “I know…it’s so ecstatic to live in sins isn’t it?!”

As Catholics, we all ought to show more love and compassion … ESPECIALLY to sinners. It is they who need us most!

Otherwise, I applaud the rest of you in your efforts to show xphan the Lord’s truth.

But what I’d really like to know is why xphan and TheBlackGhost (the only two people in this thread to support this film) have been suspended? I really, really hope and pray it is not because of this thread … oh please tell me it isn’t because of this thread.

 

[pnewton]

cenpress:

Amen, Balance! Amen. I sense an unfortunate desire by many on this forum to live the sheltered (utopian even) lives of '50s b/w television … Ward & June Cleaver. …I could have said, “Ack, why would I want to see a movie about a gay woman who thinks she should have been born a boy? And besides, it’s got nudity in it.” Thank God I didn’t. By watching that film, I am not condoning their sins. I am not sinning myself.

It is one thing to point out why you have such commendable reasons for watching such movies. It is another thing to assume those that find such movies worthless desire to be sheltered.

I know when my neighbors put the garbage on the curb that it is stinky and smelly. I do not desire to roll around in it just to experience it. My tastes in movies equate the two. Yours does not.

 

[Guy]

The owner of our theaters here in NE Michigan (Oscoda and Tawas) refused to show Brokeback Mountain.

Many kudos!!!

 

[cenpress]

I didn’t mean to pass judgement, pnewton, and I hope you didn’t take it that way. Perhaps I was speaking more from my own experience and knowledge of my father & his resistence to thought-provoking films. He craves to watch movies that don’t challenge him. I say bring the challenge on.

I attended a Christian university, and I remember one time in class (can’t remember which one specifically) I had a copy of Bertrand Russell’s “Why I’m Not A Christian” on my desk and a classmate asked me “Why in the world would you read that … are you an athiest?”

Well, of course I wasn’t an athiest. I wanted to arm myself with a ready defense for that future moment when my faith would be shaken … and as I read that essay, I was able to form in my mind arguments … arguments based in logic … against Russell’s claims …

And he was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century!! Imagine my surprise. But God does extraordinary things. Doesn’t He? Imagine how empowered I felt.

Now, as for you feeling no desire to roll around in your neighbor’s trash … I wouldn’t want to either. Just as I would never wish to roll around in the sinfulness depicted by certain films, books, songs. But watching someone else do it? Now THAT would certainly help me better understand how foolish the action actually is.

Does that make clearer sense?

 

[pnewton]

cenpress:

But watching someone else do it? Now THAT would certainly help me better understand how foolish the action actually is.

Does that make clearer sense?

Excellent analogy! Or better yet, that is a good twist on my analogy. I understand the need you express. For example, it is good to know a little Sarte and Niezche if one is to talk to athiest.

Okay, if my garbage analogy was a too emotional and less true. I would rather be tied to a chair to while force to watch “Terms of Endearment”, “Steel Magnolias” and Ya Ya Sisterhood", while the theme from “Somewhere in Time” played, then have an hour long discussion about my feelings, than watch Brokeback Mountain.

 

[cenpress]

God bless you then, pnewton. I hear ya. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that!

 

[Balance]

I really hope people haven’t been suspended for supporting the movie too… when there are other people on here being incredibly hurtful and unloving in their posts, which is as “immoral” as any comment favourable to the movie. I haven’t seen this movie and won’t be going to see it, but that’s a decision I’ve made on my own, and not for any reason to do with “sin” or “morality” or “offensiveness” or because anyone else has told me I won’t be a good Catholic, or will be sinning if I see it.

 

[Balance]

here’s what I often find when talking to people - no effort to understand what something they don’t understand means. Instead of saying “What do you mean by that? Can you explain that to me?” they’ll go something like, “halflives (whatever that means) …” if i didn’t understand what someone meant I’d ask rather than just forging on ahead on my hobby horse. So what DO I mean by “half-life”. Yep, it’s prob. not that clear - nothing ever is on a forum is it? this isn’t the best place, ever, for a discussion - what I mean is this: there’s living life to the full and then there’s living a life in fear of falling away from faith. I’ve been there, and I see so many of my friends there, in a place where one is fearful of film, music, painting, writing, that is diffucult, provocative, new or otherwise hard to understand…

 

[Balance]

…and along with that, who won’t share a house with people who aren’t Catholic, let alone who aren’t Christian, who count few if any people among their friends who don’'t share pretty much the exact same religious beliefs and yet who often speak of their desire to love Christ and make him known. Believe me, I’ve been there, and the reasons why people live like this are understandable. Why would you take a chance on putting yourself in a situation that might make you question your beliefs, right? why wd you put yourself in a “near occasion of sin”? the problem is, this can develop into a paralysing fear - the worse for being unarticulated. Bercause faith is about risk and if you’re scared of losing your faith you don’t have it.

 

[pnewton]

Balance:

Can you explain that to me?" they’ll go something like, “halflives (whatever that means) …” if i didn’t understand what someone meant I’d ask rather than just forging on ahead on my hobby horse. So what DO I mean by “half-life”…

I have never heard the term used outside of nuclear physics. There is obviously more than one way to ask, since you understood the vagueness of the term and explained it (thank you). Now if only I knew what a hobby horse had to do with all this.

 

[Balance]

So what is my point in all of this? (oh gosh, I don’t know, I just starting typing and this is what came out… no, seriously now.) My point is that film is film: a film is not neccessarily a moral treatise. Therefore, when Christians get all hotunderthecollar about a film depicting gay sex, gay relationships, adultery and sin, and start calling for it to be banned or censored and the filmmakers tarred and feathered (you can just tell some Catholics would have loved to be around in the good old days when “heretics” were burnt at the stake - seriously, I get that feeling sometimes and it literally sends a cold shiver down my spine - and they have the utter gall to suggest that I’M “unorthodox” or “liberal” or some other label) they are on the wrong track.
I dunno. Perhaps I could sum it up by directing you to the Vatican’s list of 45 films put out in 1995. It includes films with sex, violence, nudity (is nudity even, ever, an issue? weren’t we all born naked? isn’t our body a temple?), and swearing. The key thing is to view art with a critical and prayerful eye.

 

[Balance]

Pnewton - no worries. the word half-life - I’d see it as poetic, not vague. some people live halflives of work and tv - and some of my friedns too. I say, “hey, do you want to go to a movie/the theatre/see a band?” and they go, “What is it?” (a fair question) and I explain and they go, “Oh, sounds a bit… dodgy.” and go back to their CSI show on TV. THAT is what I mean by halflife. Do I mean then that a full life is one lived by throwing yourself willy-nilly into whatever comes your way? no, you have to be discerning and critical. But you have to take RISKS and maybe even, gasp, make mistakes. - But you trust God’s presence in your life and that, in living, he is gracing you. More so, I venture, than if you’re sitting on the couch, doing the same thing you’ve done every night after work for the last few months.

 

[Balance]

cenpress - I’d have to agree with you about Boys Don’t Cry… it made me think which is always a plus for me when it comes to film… Film, along with everything else, has been a huge part of my faith journey. Some films which many of my friends wouldn’t dream of watching have been places for God to speak to me. I can accept it when people say they don’t like film but for me to watch a good film is, often, to see God. It’s that simple.
This isn’t to condone films which are truly and irredeemably immoral (there are few like that) but to say that depending on your faith, maturity and temperament, one film might be more objectionable to one person than another.

Anyway Hemingway, that’s it. Peace.

 

[felra]

Balance:

Many of the comments posted about this film, in this thread and others, display a kind of arid rigorousness and a certain fearful narrowmindedness, about film (and by extension, about art in general) that is hugely discouraging. If you want to talk about “the problems in our church”, as many here do, this is one of the foremost problems; this rigorousness is crippling and suffocating. I know so many good and faithful Catholics who are nonetheless living half-lives because they are fearful of engaging with the world, fearful of thought - ultimatley, forgetful of the Church’s past - a past that has never been afraid to embrace art in all it’s challenging manifestations.

“Good and faithful” Catholics critque and judge “art” with a discerning mind.

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” - ILN, 5/5/28 ~ G. K. Chesterton

 

[cenpress]

“Good and faithful” Catholics critque and judge “art” with a discerning mind.

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” - ILN, 5/5/28 ~ G. K. Chesterton

Good point felra, and great quote by Chesterton.

(I feel weird … I just used my first emoticon …)

Balance, you hit on something real when you said you often watch film to see God. YES!! He’s there in Boys Don’t Cry … sometimes you have to really look to see Him, but He is there! He is in all things! A good film, a good book, a good song, a painting, a sculpture … whatever the medium … He is always there. (And of course, felra, as you pointed out, there is a line that exists.) But still, when you look with Christian eyes and a Christian mind … even something like the dollar bill, which often stands as a symbol for greed … and is the same thing tossed by lonely men in the direction of strippers … and is used to buy such things as pornography and drugs … God is there. “In God we trust.” God is there. The same dollar that is used to propagate sin is made good through a work of Charity. My point is, even when something (like Brokeback Mountain, say) is wearing a veil of sin (and even when that veil is thick), there is always the presence of God there, rejoicing or suffering. But He is there. Our challenge is not only to see it … but to help others see it as well.

With art, there is always also a conversation between the artist and the audience. In other words, whether I find a film good or not is dependent upon what I (the audience) bring to the film. Same is true with the books we read … I can watch a movie like Boys Don’t Cry, or I can read a book by Charles Bukowski (a man I’m sure a majority of Catholics would find absolutely despicable) and I can see God there in the characters on the screen, in the lines of his poetry.

Truth is only visible to those who wish to see it.

That is why it is ever important today in this world driven by consumerism and pop culture to be willing to see God in ALL THINGS. To be courageous enough to never forcefully close your eyes … to shut the world out … to hold the world at bay … to refuse flat out to be afraid of Satan in all his infinite incarnations. Because we’ve got Christ on our side, we’ve got Mother Mary, we’ve got the Holy Spirit existent in our every breath. And that means we need to (with courage) walk out into the world willingly and with open eyes and an open heart, and do the best job we can to shepherd the stray back to the light of God.

That’s why we are here. And we won’t get into Heaven alone. Isn’t that right? We need to extend our hand to catch the wicked before they fall. I pray that I … that we all … have the strength within ourselves to walk together into that valley of the shadow of death, and to walk out again in greater number. That is what we are called to do.

Let us open our eyes together … our hearts … and begin that long journey home.