Brokebank Mountain

Submitted by Andrew Nusca on Wed, 03/01/2006 - 7:47pm.

I’m sick of the Brokeback media trend. Ever since Jake-Darko-Gyllenhaal laid one on "That’s the most words I’ve said in a year" Aussie Heath Ledger, people have been snatching up cowboy boots and hoping their gay best friend finds a guy who castrates cows for a living.

Now with Logo, an MTV-owned gay channel, Bravo’s OutZoneTV.com, gay broadband entertainment, and PlanetOut, a crop of gay magazines and websites, gay media is flying around faster than Scott Stapp’s sex video.

Is it over yet?

Most of these new upstarts are doomed to fail by targeting such a narrow audience. The fact is, people aren’t any more tolerant than they were before – its just hip to be gay all over again (remember the Fab Five?) with what I find to be a gay reworking of Pretty Woman (offbeat characters and a fantastic romance). The only way gay culture will have media staying power is if it integrates with the mainstream, instead of sitting beside it as America’s latest fascination.

Until a cable network can successfully run Queer as Folk back-to-back with Moesha and the O.C., I won’t be happy. I’ve got high hopes for mainstream gay themes – so long as they aren’t a novelty.

For now, you’re a fad, Brokeback, and I’ll be watching Will and Grace until I know how to quit you.

haha great piece.. somehow ended up here after a few links.

I think that the way gay culture would become more mainstream is by being accepted by the younger generation. It reminds me a little of the hip-hop culture that broke through into middle America about ten years ago, and is still with the young generation that was originally part of this movement, and has stuck around to influence a new generation of youth.

One the gay appeals to the young, and is accepted, there will be integration. It will begin to move beyond a fad, and will truly start to be a part of Americana.

i think that brokeback mountain was a beautiful movie, and because of brokeback i think that it has actually opened younger groups (like teenagers) up to homosexuality, and showed teenagers how homophobic societies can effect the lives of gay individuals. being a teenager myself, i see my peers discussing brokeback mountain and see my peers realizing that gay relationships are just like heterosexual relationships and go through all the same ups and downs, and i hope that because the issue is now in the open becuase of media coverage people will start to more widely accept homosexuality. I agree with you also in that i hope that homosexuality will become a social norm and be intergrated into the american identity.

Mainstream shows like Will & Grace, or Queer Eye aren't tolerant depictions of gay culture--they're gross caricatures. Well dressed men in designer suits flipping their wrists is not the type of introduction the mainstream needs to "gay culture." What it needs are networks like Logo, and the plethora of gay magazines and sites that have recently come out (pun intended). This type of media does the entertaining bit, then address issues more relevant to gay culture that mainstream media wouldn't touch with a yard stick. Check out Logo's line up, it's actually pretty impressive.

Mainstream media, as it has with hip hop, is going to define "gay culture" on its own terms, so it's important for those who actually live it to define it on their terms as well.

I think any minority will have difficulty being embraced by the mainstream because they are under-represented in most media. Moesha is on UPN - it's niche audience is African-Americans. Although you say there needs to be an integration between gay culture and the media, I doubt any integration will happen on a broad level and that's a shame.

We Want Media

Brokebank Mountain

About

Recent comments

Blogroll

Syndicate

Navigation