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August 2, 2006
Brokeback Mountain
Here's a follow-up to yesterday's post, more on what I want to discuss at Sunstone this year. This is a topic I've already explored on my blog, in entries entitled Mormon Social Taboos, A Happy Marriage with a Good Man, and The Exclusive Terroritory of Straight Men.
It ain't gonna be pretty, that's for sure.
Over Christmas I went to see Brokeback Mountain with Saviour Onassis while we were both in Arizona for the holidays. I was staying with my sister, who is both a dutiful Mormon who avoids R-rated movies, and a devoted and knowledgeable fan of good cinema. She knew she wouldn't be seeing the movie, but she wanted to hear all about it when I got home. "Is it really as good as they say?" she asked.
"It really is," I said. "Heath Ledger is amazing. He deserves an Oscar." (He was robbed, by the way. So was Jake.) "He reminded me of some of our cousins," I told her. "He does a thoroughly convincing job of playing a taciturn western cowboy."
"I hear both characters have wives," she said.
"Yes," I said. "And that's one of the things I liked about the movie: all the characters are treated with respect and sympathy. The wives aren't the focus of the movie but they're not neglected, either. The situation does incredible damage to the women, but they're not treated as acceptable casualties. Anne Hathaway's personality becomes as brittle as her bleached hair, while Michelle Williams--oh, it's just heartbreaking."
"Well," my sister said emphatically, banging pots around as she emptied her dishwasher, "it's great that they portrayed it well, but the situation itself is not OK. These guys have got to stop marrying women."
"You looking for an argument?" I asked. "I was engaged to a gay man, remember? I don't think gay men should marry straight women, either."
"They've got to stop," she repeated. "They've got to stop hiding behind wives. It's not fair to use women like that."
"I couldn't agree more," I said. "And it's a time-honored practice with a name, in case you didn't know: marrying someone of the opposite sex for the purpose of passing for straight is called ‘having a beard,' and I think there should be no more beards. But I also think that if you want gay men to stop marrying straight women, one good way of helping that happen is to let them marry each other." She made no reply to that--as a Mormon Republican, what could she say?--but she at least nodded.
Posted by holly at August 2, 2006 5:10 PM
Hey Holly,
I read the whole section on "queerness" in your sidebar index a while ago. I thought about commenting on your posts about gay men marrying straight women, but I held back because this is such an incredibly difficult and sensitive subject, and it is one where I have no first-hand experience.
But since you're talking about it again, I'll recount my tiny second-hand brush with it:
One additional dimension to keep in mind when discussing this subject in the context of Mormonism is the degree to which young Mormon women are taught that their marriage -- their role as wife and mother -- is the crux of their worth as a person.
This training alone is horribly damaging (in my opinion) even for those girls who eventually end up in happy marriages (and obviously worse for those who don't).
When I was at BYU, I heard a rumor that a girl I knew -- a very talented, intelligent girl -- was being encouraged by authorities (including possibly her own parents) to marry her gay boyfriend in order to help him overcome his homosexuality.
I don't know if the rumor was true, or whether they ended up going through with it.
However, even though I didn't know the girl well enough for it to be any of my business, I was absolutely gut-wrenchingly appalled that the church would do this. I was not just appalled that they would do it to him, but almost more horrified that they would do this to her: intentionally set her up for that kind of marriage as some sort of medicine to save him.
This situation seared into my mind the following: in this culture woman is the disposable person.
Hi CL--thanks for the comment.
This situation seared into my mind the following: in this culture woman is the disposable person.
YES. And that is the real fact I want to address.
But I strongly suspect it will piss off a fair number of men in the audience, who are not ready to give up being the more important person in the equation.
It saddens me that the social attitudes portrayed in 'Brokeback Mountain' (a period film) are still alive and well today. It never seemed like an option for me to marry a "beard", or even attempt to "cure" my sexuality in any way. I know that it is not something that can be erased. Sure, the behaviour can be modified. (Lord knows I've abstained!) But the nature is still there. I am glad you never married a gay guy, we make much better friends and you are worth far, far more to me as a friend than a beard. The movie does portray the characters equally and fairly, I agree. But I personally never understood how a gay man could enter into a marriage that could potentially devastate the life of his partner. Then again, I don't suffer that particular delusion...
*Saviour goes down on one knee*
Holly, will you never marry me?
*Saviour goes down on one knee*
Holly, will you never marry me?
Oh, Saviour, that is so sweet! Of course I will never marry you!
*Raising Saviour off his knee*
Let's never be married forever!
Big friendly non-sexual hug
That's what I love about being a hag!
Did you see the story, "When the Beard Is Too Painful to Remove," in Thursday's New York Times? It was remarkably sympathetic to the gay men who struggle to figure out how to remain in their marriages and families. But not a word on lesbians who might find themselves in a marriage with a man but needing or craving partnerships with women and not much comment on how the wives -- "beards" -- the terms is gendered and sounds so derogatory -- are supposed to cope.
There was also a recent piece in The Economist, "The Mismeasure of Woman", which goes a bit into current research on innate differences between the sexes and how these contribute to gender differences. I think there are some problems with this article (which I won't rehearse here) but it made me think about how selective people can be about innate sexual characteristics: conservatives can blithely argue that women are "by nature" nurturing but turn around and say that homosexual desire is a "choice." Conversations with people who think this way make me want to scream: "Make up your minds! Or better, do some research beyond the things that just express what you already believe!"
Spike brings up a good point. I had a prof who is a lesbian who married and had three children. She told us that she truly accepted her sexual orientation after several years into her marriage. After her children were grown (she had seperated with her husband by this time) she entered into a relationship with a woman. I share this with you because I completely agree that people can get stuck in relationships they do not want to be in not because they want to disrupt peoples lives but because society does not yet fully support same sex marriage.