They can't even keep their stories straight

Sometimes the stereotypes are just too funny.The Citizen Patriot from Jackson, Michigan wrote an article because Brokeback Mountain is playing locally now. They ran into a local by the name of (and I'm not inventing this) Elwin Skinkle. It seems that Mr. Skinkle is very unhappy about Brokeback Mountain and announced to the paper: "I won't see it, I will not go to see it. It's Hollywood trying to push the homosexual lifestyle. It's contrary to biblical principles. It's not normal, although Hollywood tries to make it normal." Thank you Mr. Skinkle.

Old Elwin Skinkle (I just love saying that name, it's so descriptive) was there to see End of the Spear. Now as all the loony Right whine about "message" movies and the Hollywood, liberal, homosexual, radical agenda they ignore this film entirely. Why? Because it's a film for the born-again crowd. It promotes religion and has missionaries as the main characters. The churches are kneeling before the screen in humble adoration. It's been heavily promoted by religious groups. They don't mention it in there "agenda" conspiracy articles because to do so undermines the theory they are pushing. Yet only a few weeks ago they were chirping that the success of the Christian based Chronicles of Narnia was because it was decent while Brokeback was a failure. But for their radical conspiracy nonsense to be true neither Spear or Chronicles should have been produced at all.

Earlier this evening I heard Right-wing author James Hirsen pushing his anti-Hollywood, right-wing tirade Hollywood Nation. He was claiming that these films do not promote "American values". He lamented the end of authoritarian top down rule at the studios and pined for the old days when religious nutters could censor films that other people watched. He also pushed the old and totally discredited canard that Brokeback Mountain is not appealing to the mainstream public.

The fact is that when the film was mainly being show in "liberal" enclaves -- meanings bastions of civilization -- it was coming in around 10th in the top films. It started showing in "mainstream" American towns and it had moved up to 8th on the list. This last week it added around 600 smaller cities to the list and it shot up to 5th place.

The Right-wing Liberty Film Festival (which tries to tie themselves in with libertarians thus smearing libertarians in the process) has an article claiming there is no controversy over Brokeback because "Americans are a more tolerant lot than you [evil liberals]give them credit for being. Apparently it's difficult for some of Brokeback's boosters to admit this..."

What a turn around! See the real bigots are the "boosters" of the film. But the boosters of the film were not the ones claiming that decent Americans would never go see this film. It was idiot conservatives and brain dead fundamentalists who were saying it. It was the target audience for Liberty Film Festivals who were saying it. I've quoted here, over the last few weeks, several Right-wing nutters drooling how the film will fail because Americans are decent, god-fearing, neanderthals. They said the film would fail dismally. As of today it's closing in on $50 million in revenues on a $14 million investment. When their predicted failure didn't materialize you then have conservatives pretending this is because American's are decent people and the fans of the film are the real intolerant bigots.

But as I said, just today I heard conservative Jim Hirsen (that's him with the limp wrists in the photo above) claiming the film was failing and that good Americans won't see such unAmerican movies. They can't get which story they want to spread consistent. Even the talk show host, a conservative himself, found some of the views of Hirsen a bit weird. He noted that it's not that someone seeing Brokeback is going to come of the cinema deciding to be gay instead of straight. Hirsen seemed to imply something along that line but his thinking was so muddled it was hard to get exactly what he was saying and drive through traffic at the same time. But basically he argued that the purpose of the film was to convince people that straight men could become gay from just one encounter.

Now all the left-wing, liberal, radical gay agenda people I know have argued exactly the opposite. They have repeatedly said that even such an encounter is not going to turn a straight man gay. It was always Hirsen's fans in the fundie backwaters of America who argued the opposite. That was what their claim "they can't reproduce so they recruit" was all about. It's hard to follow conservatives.

They argue the film will fail because Americans won't see evil radical films like Brokeback. They when the film turns into a success they say it's because Americans aren't bigots the way the film's boosters had portrayed them. For years fundies said gays were recruiting because just one experience can convert one's sexual orientation. Then Hirsen makes it sound like this was the purpose of Brokeback Mountain. Hollywood is a left-wing plot to corrupt America and only produces these agenda films, says the Right, while promoting Hollywood films like Chronicles and End of the Spear for having Christian values. But these people believe in virgin births and resurrection of the dead. They can believe anything.