Why they don't want you to see this film.

I don’t usually do this. Not only am I going off topic but I’m going to let other people do the speaking here. I’ve been following the debate regarding Brokeback Mountain because the American Taliban hates the film. I have not seen it but I have done a lot of research on it and find the Taliban, as usually, is lying for Jesus.

I read one rabid nutcase going on about how the film is a flop. I couldn’t figure out how he determined that. All the evidence is the contrary. I read an article on Salt Lake City where the film was beating the other films in the cinema. In Grand Rapids the same thing was happening. I went and checked the revenue of the various films. Brokeback is running in the top 10 pretty consistently. On a per screen basis it’s beating out every film out there. Last week it took in $2.3 million and that was from 683 theaters. “Tristan and Isolde” took in only $90,000 more but was showing in 1,845 theaters. Or we can compare “Brokeback” to “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Both films have been out for 37 days. “Memoirs took in $1.7 million out of 1,654 theaters. The heavily promoted “Chronicles of Narnia” was in 3,224 theaters. That’s five times as may as “Brokeback” but with five times the exposure it only took in $2 million more. It “Narnia” did as well it would have taken in $21 million instead.

I went to a film website to read what people had to say about the film. Here are some of the comments. I will leave the most interesting one to last as I think it helps explain the fundamentalist obsessions with this film. I will not attach names only the comments.

‘I was dying to see it so badly and Wednesday I drove 90 minutes to the closest theatre that was playing it... and after watching it I wanted to see it even more badly than I wanted to before I saw it. I have never been so emotionally attached to a film in all of my life. “

“Oh my God, I though that was just me! This film moved and affected me so much, I can't concentrate on anything!”

“It's playing about five miles from my house, so it's a constant temptation. I've seen it nine times and the tenth is just days (or hours) away. I'm so afraid I'll never see such beauty on a screen again, I just have to store up memories for the future. *sigh*”

“I've driven 60 minutes twice now to see it and I just saw in the paper today that it's now in my town!!! I feel like a kid on Christmas Morning!! Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend!!!”

“I just saw it last night for the third time and it hit me more than the last! sigh! It's just such an amazing movie!! So much to digest!!”

“I too find this movie will not let me go. I saw it 6 days ago and think about it endlessly all day long. It kept me up for most of the first night I saw it. I'm AFRAID to go see it again because I'm afraid all this emotion isn't good for me and the baby, poor thing (she's due in early March). But oh how I WANT to. This is the first place I actually felt like I could talk about it because I don't think anyone I know would get it. I saw it with my mom and either she wasn't as deeply affected as me or she's lying. My husband definately wouldn't get it. I wish I could stop this obsession!!!”

Here are excerpts from one posting that makes clear why the Taliban hates this film.

‘Last weekend, I was in Dallas and - to make a long story short - I ended up "having" to see this film. It definitely was NOT my choice to do so, but to avoid a confrontation, I relented. Everybody makes this sort of compromise sooner or later, right? If the film we wanted to see hadn't been sold out, I don't think I'd ever have seen ‘Brokeback Mountain.’”

“It's been four days since I saw the film, and progressively, day after day, I have been forced to admit that I am ashamed of the way I felt about homosexuals. I literally had no concept of what life is truly like for these individuals, and must continue to be. In my heart I know that good, wholesome, long-standing friends of mine - true-believing Christians - have made life horrible for these people when they go out of their way to bad mouth them behind their backs...”

“I can't explain what I'm feeling, but I haven't had this kind of doubt (about the church I go to) since I made the decision a long, long time ago to leave the family business against my father's wishes. I also didn't go into the same branch of the armed forces that he went into. Which is another story. In a way, I guess, my own personal history and my relationship with a disapproving (and uneducated) father somehow made me "get" what Heath Ledger's character goes through. Let me just say that a lot of heartache was involved. The God I believe in, that I teach my kids to trust, would never wish the kind of pain that I went through on anyone, which really I now know for real, is the same kind of pain homosexuals must go through just to live what for them is an honest life, and the choice they must make. I'd never had my eyes opened to this before, not ONE IOTA.”