I will say this. If you don’t normally like interesting, critically-acclaimed movies with romance elements to them then it’s entirely understandable you wouldn’t want to go to this movie. However, if you do normally like interesting, critically-acclaimed movies with romance elements to them but refuse to go to this one because the romance aspect is between two men instead of guy-girl or girl-girl then that is plainly silly. Dare I say that such an adverse “gross out” response to any softcore, rated R, gay sex scene is a product of being brought up in a homophobic culture where any whiff of gay male romance is quickly and automatically swatted away as unnatural and gross.

Why do you think these bromance movies are so successful and popular? I would argue that a large component of their popularity has to do with the fact that the “I’m doing something stereotypically gay but there’s no way in hell I’m actually gay, I’m 100% straight, Bro” punchline is so effective due to the fact that we find authentic homosexuality unnatural, gross, and disturbing. And those jokes don’t even involve any sexual situations, just even the thought that a previously assumed straight male character could be homosexual elicits huge laughs precisely because we as a culture still think deep down that male homosexuality is something to be ridiculed, something that is very bad to be even accused of, something that is disgusting.

It doesn’t do anything. It just hangs there. I can’t imagine similar complaints about big blue tits on the screen. As hip and modern as people claim to be… homophobia is alive and well – and it doesn’t even need actual homosexuality to spark it.

That said, I had no problem with the big blue peen, but I would absolutely hold no interest in viewing male homosexuality. Hey, I don’t like guacamole, either. I don’t like tasting it, I don’t like smelling it, and I don’t even like the way it looks. I don’t think guacamole lovers are bad people or anything, but please keep your guacamole away from me. Enjoy guacamole all you like, but count me out.

You feel that way about peanut butter? Holy smokes, I love peanut butter. However, I’d be just as much a jerk-hole if I thought less of you as a person for avoiding peanut butter just to give people who like it some false sense of positive affirmation.

Think about it. Meanwhile, I’ll be avoiding gangsta rap, hip hop fashion, and “urban” comedy while still not being racist and thinking less of people who enjoy it or believing they should be taking in an equal amount of korean pop music and so on.

I don’t know what it is like in the U.S. but in Australia there is a bias IN FAVOUR of homosexuality when it comes to getting arts funding, just as it helps to be non-white. As Australian exploitation movie director John Lamond put it :

“There’s a whole generation of film-makers in Australia who’ve been totally constrained by the government hand-out process. And there must have been a hell of a temptation to go along when you’re a film-maker and think, ‘Right, I’m going to have to second-guess, because if I want the money, I may have to turn my private eye into a lesbian social-worker, so maybe I’ll go the whole hog. I’ll tell them that the hero’s a lesbian aboriginal and they’ll send the money around in a truck that afternoon.’”

It all comes down to political correctness. We all have a choice about how we act, but none of us have much of a choice about what we feel. I can treat gays, women and people of other races as I would wish to be treated myself. That is the essence of social justice and also of personal morality. But I may, internally, feel a fear or hatred of any of these groups of people. Some people use terms like racist, sexist or homophobic not just to criticise behaviour which harms non-whites, women or gays, but because they realise that these words can be used to play on a sense of guilt that we may have about internal feelings over which we have no control. The problem is that, if we are going to grow less fearful and hateful, it is only going to happen if we are able to talk about these fears and hatreds without being condemned as “homophobic”, “racist” or “sexist” for feeling them. As long as these feelings are internal they can only increase as we are hurt by criticisms we can’t answer and only see these things expressed in truly destructive behaviour. When we find a quiet spot safe from the jackboot of political correctness we talk amongst ourselves and find that we are not alone in feeling these things. Other people who don’t mistreat or discriminate against other people still feel the same disturbing fears and hatreds that we do. And, thus reassured, those feelings start to die down in a way they never would in the presence of “do-gooders” who just feed the evils they think they are fighting.

No, Woo, as I said in previous comments, “not seeing it doesn’t mean you’re homophobic” and also “if you don’t want to see it, you don’t have to and it won’t make you a homophobe”. In case it wasn’t clear from those two comments, let me state it again: not seeing this movie does not mean you are homophobic. Third time lucky, one hopes.

The stance I declared disappointment in in my last comment was that people seem to be taking the stance that this film not finding distribution is not related to homophobia. (Sorry if that was not clearly expressed.) If this is not what others are trying to say, then I’m having a hard time finding the other “Yes, this is homophobia, at least on some level” comments on this post.

The reason one is a preference and one is a bigoted stance is related exactly to the issues listed in that straight privilege article I linked to. No one gets persecuted for liking (or not liking) Jim Carrey, hunting, the colour green, or pizza. They’re not prejudices that carry negative consequences. They’re not value judgements. They’re not moral judgements. You don’t get damned to hell by fanatics for liking (or not liking) Jim Carrey. You don’t get disowned by bigoted family members for enjoying pizza. People don’t look at you differently once they find out your favourite colour is green. You don’t get kicked out of the American military for disclosing your love of hunting. Bigotry is related to discrimination; I can’t recall the last time anyone was discriminated against for any of the inane things I listed above. (Perhaps hunters are discriminated against by PETA, I will concede that.)

I think there are dozens (thousands!) of ways to think as a compassionate person, I just don’t include the explaining away the homophobia of movie executives as part of that compassion.

What I’m still in disagreement about is that you can decree one to be simple preference (prefer not to watch Jim Carrey) and the other some sort of bigoted stance (prefer not to watch types of homosexuality). Either way it’s a either hurtful close-mindedness or a preference.

It seems that your posts indicate that you feel that because someone may not be into watching certain things for entertainment that they are necessarily mean or against the gay cause, and that’s an unfortunate stance. It seems like most people on this post are trying to be both honest and open-minded, and it seems unfortunate that the goal of your posts (advocate more togetherness) is a so unjustly served by the tone (you’re all bigots).

I *really* am understanding the straight privilege thing, and I’m not trying to minimize it in any way. I’m just confused why you think there is only one way to think as a compassionate person – your way.

It’s clearly a double standard and definitely hypocritical. I’m not sure why this is even in question.

If you seriously think there is no difference between disliking something like hunting and disliking homosexual people (or films portraying homosexuality), then there’s seriously nothing more I can say on this subject. I think it’s clear where most people in this post stand on the issue, and suffice it to say I find that stance pretty disappointing.

I would totally disagree with Liz’s statement that to dislike gay behavior = homophobia because they have a history of persecution, while disliking hunting ( or anything else) is not the same because it does not have a history of persecution. That line of reasoning makes no sense to me.

Confined spaces or airplane rides do not have a history of persecution, yet we correctly describe extreme irrational fear of them as phobias. Soft “persecution” of countless aspects of daily life abound by everyone. Fat people, dumb people, jocks, short people, tall people,hippies, people with acne, big ears and deformed limbs, hyperactive kids, pot smokers.. you name it. We have all teased and mocked and discrimintaed against. I have been around gay people who SAVAGED other people on their appearance and political affiliations. They didn’t seem too persecuted to me. Or if they were, they had no right to compain about it based on their treatment of others.

So I think one has to careful to clarify at what point soft discrimination is elevated to the level of true injustice and phobia, and at what point does that infringe on constituional rights. We do not a constitutionl right not be made fun of or be included in movies. Few of the items on that straightpriveldge list I would classify as rising to any serious level beyond what other people face from time to time.

So does not distributing gay films to the mainstream reflect a soft discrimination – perhaps. Does that equate with persecution and phobic behavior? No way.

I’m not. I explicitly said if you don’t want to see it, you don’t have to and it won’t make you a homophobe. I don’t know anyone on this thread personally and I’d like to hope that no one here is homophobic, even if they have no interest in seeing this movie.

What I do think is naive is that people keep asserting that not liking something doesn’t mean that you’re a whatever-a-phobe. My not liking Jim Carrey or talking animals or whatever else in movies is not a phobia because it’s a personal, sometimes irrational dislike of something. Homophobia comes with huge amounts of political and personal value judgement that diminishes and dismisses the victims.

You should check out this straight privilege checklist: http://www.cs.earlham.edu/~hyrax/personal/files/student_res/straightprivilege.htm . Straight people (and/or people who don’t like Jim Carrey) can count on these privileges in their day to day life. I’m not going to persecuted at work or at home because of a dislike of Jim Carrey. People don’t use “Jim Carrey” as a slur. I don’t have to hide the fact that I dislike him. Etc. Homosexuals can’t always rely on these things the way straight people and Jim Carrey fans can. Not liking Jim Carrey doesn’t make one “Carrey-phobic”; the same cannot be said of not liking/accepting homosexuality. The same goes for the previous example of being “huntophobic”.

“While Milk and Brokeback have both been commercially successful, they don’t do as well as MANY other movies.”

Right, and there are lots of non-gay-centric movies that completely tank as well, yet Hollywood doesn’t stop making them on account of the almighty buck. It’s hard to justify not distributing a gay-centric film on account of money when we’ve had recent examples of financially successful gay-centric films.

I do have to take a little issue with your posts, though, Liz. In your comment, you stated that you don’t enjoy Jim Carrey (I’m there with you). That doesn’t make you a Jim Carrey-aphobe, right? You simply have some reason(s) that movies starring Jim Carrey turn you off to them. We, the Jim Carrey-disliking world don’t want him to have to stop acting, or to be dragged behind a car, we simply don’t want him on the screen that we are viewing.

The same applies to people who, for whatever their reason, wouldn’t want to see male-on-male sexuality onscreen. It’s a bit naive to automatically slap the “homophobe” label on EVERYONE who expresses this view.

While Milk and Brokeback have both been commercially successful, they don’t do as well as MANY other movies. America is a country where almost every state that took up the issue of same-sex marriages votes an embarrassing “no”. If you had to choose which movie to greenlight, a movie with male homosexuality would very likely NOT appeal to these people. So it would almost necessarily be a choice that would leave money on the table. That’s a hard one in any line of work, and I think Hollywood does it way more than most other industries.