I don't know about April being the cruelest month (I'd be more inclined to pick October or November) but April 4th is certainly a momentous date: it's the date Dr. King was killed and the date Heath Ledger was born (though not the same year, obviously). It's technically not Palm Sunday this year, but it's Palm Sunday for me because my choir sang at the Saturday evening Mass this weekend.

I recently read a non-fiction book called The Irrational Season by Madeleine L'Engle, who has been one of my favorite novelists for years, but I'd never read any of her non-fiction until now. I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm glad of it because I don't think I would have gotten as much out of it in high school as I have now. Anyway, in the book she describes participating in reading the Passion as part of the crowding chanting, "Crucify him!" and describes how it disturbs her because she doesn't know whether or not she would have actually been part of that screaming mob had she been there at the time.

I can relate to this. During most of my childhood summers I participated in the Black Hills Passion Play (which, alas, is now defunct), but it wasn't until I was 12 years old (old enough and tall enough) that I participated in the mob scenes. And the first time I did so it was extremely difficult, because on one hand I was acting in a way that was completely counter to my nature, and yet at the same time I felt within myself the capacity for that depth of violent rage and blind hatred, and I felt that, under certain circumstances, I too could possibly be carried away by those emotions. After all, had I not been carried away to a lesser degree by violent emotions all my life? Did I not consider myself somehow akin to the Incredible Hulk? Eventually I got myself under control, and realized that if you're going to do a Passion Play, you need an angry mob or it's not going to work.

Tonight when we read the Passion, what struck me was the way Jesus' friends all abandoned him when the high priests came to arrest him. This is something else Ms. L'Engle addresses in The Irrational Season, pointing out that it was the women who stuck by him, despite--or perhaps because of--the fact that they were virtually powerless, second-class citizens. That was something that I'd never really thought about before, and that's probably the reason why it struck me tonight more than ever. In fairness to the disciples, while it would have been very noble of them all to go along and die with Jesus, it would have meant there would be no one left to tell the story (except the women, and in that societal situation who would have listened to them?), so it was probably a good thing in the long run that they did run away, but tonight I was disgusted with them for their cowardice.

And yet, even while I was disgusted with them, I had to ask myself if I wouldn't have done the same thing in their shoes. Would I have had the courage to stand by Jesus and be persecuted and possibly killed with him? To answer this question I attempt to broaden it by imagining in Jesus' place a friend or family member, and it becomes easier to imagine standing my ground, but I still don't know that that's the choice I would make if I were actually faced with the decision.

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...not having seen any of the films, this was it. Not having seen any (well, most) of the movies, I don't have a lot of comments, but I have a few thoughts:

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To sum up, I enjoyed the Oscars, as I usually do, and of course the old debate rages on about whether the Academy is out of touch or hypocritical, about whether movies that make a lot of money are good and vice versa. So I'll just reiterate that I think that the Academy can stand to be a little more populist, and the populace can stand to be a little less hedonic; maybe we could all meet in the middle and be epicurean.

I hope you'll indulge me as I continue to work through my grief. My counselor told me last fall that grief never really goes away, although it (usually) gets easier to bear after a while. Now that I think about it, you wouldn't really want it to go away entirely, because that would mean forgetting about the people you lost.

So as you can probably imagine, Heath Ledger is much on my mind lately, what with the anniversary and the movie awards season and the year-end retrospectives on people who have died in 2008.

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You know, last year I didn't put the results behind a cut, and maybe I should have. But then, maybe anyone who actually cares was either also watching or looked up the results already.

I don't have a lot to say, not having seen many movies or watched much TV this past year. One thing that I learned from watching this particular broadcast is that a five-second delay is not enough time to blur out obscene gestures, which is interesting to know. I wonder how much time they would need for that; perhaps we'll find out. I kind of hope not.

But anyway, there are three results that I want to comment briefly about:

( I will cut it just in case anyone hasn't seen the results yet and wants to be surprised )

There was one detail about the Dark Knight which I forgot to mention in my previous post. At one point the movie for sure (and possibly two different points) the Joker rattles off an address, and both Batman and Officer Gordon have the ability to remember it without writing it down. Now THAT is a superpower that I wish I had; it sure would come in handy.

And since I'm in a deconstructive mood, I would like to share this spoof Dark Knight trailer that I enjoy:

( That's a Sharpie! That's permanent! )

(I should also reiterate the spoof-makers disclaimer that the last line is not a reference to Heath Ledger.)

At long last, I went to see The Dark Knight last night. I was going to wait until it came to the discount theater, but I decided to splurge because for some reason (probably various reasons) I've been having dreams about it, like this one I had in August, but didn't make public at first because it felt a little too personal at the time. Then Saturday night/Sunday morning I had at least 3 distinct dreams about it, and they all had to do with Heath Ledger playing the Joker. The one I remember most was particularly upsetting because in it I was involved with the making of the movie, and I had prior knowledge that Heath was going to die, but couldn't tell him or anyone (although I think some other people knew anyway) because it would tear apart the fabric of the space/time continuum.

So I realized that the cure for having dreams about Heath Ledger playing the Joker was to go and actually watch him play the Joker, but now I wonder if maybe the cure is not worse than the disease, because now I'm having dreams about just the Joker, which has the potential to be even more upsetting since the Joker is, like, evil personified; I believe the MST3k cast refers to such characters and images as "nightmare fuel." As it turns out, though the Joker (just the character) did appear in my dreams last night, I was surprised and grateful to find on waking that he turned out to be a benign presence (not a benevolent presence, you understand, but temporarily refraining from killing and maiming and otherwise torturing people).

So as to the movie itself, it was very good. In the first place, it was head and shoulder above Batman Begins, which was a very good movie in its own right; its main weakness, if it was indeed a weakness, was that it was an origin story, even the best of which get bogged down by their expository nature (in my opinion). And I think that a strength of The Dark Knight is that it doesn't concern itself with the Joker's origin; the Joker just is. So it was a good movie: suspenseful, compelling, even gripping. But even though a movie is good, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is enjoyable, and I found this to be true of The Dark Knight.

( On Heath Ledger as the Joker--With Spoilers )

Oh yeah, and there were some other people in the movie too. ( On the rest of the cast and some miscellaneous comments, With Some Spoilers )

All in all, it was a good movie that had a certain resonance for me, and I'm glad I saw it once, and I'm grateful to Heath for bringing me to it, because I probably would not have seen it but for the fact that he was in it, but I don't know if I ever want to see it again.

Oh yeah, in related news, The Dark Knight is currently number 3 on IMDb's top 250, and The Shawshank Redemption is number 1! Hooray! Sadly, Brokeback Mountain is not currently on the list.

Last night I had a dream in which I sneaked into a movie theater to see The Dark Knight with my friends Mike B. and Greg. There was a reason why we sneaked in, but I can't remember what it was, but it had something to do with not watching the whole thing; we purposely sneaked in after it started and we didn't intend to stay until the end, but then we accidentally did anyway, and Greg was annoyed because he didn't want to see the end before he saw the beginning (which is silly because I'm sure in reality he went to see it--from the beginning--the very first chance he got). And then I think for a while in the dream I was actually in the movie, as is often the case in my dreams.

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When I first heard that he'd passed away, after the shock wore off and the grieving set in, my thought was "When does the hurting stop?" I'd experienced grief before, of course, but never grief quite like that. I had lost people that I care about before, but only after prolonged illness, in which case there's always an element of relief that the person's suffering is over. I had known people my age or close to it who have died, but no one who had been meaningful in my life, or who had left "footprints on my heart", as someone unknown to me at the moment has eloquently put it. It still amazes me that the death of someone whom I'd never even met (and of whose films I've seen comparatively few) would make the world seem so much emptier, and would leave such a gaping hole in my heart.

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Heath, you've left behind many people who love you and miss you. You gave so much of yourself...you gave us so much...and you had so much more to give.

Okay, I don't wanna debate the merits of the Oscars anymore, okay? I know everything that can said against them, I agree with a lot of it, yet the idea that without them we might be subjected to an endless array of Norbits has really put things in perspective for me. I've made my peace with the Oscars, and now I just want to have fun with them. My teeth hurt and I need a distraction. Okay? Fair enough?

Okay. With that said, I found last night's ceremony to be entirely enjoyable. It was as long as they usually are, but it didn't feel long. Acceptance speeches were interesting, touching, and surprisingly brief. My man Jon Stewart did an excellent job of hosting; funny and gracious, as he always is. I did sense the impact of the writers' strike and the hurried preparation, but it was still good and funny. I love it when Jon cracks himself up, although he did seem to do it kind of a lot, but it's okay because it's adorable. I do kind of wish that he'd stood at the podium to give his opening monologue, because his walking around and repetitive hand gestures was kind of distracting. But still funny. Just the right amount of political joking, with Democrats and Republicans getting equal portions. Too many funny bits to mention, but possibly my favorite: "...and the baby goes to...Angelina Jolie!" Runner-up: "Even Norbit got a nomination...so often the Academy ignores bad movies." Naturally this drew a somewhat rueful laugh from me.

Anyway, here are the winners, for reference; as to the ceremony, impressions in no particular order:

( Welcome to the make-up sex )

I'm referring to the film Heath Ledger was working on when he died. According to an IMDb article the role is to be completed by Colin Farrell, Jude Law, and Johnny Depp...apparently the character is (or has become) a shapeshifter, at least that's how I understand it based on the IMDb trivia page (for more information, see also the collected news articles page).

Now, as to the involvement of Johnny Depp, the article referenced above didn't cite a source for that, so that may not be accurate. However, I do hope that it's true. Johnny Depp and Heath Ledger are two of my favorite actors and as far as ability, talent, and integrity go, they're in the highest echelon of screen actors (though I could never compile a ranked list of that magnitude). I do wish I could have seen them perform together, but this would be nearly as good.

I have to say, even though it makes me feel somewhat guilty to say it, I'm far more interested to see this movie now than I would have been if Heath were still alive. Taken out of context, that might sound like a slam on Heath, but it's exactly the opposite; now that Heath is no longer with us, I'm more keen to see all of his movies because I know that there will never be any more, and it makes those few we have all the more precious. With that said, I have mixed feelings about seeing the film because it's a Terry Gilliam film, and he also directed The Brothers Grimm, which was one of the worst movies I ever saw in my life, even though I wanted to like it and I tried to like it, and even though Heath Ledger was brilliant in it as he was in everything. And yet, I'm very curious to see how exactly they are going to overcome this particular difficulty. The fantasy aspect of the film should work in its favor. Then again, even fantasy has to have an internal logic as the basis for its premise, so hopefully that will be established, but I have my doubts.

To be fair to Terry Gilliam, I am judging his film-making prowess on just one other film, with a different screenwriter than the current project, which is not a very representative sample. Also, it's worth mentioning that The Brothers Grimm was a Golden Lion contender at the Venice Film Festival in 2005, and generally speaking I think the Venetians have pretty good taste, so maybe it's just me. Regardless, I commend Mr. Gilliam for going forward with the production in honor of Heath's memory. Also, while I have mixed feelings about Colin Farrell, I'm deeply touched by the comments he made in tribute of Heath and the "painful honor" of completing the film for him.

This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with anything, but I just realized that Heath Ledger has the bizarre distinction of appearing in the two movies that I consider the best and worst of 2005, Brokeback Mountain and The Brothers Grimm respectively.

The evidence seems to support the assertion that it goes on. Until such time that it doesn't.

Deep, or just pretentiously meaningless?

( Rather random and incoherent...I have tags now, though, so you can get an idea of what is included without having to slog through the whole thing )

In other news, I've begun to tag my LiveJournal entries. I didn't do so initially because I didn't know about tagging, but having since found it to be a useful feature in other people's journals, I've long considered adding them. It's difficult, though, because I sometimes have difficulty categorizing what I write. Like this entry, for example: does my brief commemoration of the death of Buddy Holly warrent an "in memoriam" tag? What about when I mentioned the death of Jerry Falwell? Because that phrase connotes and kind of honor, and I don't want to honor his memory. I have a tag for "films", but do certain genres or even certain titles merit their own tags? And then there's the fact that tags don't serve much purpose unless you go back and tag ALL your entries, but I don't like going back and reading my old entries; sometimes it's painful and/or embarrassing. And plus, that takes an awful lot of time, and I have a day job AND graduate studies, the latter of which I sense will become more intensive and time-consuming as the semester wears on, but I'm trying to stay on top of it and possibly get a little ahead of things.

I wrote a fairly lengthy post in which I examined all the stupid people who are saying and doing stupidly insensitive things (intentionally or otherwise) in the wake of Heath Ledger's death. And then I thought, "But isn't that just sort of stooping to their level? I mean, why else are they saying and doing these things but to get attention?" So, having cleansed it from my system, I'm not going to talk at length about it. I did mention John Gibson by name, and I want to acknowledge that he has not been the only one saying and doing insensitive things, although he was definitely the best-scripted and arguably the worst (with the possible exception of the Westboro Baptist Church wanting to protest Heath's funeral, but everything they do is so beyond the pale of human decency that it almost belongs in a separate category). Based on Gibson's apology, I have forgiven him for his remarks, but I have also sent a letter to the muckety-mucks at Fox News asking that he face disciplinary action; I don't necessarily want him to lose his job over this, but he should have to face the consequences of his actions. (Not that I hold out a lot of hope that Fox News will carry out my request, but at least I made my feelings known, and not in a way that would empower Gibson by giving him material for his shows. Plus, I think I made a well-reasoned and audience-appropriate case.)

I do actually just have a couple more things to say about John Gibson, which are probably more charitable than he deserves:

• While his apology was rather lukewarm, and while he cleverly side-stepped any acknowledgement of actually having done anything wrong by saying, "I'm sorry that some took my comments as anti-gay and insensitive," I'm still rather impressed that he apologized for being taken as anti-gay. I thought that's how Fox News wanted to be perceived; I always thought that's what they were going for.



• I've seen a lot of people make comments like "Just wait until he (or someone he cares about) dies, then we can make jokes and see how he likes it," which is a perfectly understandable reaction, but anyone who did that would just be stooping to his level, and I would have no choice but to condemn that. I didn't feel as though Jerry Falwell's death was a huge loss to humanity, but neither did I feel the need to celebrate his passing. What I'm about to say is almost a cliché, but it's no less true for that: you can't fight evil with evil, or hatred with hatred...at least, not if you hope to defeat it.

So I just want to briefly mention a couple of other points:

• The tabloids (whether written or televised) are making a lot of Heath Ledger's alleged drug abuse (and I can't stress the word "alleged" enough) and the strain it might have had on his relationship with Michelle Williams, and I just want to say that that is none of our damn business; it is a private matter between the two of them and we, the public, don't need to know anything about it.



• Today I saw a commercial for "Entertainment Tonight!" advertising a story that runs along those same lines, asking rhetorically "Was his death an accident?" to which, of course, the answer is we don't know yet but that seems to be the most likely scenario based on the actual facts we have available at this time. I mention "Entertainment Tonight!" specifically because there have been times that I have watched it as sort of a guilty pleasure. I've never made an effort to tune in, but sometimes I've been drawn in by their opening teasers. But never again. For shame, Mary Hart, for shame! (I single out Mary Hart specifically because, I'm embarrassed to say, she's a fellow South Dakotan.

I found a quote by a Joel McHale, who is evidently the host of some gossip show, that pretty much says everything I want to say on the subject:
Heath Ledger passed away this week, and in all the years we've been doing this show, we've never had cause to mention him. So, stop digging through the dirt, weasels. A talented, decent guy is gone and our thoughts go out to those who knew him.

They tend to be a little behind the times.

Apparently, by the time I found out about that prick from Fox News (redundant, I know) making fun of Heath Ledger's death, he had already apologized for it. By which I mean he twice recited a prepared statement on the air saying he was sorry; I don't know who actually prepared that statement, but I'm not convinced it was him.

That's all well and good...seriously, that's good, that's a good first step, but still, there have to be consequences for appallingly bad behavior. Don Imus got fired after he made and apologized for offensive comments made about a women's basketball team. This was at least equally as offensive as that; moreover, I've heard Imus express regret about that whole incident, and he sounded sincere, whereas John Gibson did not. Now that I think about it, I think the John Gibson situation is slightly worse because in addition to making cruel and tactless jokes, he also "reported" erroneous information about the circumstances surrounding Heath's death as though it was fact.

So when I get the chance, I'm going to drop a line over to one of the higher-ups at Fox News and suggest that there be some sort of disciplinary action against Mr. Gibson. Because I'm glad he apologized, I'm willing to forgive him, but still...there have to be consequences.

I'm still grieving over Heath Ledger's death. As I've been working through my grief over the last couple of days, I couldn't help thinking about when Brokeback Mountain came out and people were making all those jokes about it and parodies of it; many in questionable taste and some in undeniably poor taste. As I remembered that time I thought to myself, "I hope we don't have to endure people making tacky 'I-wish-I-knew-how-to-quit-you' jokes about Heath Ledger's death, because I think that would be more than I could bear." I figured they must exist, but so far most of the reactions I've seen have been very kind.

But then, just when I was in danger of having renewed faith in humanity, I visited IMDb.com (as I do on a nearly daily basis) and I saw this item; to summarize, a Fox News Radio commentator named John Gibson made cruel jokes about Heath Ledger and his involvement in Brokeback Mountain mere hours after his death, and refused to apologize for them the next day. Insensitivity from Fox News? I'm shocked! Incidentally, the tagline for this John Gibson's radio program is "The Real Deal...even if it hurts". I'm not making this up. "Especially if it hurts" would seem to be more fitting, and "real deal" is apparently a subjective term, in that the "real deal" seems to consist of whatever this John Gibson happens to think, even if it's at complete odds with reality.

There are no words for how angry and hurt and ... sickened I am about this. This John Gibson is a so-called "journalist", and not only does he make wild, unfounded, irresponsible speculations about the circumstances surrounding Heath Ledger's death and casts aspersions upon his character, but he makes stupid, tasteless, immature, and hurtful jokes about this one movie that he happened not to like. Gibson's entitled to an opinion about Brokeback Mountain, and has the right and privilege to express that opinion as he sees fit. But in the name of all that is decent, Heath Ledger was a human being and he deserves respect. He had family and friends who loved him and who are going through unimaginable pain and grief (and, I might add, bearing their pain and grief with remarkable grace and dignity) and they deserve respect too. Apart from the rudeness and inappropriateness of speaking ill of the dead, what kind of a coward makes jokes at the expense of a man who can't even defend himself? The unabashedly hateful things John Gibson said are like a defilement of the body by words, the verbal equivalent of what the lynch gang did to the character of Earl in Brokeback Mountain.

Once I spent a whole week analyzing Brokeback Mountain in depth, which included examining the parallels between the plot of Brokeback Mountain and the events leading to and following the murder of Matthew Shepard. And while I saw some similarities between Matthew Shepard and the characters played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in that movie, until now I never saw nor expected to see any parallels between Matthew Shepard and Heath Ledger. No one committed an act of violence against Heath Ledger, but these "jokes" that Gibson made at his expense are not jokes at all, but what Father Roger Schmit, in The Laramie Project, calls, "the seeds of violence." When I read about the seeds of violence that this so-called "journalist" had sown, I was reminded of this moment from The Laramie Project in which Rulon Stacey, the CEO of the hospital where Matthew Shepard was treated after his beating, recalls the press conference in which he announced Matthew Shepard's death. He ended the press conference with a statement from Matthew's mother, "go home, give your kids a hug, and don't let a day go by without telling them that you love them":

And--I don't know how I let that happen--I lost it on national television [...] in a moment of complete brain-deadness, while I was out there reading that statement I thought about my own four daughters--and go home hug your kids--(He begins to cry) and oh, she doesn't have her kid anymore.
[...]
and then we started to get people sending us e-mails and letters. And most of them were just generally very kind. But I did get this one. This guy wrote me and said, "Do you cry like a baby on TV for all your patients or just the faggots?" [...] I guess I didn't understand the magnitude with which some people hate.

Well, Heath Ledger's parents don't have their son anymore, and Matilda Rose Ledger doesn't have her father anymore, but I hope someday she understands how brave her father was to take on the role of Ennis Del Mar, and take a stand in the face of such deep-rooted, irrational, but often sublimated hatred. I hope she will be proud of him and his legacy.

I'm sure you've heard by now that Heath Ledger died. I just found out this morning; I have been in a state of shock all day. My heart is broken.

Heath Ledger was, in my opinion, the greatest male screen actor under the age of 30. I derive some comfort from the fact his brief time here was well-spent, yet I mourn the movies he will never get to make. We have lost a great actor and a good man.

I, of course, never had the opportunity to meet him personally, but his role in Brokeback Mountain earned him a special place in my heart. There is a sort of indescribable kinship among those of us raised between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, and by his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar, Heath Ledger earned himself an adopted place in that extended family. It is in the spirit of that kinship that I mourn his passing.

My broken heart aches when I think of his daughter, who is just barely two years old; she'll be lucky if she has any memory of him at all. My heart goes out to all his family and loved ones.

My words seem so hollow and inadequate to express my grief. Perhaps it's foolish to feel so deeply for someone I've never even met but only admired from afar, but I truly care about Heath Ledger. Not only that, he's the first person of my own age whom I truly care about who has died, which forces me to contemplate mortality, my own and that of the people I love, in less abstract terms than those to which I am accustomed.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam. Lux aeternam luceat eis, Domine

Editorial Note: I wrote this post the day before Heath Ledger's tragic and untimely death. At the time I wrote it, I made it private because I intended to go back and revise it later. I make it public now because I want the record to show that, even before he died, I considered Heath Ledger to be one of the greatest male screen actors of his generation. Apart from this editorial note, this entry appears exactly as I originally posted it, even though it contains typos that are driving me crazy.

I've never been a particular fan of Batman. For whatever reason, the Batman mythos wasn't a part of my childhood the way those of Superman or Spider-man or the Incredible Hulk were (those are the super-heroes that I remember being aware of the earliest). Although I'm a fan of many movies and TV shows based on comic books, I never read any comics themselves. As a young teen (which in this context would include the ages of 10-12) I watched and enjoyed some episodes of the 1960s "Batman" series, and once a few years ago I tried to watch the 1989 Batman movie, but I couldn't manage it because it was so silly. With the TV show the silliness didn't bother me, because it was supposed to be silly, but in the movie they're trying to take themselves seriously, and yet every time Michael Keaton swoops into the room, I can't help but laugh at his little ears.

Now, I have several friends who are serious Batman fans, and I know that, for the most part, they don't really appreciate how their beloved characters are treated in most of the film and TV versions, but since that's the only exposure I had ever had to it, I've never been able to understand the appeal and how they can take it so seriously.

Well, in 2005 they came out with Batman Begins, and I heard good things about that, and most importantly, I heard good things about it from Batman fans. But, because Batman doesn't hold a special place in my heart, I never got around to watching it until recently, when I got it out of the library a couple of weeks ago.

I found it to be a very good, thoughtful, intelligent, movie. I didn't actually have a strong emotional reaction to it; rather my response to it was mostly intellectual, for lack of a better word. I don't think Batman will ever earn the kind of special place in my heart that Spider-man or even Superman has in my heart, but now I understand the appeal that he has for other people. There was none of the ridiculousness that characterized the earlier incarnations; he still had little ears, but for some reason they stopped being silly. Why? I can't even begin to explain it. And yet, there was about the plot something of the absurd. It was a plot that I could imagine them doing on the old '60s series, but they would have done it in a silly, campy way, whereas in the movie it was presented to be believable given the circumstances of the film, and was therefore more menacing. But I think that in reality, even around the most tragic situations, there often lurks a hint of the absurd, though not necessarily absurd in the sense of "laughable"...but we human beings do many, many things to one another that, when you think about it, really don't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, the reason I made the effort to seek out Batman Begins at the library and watch it, besides the fact that it looked good and came well-recommended by the people qualified to make such a judgment, is in anticipation of its sequel, The Dark Knight, which is coming out this summer. When I heard, way back in 2006, that Heath Ledger was going to play The Joker, I decided right then and there that this is a movie I have to see. If I were to make a list of the greatest male actors under 30, Heath Ledger would probably be at the top of the list (although in another couple years I would have to revise that list again). I don't know when they released the full trailer, but I finally saw it yesterday, and I'm...at a loss for words. I'm amazed and astonished and fascinated and repelled and really, really excited about this movie, and seeing Heath Ledger in this role. The Joker character is kind of the embodiment of what I was talking about earlier, the dichotomy of malice and absurdity.

This marks the end of Brokeback Mountain Week. I chose this week because it has special significance. Tomorrow marks the nine-year anniversary of the first publication of "Brokeback Mountain" in The New Yorker magazine (October 13, 1997); this past week marks the eight-year anniversary of Matthew Shepard's beating and death (October 6-October 12, 1998)¹.

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I admit that I had some misgivings about including today's topic, but I decided I couldn't devote a whole week to talking about Brokeback Mountain without talking a little bit about the Oscar controversy. Fortunately I don't have a lot to say about it; Crash won; nothing I can say will change that, and I've made my peace with it. I've already talked at great length as to why Crash sucks in general. What I'd like to do today is draw a couple of specific comparisons between BBM and Crash, and I promise to be as objective as I can.

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I actually don't have a lot to say on this subject since it's been obsessed over by so many people before me. I mean, it's obviously important to the story, but so many people have made it up into the end-all and be-all of what the movie is about, and that's not fair and I don't want to do it. But I do have a few thoughts to share, and what I was going to say today I'd rather save for tomorrow or Wednesday because I'm going to be comparing BBM to another film, which will probably be more effective if I have the DVD of the film to use as reference, but I don't want to rent it because that would involve spending money on it, and the libraries are closed today because it's a holiday.

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Of the criticisms I have read of Brokeback Mountain (and I haven't read very many) it seems that many critics, both amateur and professional "get" Ennis more than they "get" Jack. They understand where Ennis is coming from, what motivates him, etc., but Jack they don't get. And their inability to get him leads them to malign him, or if that be too harsh, at least to interpret his character uncharitably. Such uncharitable interpretations include Gene Shalit's harsh criticism of Jack as a "sexual predator" (although, in fairness to Mr. Shalit, he did later apologize for that remark), and a review I saw on a website called HollywoodJesus.com¹ in which one reviewer dismissed Jack as merely a "guy who likes guys."

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