Wednesday 26 February 2014

Alignment

Alignment. 
Alignment is the different ways that a film maker can align us or manipulate our emotional response. 
Alignment is the process of identification with something or someone. Have to look at the film though the characters eyes. 
The emotional impact of film frequently depends on spectator alignment with central characters. 

Cinematography - A CU positions the spectatorship closer to the character  
Sound - Certain sounds music are used to highlight and guide our responses
Themes and content - Depending on the subject matter of the film we can be easily manipulated if the issues portrayed resonate within us on a personal level. 

Women in war. we dont generally think at a girl will kill at war, she looks very scared, with her facil expressions, you could also see as well that she looks like a young school girl, with plaits in her hair. 


We are positioned here with fear and feeling scared.

When looking at the character we can align with him as he feels sorry for killing the young girl. but war is war and if they aren't on your side they die. we are positioned with the fact that he has just killed a girl. 

Looking at the young girls face we are shown fear and pain. We are menat to feel upset, that a young girl has died. We always think that men killing women is bad. 
We are positioned with him very upset and regretted what he has done. 


We are positioned with him feeling proud of himself, that he killed someone. 
My own emotional response very angry

We are mainly positioned with a man killing a girl. 




Full Metal Jacket

Here at the bottom of my page is the table I have created when we was looking at the film the full metal jacket. Closely looking at Private Joker and Private Pyle. 


Looking at this page at the top you can see spider digram that was created  showing the spectatorship in films. 

Audience spectatorship

This is spectatorship line that I created to help me. I have the think bubble first then I have the glasses for the visual side, then I have the faces for emotional responses, then I have micro written in small to help me with the micro element. Then I have the analysis which I have drawn a whole to help me to remember to analysis all of the things that have been consided  


Here we have my notes on audience Vs spectatorship. 





Spectatorship circle

Here is the spectatorship circle 


Why did we responded in this way, this is referring to the audience responses to the film. 
The micro element is the lighting, sound, camera angles used to make you feel the way you do with the film. 
For example if the music is upbeat, it is most likely to make you feel happy, having good emotions from the film. 
The factors, these are parts which would affect your decisions on the film 
For example the age, it could be a child's film, which could impact your decision on the film. 
The emotional response this if happy, sad, upset, anger emotion that comes with watching films.   

Brokeback Mountain

When I watched the film I had many responses to the film.

  • Made me feel very uncomfortable, this is because you look and think that this isn't the right way to be. It made me feel all strange inside. 
  • it also made me feel angry the way they are treated. 
  • It also made me feel upset and feel a little sorry for them. 

Exorcist

Th

Work set


Worked with Jasmine to produce to spider diagrams to answer the question. 


Brockback Mountain

Here is a piece about Brock back mountain
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

     There is no doubt that the movie Brokeback Mountain has proven to be both a cultural breakthrough phenomenon as well as a financial success. Made for a moderate $14 million, it reported over $83 million in domestic sales, $90 million in foreign sales, for a total of $178 million worldwide. Furthermore, it reported over $40 million in video sales, and, in fact, $1.4 million in video sales occurred in its first day of release.
     The film was released on December 9, 2005, in a select group of theatres, going wide on January 13, 2006. The film’s closing release date was April 20, 2006, for a total release period of 133 days or 19 weeks. Its widest release was to 2,089 theaters.

Essence of the Story
     The film is about two ranch hands that spend a summer in 1963 tending sheep on a Wyoming mountainside and essentially fall in love. At summer’s end the men part, and over the next four years both go on to marry, have children and live separate lives. But in time, the intense affection and longing they felt for each other reunites them, and over a span of twenty years they periodically meet for fishing and hunting trips, and attempt to renew their relationship within the strictures that both they and society allow.
     Although both men embrace the rural life-style (Ennis del Mar wants to be a rancher, Jack Twist attempts to become a “weekend warrior”-kind of rodeo bull rider), there are personality differences between them. As Kenneth Turan, writing for The Los Angeles Times noted, “Jack is the showier character, the livelier wire, while Ennis is somber and grounded, the boy orphaned young who never came to trust the world.” (1)
     As a reviewer for Entertainment Weekly noted, “Brokeback Mountain becomes their Eden, the craggy cowboy paradise from which they are destined to fall.” Over the years their story becomes a “wistful epic of longing and loss,” influenced by a “closeted culture” in which “secrecy and repression work on them in special ways.” Ennis, for instance, is deeply affected by childhood visions of a rancher who lived with a man and was killed for it, and at the end, “penniless and alone, (Ennis) becomes a shard of a man, nurturing a lost dream.” (2)
     Shortly after the movie opened several film critics and writers were quick to label Brokeback Mountain a masterpiece and to point out how the film paralleled other epic love stories captured on celluloid.
     Judith Salkin, for one, explained:

When you think of the great love stories – Dr. Zhivago, An Affair to Remember or the granddaddy of them all Gone With the Wind – the task of overcoming obstacles that keep lovers apart is at the center of those films. In Brokeback Mountain, it is society’s Puritanical attitudes and taboos about homosexuality that are the obstacles neither man can overcome. The film incorporates the beauty, harshness of human existence and desolation of a countryside, using it as a metaphor of the loves that laid waste to these men’s souls. (3)
     Another film essayist, Chris Hewitt, wrote:
The tragedy is that these two men find a rare gift, but their own prejudices and the prejudices of the world in which they live keep them from accepting it…. Brokeback Mountain also recognizes that when you’re afraid to be yourself, it damages every relationship you have. Like the couple in The Way We Were or Romeo and Juliet, Jake and Ennis crave the simplest possible thing: love. And, like all those other characters, they live in a world too complicated to let them have it.” (4)
     Film critic for Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman, noted that Brokeback Mountain “crystallized changes that were already in play” in society, adding: “Every so often, though, a film mirrors back to its audience an image so bold and mythic…(that it), in effect becomes reality. I’d say that happened in East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, which elevated teenage turmoil into the self-dramatizing passion that would underlie the 1960s….” (5)
     An analysis of the film in Newsweek magazine noted that Director Ang Lee’s movie was not only a “watershed” in mainstream films, but that it was “the first gay love story with A-list Hollywood stars.” The Newsweek piece also noted that the film was not really a Western per se, “but has much to say about the mindscape of the American West, where the myth of rugged individualism works only for those who don’t break the rules, and love can suffocate in the wide-open spaces.” (6)
     (As an aside, in interviews reported in the press with the two male leads, Leath Hedger and Jake Gyllenhall, both men cited personal experiences in why they accepted the roles. Hedger mentioned having a gay uncle who had been ostracized as a young man by his own father for being homosexual and left Australia to live in the United States because of that rejection. Gyllenhall spoke about his godparents as being a pair of gay men who were close friends of the family.)
     Director Ang Lee cited several reasons as to what really interested him in telling this story. For one, “It’s the idea of a mountain itself as an allusion to love, to affection. Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist spend 20 years trying to go back to something they didn’t understand in the first place. And they missed out on it. To me that’s everything of a love story.” (7)
     For another, Lee was drawn to Annie Proulx”s story, which first appeared in The New Yorker. “It was a rare piece of literature. And it does have this (feel) of the macho western, but with the gay love story….It was some new angle – to check into (the characters’) humanity.” (8)

Marketing the Movie
     Not sure how the movie would be received by the viewing public, and concern about whether-or-not there would be a backlash against the homosexual content of the movie, distributors were uncertain at first as how to release the film. Initially the idea was to limit its release to markets in Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. But with the immediate strong critical acclaim and an apparent audience motivated to see the film, Brokeback Mountain soon spread to suburban outlets and larger cities across the country.
     One such test market, the suburban community of Pleasant Hill outside of San Francisco, was selected where it was reported that on the first day of screening, “There was a line at the box office, and the film started 15 minutes late so everyone could be seated. Even more striking was the crowd – largely seniors and middle-aged women.” So not only was the movie selling out in the heart of suburbia, the audience appeared to be more diverse than expected, including “being older, straighter and more conservative.”
     Further, the movie appeared to be “not only an art-house favorite or a cultural statement or a milestone in filmmaking, (but) a bonafide hit making money in places, and with audiences, that make an East Bay movie house look like the Cannes Film Festival.” (9)
     According to Jack Foley, president of distribution for Focus Features which handled the overall release of the film, the movie was “a cultural landmark like The Graduate or Pulp Fiction, movies that everyone uses as a reference to a specific time period.” Foley also attributed a key crowd as being the senior matinee audience who “go to a lot of movies, and they like good movies.” (10)

Use of Review Clips
     Typical with the marketing of newly released movies, clips from positive film reviews were used in the print media for Brokeback Mountain, of which the following are a sample.
     These ads ran in The New York Times:

“A big, sweeping and rapturous Hollywood live story. A film in which love feels almost as if it were being invented. Revolutionary.” Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
“Love stories come and go, but this one stays with you! Exceptional! So full of life and longing, and true romance. An epic with singular intimacy and grace…. Deeply affecting. Stirring entertainment. The best picture of the year.” Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
“Its daring, its bravery, its dead-on relevance to right now… Brokeback Mountain gets you good! A classic in the making. Four stars!” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone (11)
     These ads ran in the Los Angeles Times:
“One of the great love stores ever filmed! A movie you can see again and again.” Larry King
“The best picture of the year!” Joel Siegel, Good Morning America 
“Groundbreaking. A deeply felt, emotional love story that deals with the uncharted, mysterious ways of the human heart. Confidently directed by Ang Lee and featuring sensitive and powerful performances by Jake Gyllenhall and a breathtaking Heath Ledger. ‘Brokeback Mountain’ insists it is a romance like any other, and that makes all the difference. One of the year’s best pictures.” Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
The Film’s Popularity in Small Towns
    One of the greatest concerns was whether-or-not the movie would play in the heartland of America, the so-called red states. According to Variety, some of the strongest audiences were in Tulsa Oklahoma; El Paso, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and Lubbock, Texas.
     Andrew Sullivan, writing for the New York Times, listed several reasons for the film’s wider-than-expected acceptance by audiences across the country.

There are various themes. Brilliant marketing pitched the movie as a love story and a western, two genres well ingrained in middle American tastes. Women dragged nervous husbands and boyfriends to see a film where the women could enjoy…Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and the men could admire the scenery.
Blue state liberals felt it some kind of social duty to see the film. Gays and lesbians flocked. The media hyped the ‘gay cowboy’ movie and it generated more and more publicity, and thereby curiosity and thereby tickets.
     Sullivan goes on to state that over the past 20 years there has been a cultural shift in how homosexuals are viewed in the West: “Where once they were identified entirely by sex, now more and more recognize that the central homosexual experience is the central heterosexual experience: love – maddening, humiliating, sustaining love.”
     Sullivan also contends that the gay marriage debate, even while failing to achieve its overall political goal, has achieved a wider goal. And that is “to humanize gay people, to tell the full, human truth about them.” This truth, furthermore, includes conservative states since the homosexual minority is not geographically limited. “Red states produce as many gay kids as blue ones; and yet the heartland gay experience has rarely been portrayed and explored (as it is in this movie.” (12)

The Conservative Backlash
     While the overall praise for Brokeback Mountain elated liberals and gay-rights activists, some conservatives and the Christian right hoped that the film would fail at the box office.
     Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute, expressed concern about the film on his group’s website: “I can’t think of a more effective way to annoy and alienate most movie-going Americans than to show two cowboys lusting after each other. It’s a mockery of the Western genre embodied by every movie cowboy from John Wayne to Gene Autry to Kevin Costner.”
     The Christian group Focus on the Family had an article about the film on its website – headlined “Gay Love Story Carries a High ‘Ick’ Factor” – that summarized opinions of several conservative critics. Another website aimed at pointing out family fare, called the film “boring neo-Marxist homosexual propaganda” and predicted that the scene of gay sex would repel audiences. (13)
     Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly – referring to himself as a “barbarian” for not having seen the film – criticized Hollywood for not being upfront about acting as a cultural trendsetter. “There is no question that many show-biz types would like to banish any societal stigma associated with homosexuality,” noted O’Reilly. “Thus, a mainstream movie that portrays gay conduct as nuanced and complicated, as ‘Brokeback’ reportedly does, contributes to a more broadminded approach to homosexuality, a more accepting view.” (14)
      In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Peter Harlaub noted how male straight men between the ages of 18 to 54 seemed resistant to seeing the movie. “I’ve been surprised by ‘Brokeback’ phobia,” stated Hartlaub,” which I’ve heard from straight male friends, relatives, this nation’s president, guys in my pickup basketball game.”
     Arguing that he did not think that any of these men were homophobic, Harlaub added, “I just think there’s some kind of weird latent childhood peer-pressure thing going on with this movie. It’s almost as if you’re under a spell, reinforced by years of conflicting televised gay stereotypes and manly cowboy images.” (15)
     The conservative backlash to the theme of movie continued after Brokeback’s release. Utah Jazz professional basketball owner Larry H. Miller pulled the film from one of his movie theaters, stating that he was concerned about “the breakup of the traditional American family.” (16)
     The conservative anti-gay group, The American Family Association, reportedly targeted the giant retailer Wal-Mart when it began selling the movie Brokeback Mountain upon its DVD release on April 4, 2006. (17)
     Even some Latino groups complained about the movie. However, their concern was over the fact that in the short story Ennis Del Mar was Latino as was his wife as well as the ranch foreman that initially hired the two young men to herd sheep. All three roles in the film version went to Caucasians. “There are 40 million Latinos in the United States, and their numbers are growing faster than any other group,” noted one such Latino group. “Every sector of the Entertainment industry says it wants to ‘reach’ us. Given that, the lack of Latinos in a movie about Latinos is inexcusable, and it speaks to how far Hollywood has to go.” (18)
     The Brokeback backlash was not just expressed within America. The film was not released in certain countries because of its sympathetic view of homosexuals, including the Bahamas, and mainland China. Other countries, such as Turkey, had age restrictions imposed on their viewing audience.

Film’s Reception By Rodeo Cowboys
     It is difficult to truly gauge the reception of what soon got dubbed as “the gay cowboy movie” by those rodeo athletes involved in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). 
     In my earlier co-authored book, Rodeo in America: Wranglers, Roughstock & Paydirt (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1996), I posed the question of whether-or-not an open gay cowboys would be accepted by others on the demanding rodeo circuit to a top-ranked saddle bronc rider. His reply at the time was: “It probably wouldn’t matter. So long as they are talented and treat you with respect, they’d be treated in the same way. It all comes down to what kind of person you are.” (p. 214)
     Other cowboys, involved with both professional and gay rodeo, were not so sure, indicating that they used anonymous names when competing in the gay rodeo circuit. But other gay and lesbian rodeo competitors, however, stated that they preferred the gay rodeo environment. Often they competed with the full support of their heterosexual siblings or other family members, some of whom competed in the professional ranks. They indicated that straight cowboys’ acceptance of gays and lesbians was influenced by their having gay and lesbian relatives.
     Ty Murray, a straight man and seven-time All-Around Cowboy for the PRCA, when asked about the content of Brokeback Mountain while being interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America, stated: “I think it’s something that’s now just being more understood. Hopefully, this movie helps people further understand it.” (19)

The Film’s Impact Upon Popular Culture
     Any discussion of the film would be remiss if it did not include mention of its impact upon the broader popular culture. Some even have argued that the mark the movie left on pop culture accounted for the film’s overall success with a wider viewing audience as “everyone wanted to know what all the fuss was about.” As one noted, “There come’s a flashpoint when people are talking about the same thing. In a more benign and constructive way, America is now experiencing the Brokeback breakthrough.” 
     Time magazine noted that ‘Brokeback’ quickly became the favorite topic of late night TV talk shows. David Letterman’s website invited fans to submit their own spoofs. Some of the winners, for instance, for “Rejected Titles of the Film” included: Okahomo, Little Bathhouse on the Prairie, and The Good, the Bad and the Fabulous! (20) 
     Letterman also had a Top Ten list of “Signs You’re a Gay Cowboy” which included: Your saddle is Versace; Instead of ‘Home on the Range,’ you sing ’It’s Raining Men;’ Sold your livestock to buy tickets to “Mamma Mia!;” Native Americans refer to you as “Dances With Men;” You’ve been lassoed more times than most steers; Instead of a saloon you prefer a salon; and the number one indicator: You love riding, but you don’t have a horse.
     According to another source, there were over 1,000 movie-trailer and movie-poster spin-offs, including several playful ones of Muppet characters. Others took a decidedly political vent, with perhaps the most striking one being that of the president and vice-president in a pose similar to that of the two male leads in the film used as the primary movie poster. In a caption titled, “Watch Your Back Mountain,” Bush and Cheney-looking characters stood posed in the great outdoors as Cheney is blowing smoke from his rifle. This appeared on the cover of the February 27, 2006, issue of The New Yorker magazine, shortly after Cheney’s shooting incident, and just before the Academy Awards.
     Other cartoons spoofing the film’s theme appeared in a variety of magazines. One cartoon had one cowboy handing a cowboy hat to his partner, who is sitting up in bed, who answers, “And what if I don’t want to be Jack or Ennis?” Another cartoon has two young boys walking by a movie marquee of the film, as one boy states to the other: “My mom and dad went to the movies last night and today they threw away my cowboy hat and toy six-guns.” To which the other kid replies, “Weird.” Another cartoon, titled “Brokeback Capitol Hill,” has one cowboy (labeled as a lobbyist) dancing with another (a politician) with the first stating, “You dance with them that brung you, congressman!” To which the other replies, “God I wish I knew how to quit you!” Both are lines from the actual movie.
     One of the Bizarro cartoons by Piraro had two cowboys talking to each other while riding side-by-side on horses. One notes, “For ages we been wearin’ high-heeled, point-toed boots with jingly stars, big silver belt buckles with curlicue designs, & flowery embroidered shirts with pearl buttons. But it takes a movie for people to figure out we’re gay.” To which the other cowboy replies, “The hats alone shoulda’ tipped ‘em off.” This cartoon ran on July 4, 2006. (The Independence Day Weekend is referred to as “Cowboy Christmas” as the most number of rodeos across the country are held on that weekend.)
     Another comedic spoof which appeared quickly on a website was entitled, “Weekly Grocery Lists for Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist.” It begins with a Week One shopping list of beans, bacon, coffee and whisky. By Week Four the list has grown to include beans, pancetta, coffee (expresso grind), whiskey, and two tubes K-Y. Finally, by Week Six the list includes: Yukon Gold potatoes, heavy whipping cream, asparagus (very thin), eggs, lemons, Gruyere cheese (well aged), walnuts, arugula, butter, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, 6 years white silk organdy, 6 yards pale ivory taffeta, case of Chardonnay, and a large tin of Crisco.”
     In all, according to one observer, what was remarkable about the various cultural spoofs was their lack of malice, claiming that, “Most Brokeback humor has skewed toward playful, rather than homophobic…” Even some of the movie lines have become part of the cultural lexicon. Both “’I wish I knew how to quit you’ and ‘It’s nobody’s business but ours,’ are right up there with ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ and ‘Go ahead, make my day.’” (21)
     Finally, the ‘Brokeback Effect’ included different websites where one could purchase such film tie-in products as shirts, sweatshirts, hats, mugs, stickers and mouse pads. Movie-inspired apparel could be purchased on EBay. The two shirts worn by Ledger and Gyllenhaal, symbols at the ending of the film of the two cowboy’s frustrated love, were auctioned over EBay for more than $100,000. Even fashion designer Valentino acknowledged the film by having two men in cowboy jeans, leather jackets, and cowboy hats walking down the runway holding hands during his January 2006 menswear show in Milan, Italy. (22)

Losing the Best Picture Academy Award
     Heading into the Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain led the nominations with eight. It had already won several accolades – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Song – at the Golden Globe Awards. It had won Best Picture at the BAFTA Awards (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts), Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards, and most of the Best Picture Awards by various national and regional film critics associations. Further, Ang Lee had been awarded the Best Director by his peers from the Directors Guild of America (DGAP).
     The movie, it appeared, seemed destined to win the Oscar. It subsequently did win three awards: for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Photography. But it did not win for Best Picture, losing in what many considered to be an upset to Crash, a film about racial tension and human angst in Los Angeles.
     What was interesting about all five of the films nominated for Best Picture for 2005 (the others being Munich, Capote, and Good Night, and Good Luck) was that they were films with social issue themes on such varied topics as racial intolerance, terrorism, integrity in the news, and homophobia. Of the five, Brokeback Mountain was the top performer in terms of revenue generated. All five films played better on both the east and west coasts than they did in the heartland of America, a pattern that holds true for many more progressive, social message-type movies.
     Immediately following Brokeback’s failure to capture the Best Picture Oscar, there were several explanations for its loss. Some claimed homophobia by the Academy voters, noting that many voting members were older and more conservative, and who perhaps felt that endorsing the “gay cowboy movie” was something they were not yet willing to embrace. (23)
     Others saw the ultimate winner Crash as being an actor’s movie and since actors comprised close to one-fourth (22 percent) of the eligible voters in the Academy, they likely supported a movie that had hired a range of actors (some of whom were personal friends or acquaintances).
     Still others claimed that Crash, with its setting in Los Angeles, appealed to the 78 percent of the 5,798 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who were eligible to actually vote in February 2006 who resided in the Los Angeles area, and who might personally relate to the film’s urban-based theme. 
     Others pointed out that Lions Gate Films, which released Crash in May 2005, shrewdly mailed DVD copies of the movie to 130,000 guild members in December, with a campaign which reminded the viewers of how they first had felt when they saw the movie in theaters earlier in late spring. (24) Even so, Crash failed to get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Dramatic Film, which meant that its inclusion as one of the five nominated film for Best Picture came as somewhat of a surprise to many, although one could argue that those who select the Golden Globe nominations are comprised of foreign film critics, and not the broader Academy Award members.
     To others, the Brokeback Mountain loss was attributed to the fact that the movie might have “peaked” too early. What with the film’s immediate critical acclaim upon release in early December, its nomination and winnings in most year-end film societys’ awards, its rapid ascendancy into a cultural phenomenon by January as the film went into wide release, the view here was that its Oscar buzz had dissipated by the time academy members sat down to cast their ballots in February.
     Several members of gay organizations cried “foul” when Brokeback Mountain lost the Oscar for Best Picture, launching new ad campaigns expressing their disappointment and frustration. Many gay people personally identified with the film’s story and strongly felt it was “their turn” to have a movie about their personal struggles and lives be validated which they saw a win for Best Picture as accomplishing. Even Annie Proulx, who wrote the short story from which the film was based, expressed profound displeasure that the movie had not won for Best Picture.
     But in time the gay and lesbian community seemed content (or at least resigned) with the breakthrough the movie hadachieved. During the annual Outfest Film Festival, held in Los Angeles in July, 2006, where over 200 short and full-length gay and lesbian-themed films were shown (from some 700 gay films made in 2005 submitted to the film festival for inclusion), the co-producers of the gay film festival acknowledged what Brokeback Mountain and other films had accomplished:

In a year that saw mainstream audiences embrace queer-themed films such as Capote, Transamerica, and of course, Brokeback Mountain, one might wonder if LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, and Transgender) film festivals are still relevant. Our response is a resounding Yes! We boldly assert that Outfest is more relevant than ever. A queer film revolution is blossoming from the seeds Outfest has been planting for decades. We have provided a platform for queer filmmakers to tell their stories for 24 years. The fact that mainstream audiences are finally discovering that we have remarkable, particular and surprisingly universal tales to tell produces a ray of hope and stiffins our determination to keep on telling our brave, transformative stories. (25)
References
  1. Kenneth Turan, “The New Frontiers of ‘Brokeback” is Vast and Heartfelt,” Los Angeles Times, 9 December 2005, p. E-1.
  2. Owen Gleiberman, “The Searchers,” Entertainment Weekly, 9 December 2005, pp. 59-60.
  3. Judith Salkin, “A Forbidden Passion: Epic Story Goes Where No Cowboy Movie Has Gone Before,” Desert Post Weekly, 15 December 2005, p. 29.
  4. Chris Hewitt, “’Brokeback’ Dilemma: Characters Fight Internal War in Unusual Love Story,” The Desert Sun, 16 December 2005, p. 7.
  5. Owen Gleiberman, “Which Movies Have Been Signposts that Indicate Our Culture Has Changed?” Entertainment Weekly, p. 82
  6. __________, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” Newsweek, 19 December 2005, p. 67.
  7. Stefan Gruenwedel, “Into the West,” MGW, 15 December 2005, pp. 26-7.
  8. Greg Archer, “Crouching Cowboy, Hidden Gay Men,” The Bottom Line, 23 December 2005, pp. 72-5.
  9. C. W. Nevius, “’Brokeback’ Broke Out in the ‘Burbs,” San Francisco Chronicle, 28 January 2006, p. B-l.
  10. Ibid.
  11. __________, New York Times, 17 January 2006, p. B-5.
  12. Andrew Sullivan, “Gay Cowboys Embraced By Redneck Country,” The New York Sunday Times, 26 February 2006.
  13. David Crary, “’Brokeback’ Praise Elates Gay-Rights Advocates: Some Conservatives Hope Groundbreaking Film Fails at Box Office,” The Desert Sun, 19 February 2006, p. B-13.
  14. Bill O’Reilly, “Oscar Likely to Preach to the Choir, Once Again,” The Desert Sun 19 February, 2006, p. B-13.
  15. Peter Hartlaub, “Tips For Getting Over ‘Brokeback’ Hump,” San Francisco Chronicle, 5, February 2006, p. D-l
  16. __________, “Movie Theater Owner Explains Decision to Cancel ‘Brokeback Mountain,’” Gay & Lesbian Times, 13 April 2006, p. 31.
  17. __________, “American Family Association in Spat With Wal-Mart Over ‘Brokeback Mountain,’” Buzz Magazine, 13, April 2006, p. 20.
  18. Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, “Giving the Lie to Five Oscar Pics,” Los Angeles Times, 26 February 2006, p. M-3.
  19. __________, “Macho Men in Love,” The Bottom Line, 23 December 2005, p. 14.
  20. Amy Lennard Goehner, et. al., “How the West Was Won,” Time, 30 April 2006, pp. 60-3.
  21. Neva Chonin, “’Brokeback’ Again,” San Francisco Chronicle, 26 February 2006, Calendar section, p. 16.
  22. Cynthia H. Cho, “The ‘Brokeback Effect’: Pop Culture, From Highbrow on Down, Hitches Itself to the Movie’s Wagon With Tomes, Cowboy Shirts and More,” Los Angeles Times, 1 March 2005, p. E-1.