BACK NOT BROKEN

What’s Worse: Man-on-Man or Man-on-Granny?

By Randy Harward, 1-10-06

So Larry H. Miller's Jordan Commons megaplex decided to pull Brokeback Mountain at the last minute. Not so shocking. We all know about Miller's a Book of Mo-thumping conservative. What is surprising: despite his beliefs, Miller is allowing the following films to play at his megaplex—all of which contain content he and other conservatives should find objectionable:

Hostel (R): Outrageously gory, compared to recent mainstream horror films.

Grandma’s Boy (R): Just from the trailer, you know there will be potsmoking and May-December sex.

The Ringer (PG-13): A Farrelly Brothers movie, which guarantees a degree or puerile content.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (PG-13): Witchcraft! Paganism! The gateway to Satanism!

Casanova (R): About a legendary booty hound.

These films play on while Brokeback Mountain, a gay love story that has been favorably reviewed by almost 90% of critics (including Jeff Vice at the notoriously conservative Deseret Morning News), caused Jordan Commons to balk. Why?

It would be nice to think that maybe, just maybe, Miller thought long and hard before making the decision. There is just a slim chance that he was sitting atop the Jordan Commons office building looking out the window and asking a cloud for guidance. Then perhaps a big pink triangular cloud floated by and took a big bite of that nice, pillowy cloud just as it was gonna say “pull out.� Thus, Miller yanked the film and avenged the cloud (which he’d named Karl). But we know the truth.

The culprit is Miller’s own “beliefs� and pressure from shrill, frightened conservative groups. In fact, it’s the Madonna of Utah bigots, Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka, sounding the alarm, telling the D-News (without actually having seen the film):

"It's such a terrible show, and it is such a horrible message. I just think (pulling the show) tells the young people especially that maybe there is something wrong with this show."

(Ruzicka also called Miller “my new hero� for pulling the film. Oh, poor myopic bigoted Gayle Ruzicka, celebrating the defeat of the gays while people are being slaughtered and grandmothers shtupped on screen at her hero’s megaplex.*)

Eh. Ultimately, the ban will only do more to raise awareness of Brokeback Mountain. Locally, it will divert revenue to better, more conscientious theaters like the Broadway Centre (which is run by the non-profit Salt Lake Film Society). Nationwide, it will do exactly what Miller and Ruzicka hoped to stop: lube the zeitgeist so it might more easily accept homosexuality.

(*For the record, I’m fine with R-rated films. And grannies getting some. And I don’t think film violence and gore incites anyone not already mentally ill and/or predisposed to violence to commit murder.)

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