The “Brokeback Mountain” Approach

I had a slight bitch session about the heterosexualized poster for Tom Ford’s not-so-heterosexual “A Single Man,” and the recently released trailer just re-enforced those thoughts. Check out my story on indieWIRE about the remarkable de-gaying of “A Single Man” in its new Oscar-buzz emphasized trailer, and take a trip down memory lane with these For Your Consideration ads for “Brokeback Mountain” back in 2005, which are oh so gay themselves:

More whitewashing after the jump.

thelostboy posted to Awards Season, Queer on November 9, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (6)

|Share

Comments

The poster could have had a rubber duck in a bathtub pictured; the film’s theme and storyline doesn’t change. The performances are the same and award potential should have nothing to do with an image on an advertisement. You can’t hide a film’s content once it is playing in theatre’s. Word of mouth is the best form of promotion, or not.
However, wouldn’t a film company want moviegoers to be somewhat aware of what they are seeing? I have this vision of a minister and his wife (possibly homophobic) paying to see a film about the birth of a child from the poster above.

By Gary on November 22, 2009

I’d like to agree with Brigitta, except that all three ads are concertedly heterosexual—we are seeing straight couples sharing intimate moments in each. This is clearly quite deliberate. And these are not “most-likely-to-win-an-oscar elements” of the film, except maybe the last one of Ledger and Williams. I might even argue the first two are not even scenes from the movie at all. If they are, they were surely forgettable.

By TexRex96 on November 22, 2009

The same thing was done with “The Talented Mr. Ripley”. Ripley is a psycho who fixates on the character played by Jude Law but in the trailer it’s made to seem that the character played by Guenneth Paltrow is his sexual prey.

By Victor on November 22, 2009

It took me a long time after seeing the movie to think of it as having a “gay” theme. I accepted the film as about two straight guys out on an adventure who happened to wake up to being able to have some fun in a different kind of way then became attached to each other. The scene showing Keith Ledger closely holding the shirt was especially a warm, touching statement about someone’s love for another human. Beautifully done. Beautiful film and story.

By JM on November 21, 2009

I find those posters absolutely unbelievable. If they were on the Onion’s website, OK.
but for real - that’s an education in movie politics.

By Mary Alice Wilson on November 21, 2009

You could say that since these are ‘for industry’ ads, they’re not so much selling the story of the film but the most-likely-to-win-an-oscar elements of the film. In this case the actors.
I don’t doubt that these are say more heterosexual than the film actually is. But I think the purpose wasn’t to nastily de-gay the film.
Michelle Williams was nominated too after all, and no doubt the marketers would have hoped Anne Hathaway would have been too.

By Brigitta on November 11, 2009