When "Brokeback Mountain" came out in theaters, nearly every mainstream reviewer called it a "universal" love story. It's not about gay people! It's about forbidden love!
In his now-classic review, Daniel Mendelsohn argues that "Brokeback Mountain" is not in fact a universal love story. It is about the specific experience of the closet.
Where most star-crossed lover stories feature *societal* barriers to the protagonists getting together (their parents are against it, they're from difference social classes, etc), the barriers in "Brokeback" are internal. The closet makes gay people deny their own feelings.
There simply isn't an analogue to the closet in broader (i.e. heterosexual) society. Calling Brokeback a "universal" love story destroys the specificity of its central conflict.
This pattern shows up a lot when people from marginalized communities tell their stories. Members of the majority vacuum up the "universal" and "human" themes while ignoring the challenges protagonists face *due to their marginalized status*
Anyway, reading this review was a big moment for me and I've been thinking about it for 14 years. The article's paywalled but here's a link to the full text ennisjack.com/forum/index.ph…
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As usual it contains an "alarming" anecdote without any context. It certainly seems like this dude was placed on leave over a silly complaint, but are leftist students the only ones lodging silly complaints? Why is this case worthy of national attention?
There's been a yearlong steelmanning effort with the beliefs of QAnon and the people pushing them. There's some economic anxiety there sure, but there's also a lot of straightforward Republican and evangelical catnip religionnews.com/2021/02/11/sur…
Like, Marjorie Taylor Greene is not mad because we don't have universal healthcare
We have no idea in what context these slides were given. "Try to be less white" could have been presented as an option and discarded. But even if it were straightforwardly presented... who cares?
It's so embarrassing. Companies regularly give anti-union trainings. Christian companies have religious content in their onboarding materials. But I'm supposed to treat this one like a national crisis?