YUK. I got an email about what Wyoming thinks of Brokeback Mountain. I will try to post it here.
I DID IT, I DID IT!!
Deseret Morning News, Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Cowboy country saying 'whoa!' to 'Brokeback'
By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News
Ask one of the locals like Julie Greer how they feel in rural
Wyoming about "Brokeback Mountain," the gay-cowboy movie, and you don't
have to wait long to get a reaction.
"Yeah, we're offended!" she shoots back. "Because they called those
sheepherders cowboys."
It doesn't get any worse than that. But a close second is to call a cowboy
gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that (as Seinfeld says). Well,
actually, they think there is, and they don't care if city slickers like it
or not. If you want to see a cowboy get out of his saddle in a nanosecond,
ask him if he is dating the guy on the next horse.
"People are offended that nothing is sacred anymore," says Greer, who
works, at the Hyattville post office. "People are talking about it. They
won't go to the theater to see it."
You knew this movie wouldn't go over big in the Broken Back Mountain area
of Wyoming, where the same families have worked the range for more than 100
years. "Almost everyone on the crick has been here for at least a couple
of generations," says rancher Maurice Bush, whose grandfather arrived here
in 1898.
They are salt-of-the-earth people. They live quietly. They see more cattle
than people. They scratch out a living in hard-bitten country. They are
blue collar and Republican, and they mind their own business.
So when "Brokeback Mountain" hit movie theaters around the United States,
they wondered exactly how they got dragged into this thing. "I didn't even
know what the movie was about," says Bush. "When someone told me, I
thought, 'Where the devil did they get an idea like that?' That's
pretty much been the reaction of everyone up here."
If you haven't heard, "Brokeback Mountain" is about two gay cowboys. It's
set in Wyoming, apparently near Brokeback Mountain, although the real place
is called Broken Back Mountain, located in the Big Horn Mountains in
north-central Wyoming. The nearest town is Ten Sleep (Pop. 340), which was
settled in 1882 by cattle and sheep ranchers. Before that, it was a
favorite destination of two Indian tribes that visited the place annually
to make
arrowheads. It took them 10 sleeps - or 10 nights - to get to the region.
This is home to cowboys. Not the kind who just wear the hats, like
country-western singers but men who actually sit in a saddle. They are a
long way from political correctness and gay politics out here.
"The story could be set in some fictional place, but it wasn't," says Ten
Sleep native Bob Wood. "They made it personal. They plopped it down in a
specific place. People in a small town take a lot of pride in who the are,
and that's not who they are. This isn't New York. And then set it in 1963,
right? In 1963, they'd make fun of a man if he wore shorts."
"I can't think of an area that would be more offended," says Rondo
Fehlberg, who grew up in nearby Worland.
Dahl Mills, who sells beautiful horses on Broken Back Ranch, read the book
from which the movie originated as part of her book club. "We all hated
it," she says.
Author Annie Proulx says she got the idea for her short story - which led
to the movie - in a Wyoming bar when she saw one cowboy watching a bunch of
other cowboys play pool instead of looking at the pretty girls.
"My dad and grandpas are turning over in their graves," says Wood.
Ten Sleep residents won't be able to see the movie even if they want to.
The nearest theater is in Worland - current show: "King Kong."
Says Bob Vines, managing editor of the local newspaper, "I would be
surprised if ("Brokeback") plays here in Worland.
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please e-mail
[email protected].
2006 Deseret News Publishing Company
