Gene Shalit Pans Brokeback Mountain
NBC movie critic Gene Shalit has angered GLAAD (The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) with his review of Brokeback Mountain by referring to the character of Jack Twist, played by Jake Gyllenhaal as a “sexual predator.” The GLAAD Alert is here.
The veteran Today show critic has been taken to task by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation over his negative review of the gay cowboy western, in which he referred to Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack, as a “sexual predator” who “tracks Ennis down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts.”
The group claimed that Shalit’s statements, delivered during his “Critic’s Choice” segment on Thursday’s Today show, promoted “defamatory anti-gay prejudice to a national audience,” and criticized NBC News for providing the eccentric critic with a platform from which to air his views.
“Shalit’s bizarre characterization of Jack as a ‘predator’ and Ennis (Heath Ledger) as a victim reflects a fundamental lack of understanding about the central relationship in the film and about gay relationships in general,” GLAAD said in a statement. “It seems highly doubtful that Shalit would similarly claim that Titanic’s Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a ‘sexual predator’ because he was pursuing a romantic relationship with Rose (Kate Winslet).”
Having seen the movie, I can’t understand how somebody could see Jack as a sexual predator. Ennis, though very emotionally repressed, was always beside himself with happiness when Jack wants to go “fishing.”
The real irony, however, is that Gene Shalit’s son, Peter Shalit is gay and one of the most highly-regarded physicians in Seattle in the specialty of HIV/AIDS medicine. Dr. Shalit is also affiliated with the University of Washington.
Given that Gene Shalit has such a successful gay son who has played a very important role in the fight against HIV/AIDS, I would not think he would be prone to such a gross misunderstanding of a gay character in a film. Shalit once wrote a glowing essay about his son on the PFLAG site.
Obviously, just became Gene Shalit has a gay son he doesn’t have to like a movie with gay characters. The term “sexual predator”, however, is usually reserved for rapists and child molesters. There is nothing in the character of Jack Twist that suggests that his sexuality is predatory, unless you consider the way both he and Ennis deceive women into thinking they are straight when they are really in love with each other.
They deceive women because in an environment hostile to same-sex love it was necessary to deceive themselves and everyone else in order to survive.
The theme of predation, as I pointed out in my review, runs throughout the Brokeback Mountain, but it is not embodied in the character of Jack. There are very graphic images displayed on the screen at three different points in the story of prey that have been eviscerated by some predator. The message was clear and an accurate reflection of what happens to animals that do not stick close to the herd.
Apparently, Gene Shalit closed his eyes during those parts of the film. A guilty conscience maybe?
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January 16th, 2006 at 9:35 am
[...] A critic on The Today Show this morning said that he thought Heath Ledger would win in the Best Actor category. I don’t remember the critic’s name but it wasn’t Gene Shalit. [...]