Controversy recently erupted over the U.S. bishops’ Office for Film and Broadcasting’s review and rating of the film Brokeback Mountain—a pro-homosexual "message" film known to many as "the gay cowboy movie."
Harry Forbes, the director of the OFB and the individual who reviewed the movie, gave it a gushing review with slight caveats thrown in as sops to those who would find the film objectionable.
He also gave it an "L" rating, which in OFB parlance means that it is suitable for a "limited adult audience, [this rating is for] films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling."
The rating that the film should have received was "O"—described by the USCCB website simply as "morally offensive."
When Forbes’s review hit the net, the controversy erupted, leading to stories like
The fiasco surrounding the review of Brokeback Mountain is simply the most egregious example of a problem that has been building for some time at the OFB.
When I first encountered their reviews a number of years ago, I was very impressed with how well they were done and how successfully they brought balanced Catholic sensibilities to the field of film criticism.
But in recent years the quality of the reviews and ratings has declined—to the point that I no longer consult them as they are of little use.
In the case of Brokeback Mountain, though, the OFB has gone beyond mere uselessness.
Let’s start with the issue of the rating.
Many films contain some morally objectionable content. This is unavoidable since filmmakers are sinners like everyone else. But the mere presence of morally objectionable content does not mean that a film as a whole is objectionable.
For example: Suppose that the latest Hugh Grant heterosexual romantic comedy featured a minor character who is gay (say, a friend of the female love interest in the film). And suppose the film tacitly approved of that character’s homosexual behavior.
The tacit approval given to homosexuality WOULD BE morally offensive by definition.
But because the character in question is a minor one this means that only part of the film is morally offensive, not the film as a whole. As a result, the film might deserve a rating other than "O" (assuming the rest of it wasn’t morally offensive).
But if the film, instead, was a homosexual romantic comedy where homosexuality was essential to the core of the film—and if it tacitly approved homosexuality—then the film as a whole would be morally offensive (even if it had other praiseworthy elements) and would deserve the "O" rating.
"O"s, in other words, don’t deal with minor elements in the film. They deal with the central core of the film.
Brokeback Mountain is not a homosexual romantic comedy. It’s a homosexual romantic tragedy. As a result, homosexual behavior is central to the theme of the film, and the fact that the film gives tacit approval to homosexual behavior (by Forbes’s own admission in the review) means that the film AS A WHOLE is morally offensive and deserves an "O" rating.
It may have elements that are not themselves offensive, but the film’s moral approval of its central theme (a long-term homosexual relationship) is morally offensive, making the movie itself offensive.
The fact that Forbes did not recognize this BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS fact set off the ensuing controversy.
In response to the controversy, on Friday, December 16th, the OFB unceremoniously changed the rating from "L" to "O."
Definitely a step in the right direction, but the way in which this was done left much to be desired. Specifically, the following text was appended to the review of Brokeback Mountain on the Catholic News Service site:
"Originally rated L (limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling), ‘Brokeback Mountain’ has been reclassified O — morally offensive — by the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting. This has been done because the serious weight of the L rating — which restricts films in that category to those who can assess, from a Catholic perspective, the moral issues raised by a movie — is, unfortunately, misunderstood by many. Because there are some in this instance who are using the L rating to make it appear the church’s — or the USCCB’s — position on homosexuality is ambiguous, the classification has been revised specifically to address its moral content."
Note what is NOT being said here. They are NOT saying that the original rating was in error.
Instead, they are blaming the audience their film reviews are meant to serve for "misunderstanding" the L rating, which would still be the correct rating for the film if only it weren’t "misunderstood by many." So the film is NOT truly morally offensive, even though it is now being rated that way.
Further, the change is being made "because there are some in this instance who are using the L rating to make it appear that the church’s – or the USCCB’s – position on homosexuality is ambiguous."
In other words, other people are at fault and are wrongfully forcing the OFB to rate a film as morally offensive that really is not morally offensive.
This is a non-retraction retraction.
And it’s an erroneous one, because the film simply IS morally offensive—as is BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS from a basic knowledge of its contents. To see why, let’s turn to Forbes’s review.
As others have noted, the review simply gushes. Forbes confesses that he has been awaiting this film (it "arrives at last"), and he can barely restrain himself from heaping praise on it in numerous ways. Examples:
- "‘Brokeback Mountain’ . . . arrives at last, and the film itself — a serious contemplation of loneliness and connection — belies the glib description [of being a gay cowboy love story]."
- "While it is the story of an intimate relationship, more to the point it’s the relationship of two emotionally scarred souls."
- [After one character has been separated from his homosexual paramour] "we see him crumple in despair as soon as he’s alone. The first human connection he’s had is coming to an end."
- "It’s the emotional honesty of the story overall, and the portrayal of an unresolved relationship . . . that seems paramount."
- "Director Ang Lee tells the story with a sure sense of time and place, and presents the narrative in a way that is more palatable than would have been thought possible. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana’s screenplay uses virtually every scrap of information in Proulx’s story, which won a National Magazine Award, and expands it while remaining utterly true to the source."
- "The performances are superb. Australian Ledger may be the one to beat at Oscar time, as his repressed manly stoicism masking great vulnerability is heartbreaking, and his Western accent sounds wonderfully authentic. Gyllenhaal is no less accomplished as the more demonstrative of the pair, while Williams and Hathaway (the latter, a far cry from ‘The Princess Diaries,’ giving her most mature work to date) are very fine."
- "Looked at from the point of view of the need for love which everyone feels but few people can articulate, the plight of these guys is easy to understand while their way of dealing with it is likely to surprise and shock an audience."
- "[T]he universal themes of love and loss ring true."
Despite the fact that he is in unmistakably enamored with the film, Forbes does throw in two mild caveats to appease those who would object to the film’s approval of homosexuality. The first caveat comes thirteen paragraphs into the twenty-one paragraph review:
"As the Catholic Church makes a distinction between homosexual orientation and activity, Ennis and Jack’s continuing physical relationship is morally problematic."
No note is made that the homosexual orientation itself is—in the words of the Catechism—"intrinsically disordered." Forbes’s review leaves one with the impression that the homosexual orientation may not itself be a source of concern and that only homosexual activity is "problematic."
A few paragraphs later, immediately before the content advisory at the end of the review, Forbes gives another caveat but immediately undercuts what mild force it has by giving his praise of the film the last word:
"While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true."
Also disturbing is Forbes’s attempt to downplay the fact that this is a pro-homosexual "message film." He argues:
"But the pain Jack and Ennis cause their families is not whitewashed. (The women are played with tremendous sympathy, not as shrill harridans.) It’s the emotional honesty of the story overall, and the portrayal of an unresolved relationship — which, by the way, ends in tragedy — that seems paramount."
This account seems intended to leave the reader with the impression that the pain caused to the two gay characters’ wives and children (they married women after they began their homosexual relationship) and the fact that their relationship ultimately ends tragically are supposed to detract from the idea that the film is broadcasting a message.
This is sheer spin. In fact, these elements are CRUCIAL to how the film hammers home its message. The story begins in 1963 and ends when one of the two cowboys is killed in what today would be called a "hate crime" for his homosexuality.
The unmistakable message that the filmmakers intend is thus:
"How sad that our culture was (and is) so ‘homophobic.’ If only people had been more accepting of homosexuality then Ennis and Jack wouldn’t have felt pressured into marrying women and having families. Their ongoing homosexual adultery wouldn’t have caused their wives pain. And they would have been cruelly mistreated and one brutally killed as a manifestation of the ‘homophobia’ that continues to plague our society today. So that things like this will never happen again, we should all learn a lesson from this that our society must come to embrace homosexuality as an equal, respectable alternative lifestyle."
In other words: The film’s core message is radically antithetical to Catholic teaching.
The fact that Forbes is so enamored with it, that he either misses or knowingly downplays the message aspect of it, that he treats Catholic teaching on homosexuality almost as an afterthought to how this film should be appraised, that he believes it to not really be morally offensive, and that he is willing to blame others for forcing him to call it morally offensive when it is not morally offensive in his opinion, all speak of the growing problem that has plagued the U.S. bishops’ film review service—and they speak poorly of Mr. Forbes’s capacity to do the job entrusted to him by the bishops.
The bottom line is that this film is not a "borderline case" where one could debate whether or not it is morally offensive. It is BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that this one is morally offensive.
If Mr. Forbes cannot be counted upon to call a film morally offensive when it is as blindingly obvious as this one is then he does not have what it takes to do his job.
UPDATE: Late in the day on Friday the Catholic News Service site moved the non-retraction retraction to the top of the review to give it more prominence.
With the reclassification to "O," CNS also removed Harry Forbes’s byline from the review. It is not clear at this time whether this was to insulate Mr. Forbes from being individually identifiable and thus accountable for the review or whether it was because Mr. Forbes violently disagreed with the reclassification of the film as "O" and no longer wished his name to be associated with the review.
At the time of this writing the byline reads "by Catholic News Service," indicating that Catholic News Service takes responsibility for the review.
Also, thanks to Mark Shea for posting the above review on his blog while TypePad was having technical difficulties.
