If American moviegoers are indeed wary of watching a gay cowboy drama, then the makers of “Brokeback Mountain” are working to emphasize the word “drama.”
After all, the movie is about a semi-literate ranch hand and a rambunctious rodeo cowboy who, in 1963, find themselves unexpectedly and irreversibly attracted to each other.
“We’ll joke about gay cowboys and gay Western,” director Ang Lee said while promoting the movie in San Francisco. “But that’s not an accurate description of this love story. It’s a very sensitive one, and I hope that it will peel away the obstacles, and people will look at it as a sensitive story and examine the humanity about it.”
So maybe it’s no coincidence that the poster for “Brokeback” looks a lot like the one from another epic tale of forbidden love, “Titanic.”
Judge for yourself.