#1
Posted: 1/4/06 at 4:33pm
Yep. From yesterday's Casper Wyoming Star Tribune.
Rootin' tootin' snippet:
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Gay cowboys welcome the arrival of 'Brokeback Mountain'
By BRANDON GRIGGS
Salt Lake Tribune Monday, January 02, 2006
Like many gay Utahns, Ritchie Olsen has been bursting with anticipation over "Brokeback Mountain," the acclaimed film about a secret love affair between two Wyoming cowboys. After all, the movie could almost be the story of his life.
Olsen grew up in Neola, Utah, a conservative town of about 500 people on the southern edge of the Uintas. His family ran a small cattle ranch, where Olsen spent much of his youth on a horse. Although Olsen struggled with his attraction to men, like the characters in the film he kept quiet and married a local girl, his true nature stifled by community pressure and his own fear.
"I didn't feel like I had any other choice," said the 32-year-old, who didn't come out of the closet until he divorced his wife 18 months later and moved away. "I was expected to fit a certain image, and I did. It created a lot of anxiety."
That's why for Olsen and countless other Westerners, "Brokeback Mountain" is an event film and a hot-button topic. Besides being a rare Hollywood drama about gay romance, it may be the first high-profile movie to address homosexuality within a group rarely associated with it: the iconic cowboys of the American West. These onscreen lovers aren't San Francisco hairdressers, they're stoic Marlboro men.
Gay cowboys welcome the arrival of 'Brokeback Mountain'
Rootin' tootin' snippet:
-----
Gay cowboys welcome the arrival of 'Brokeback Mountain'
By BRANDON GRIGGS
Salt Lake Tribune Monday, January 02, 2006
Like many gay Utahns, Ritchie Olsen has been bursting with anticipation over "Brokeback Mountain," the acclaimed film about a secret love affair between two Wyoming cowboys. After all, the movie could almost be the story of his life.
Olsen grew up in Neola, Utah, a conservative town of about 500 people on the southern edge of the Uintas. His family ran a small cattle ranch, where Olsen spent much of his youth on a horse. Although Olsen struggled with his attraction to men, like the characters in the film he kept quiet and married a local girl, his true nature stifled by community pressure and his own fear.
"I didn't feel like I had any other choice," said the 32-year-old, who didn't come out of the closet until he divorced his wife 18 months later and moved away. "I was expected to fit a certain image, and I did. It created a lot of anxiety."
That's why for Olsen and countless other Westerners, "Brokeback Mountain" is an event film and a hot-button topic. Besides being a rare Hollywood drama about gay romance, it may be the first high-profile movie to address homosexuality within a group rarely associated with it: the iconic cowboys of the American West. These onscreen lovers aren't San Francisco hairdressers, they're stoic Marlboro men.
Gay cowboys welcome the arrival of 'Brokeback Mountain'
Updated On: 1/4/06 at 04:33 PM
