Okay, so maybe Brokeback Mountain didn't change the world, but it did change me. And I don't just mean in a love now or you'll spend the rest of your life sitting in a crappy trailer park staring at a faded photograph and sniffing a bloody flannel shirt kind of way.

I mean the way I view gay-themed movies, books, and TV shows.

Regardless of whether you think Brokeback Mountain deserved to win Best Picture -- and if you don't, you're JUST PLAIN WRONG!
-- there is no denying it was a quality project. Great writing, incredible acting, stellar cinematography, even a distinctive, understated score.

Before Brokeback Mountain, most gay-themed entertainment projects were...how do I put this charitably?

They were crap.

Portrayals of gay characters on television have alternated between outrageous, usually offensive stereotypes, and noble victims meant to transmit some preachy message to the apparently completely heterosexual audience. In books, we've had an endless stream of self-hating gay men who screw their friends and mess up their lives with irresponsible sex and indiscriminate drug use.

And movies? Don't get me started.

Too late, I'm started. In addition to outrageous stereotypes and noble victims, the big studios have also given us an unending parade of simpering gay and/or effeminate villains in movies like Rope, Diamonds are Forever, In Cold Blood, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Psycho, Jeepers Creepers 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Dreamcatcher, The Lion King, Basic Instinct, Stargate, The Passion of the Christ, Strangers on a Train, Die Hard, Suddenly Last Summer, Aladdin, and Constantine.

And the low budget independent movies–- the ones ostensibly told from the point-of-view of an actual gay person to an actual gay audience? They've often been laughably acted, incomprehensibly written, or both.

Oh, sure, there have been some fine gay projects, especially lately: TV shows like Six Feet Under, Xena: Warrior Princess, and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer; movies like Trick, Big Eden, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Mambo Italiano, Summer Storm, and Beautiful Thing; and books like The Year of Ice by Brian Malloy, Leave Myself Behind by Bart Yates, the “Silent Empire” series by Steven Harper, My Lucky Star by Joe Keenan, and How I Learned to Snap by Kirk Read.

But let's face it, they've been too few and too far between.

I didn't used to care about whether or not a gay project was “good.” I was just so starved to see myself represented on screen or in the pages of a book that I took whatever I could get.

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