“Brokeback Mountain”: The Greatest Down-low Love Story Ever Told?

“I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people.”
— Pat Robertson

You can probably imagine my absolute shock when a movie about life on the "Down-low" finally broke through all the noise the subject usually brings. Perhaps shock is too small a word. I sat in a packed auditorium, obliterated, as an honest depiction of two married men on the D.L., falling in love with each other while navigating a violently homophobic culture, unspooled before me.

Yes, the movie showed these men cheating on their wives, causing them a great deal of pain, but it clearly detailed that the reason they risked their families, their standing in the community, and even their very lives was because, despite the intolerance of their world, what they felt for each other was too strong and too deep for them to shrug off.

And the audience actually empathized with what these men were going through. They were with them on their journey every step of the way. The movie continues to be accurately described as powerfully romantic.

That little Down-Low movie was called Brokeback Mountain.

Jack and Ennis from Brokeback Mountain

Of course Brokeback was a portrayal of life on the 'Low.' What else could it possibly be, given the description above? I mean, other than it being set in a time before the term was coined, what single element would reasonably disconnect that particular story from any other story of men living on the 'Low?'

Well, Wikipedia defines Down-Low as an "African-American— "

Oh... I guess we can stop right there, can't we.

Much like listening to Victoria Jackson talk about, well…anything, talking about the Down-low is a frustrating, annoying beast.

On one hand, gay culture has primarily been defined by white gay men. And as long as gay and bi men of color continue to be shoved to the sidelines, if not rendered completely invisible, it will continue to be seen by many people as, in popular parlance, a white thing.

I have an almost allergic reaction when certain things are described as somehow white (growing up, I used to hear that things like reading or excelling in school, or being articulate were white, to which my two-word response almost always began with an F and ended with a U).

On the other hand, I completely agree with the need and desire for cultures outside of the majority to develop or retain a language and system that is uniquely their own. Like it or not, and I don't, Down-low is a part of this as it owes part of its beginnings to men of color, particularly African-American men, seeking sexual identities that existed beyond the gay-white paradigm.

Judging from the deft skills she showed off in Airplane, Barbara Billingsley would have more than been able to tell you that the "white" translation for Down-low is really just the closet. Just as complex, fraught, sometimes necessary and ultimately just as limiting as any other closet.

But judging from the reactions of the media and HIV organizations, you would have thought that the Down-Low was something to be feared, something to be loathed, something more devastating to society than hearing the words, “Rob Schneider stars in…”

I’ll never forget being in a room in mid-2000 with the Director of Education for an HIV/AIDS Organization that shall go unnamed by me. There he presented, to a group of social workers, the new threat to our lives. Dark clouds rolled in as he described black men (shudder) having unprotected sex with women (gasp), then having unprotected sex with other men (oh, the horror).

Never mind that this was not particularly new. For goodness sakes, Liza Minnelli could’ve told them all about that. But the way he described it, chock full of sinister overtones, was like he was telling a ghost story at a Boy Scouts retreat.

The social workers, eyes wide with alarm, looked to each other with that patented social worker look that says, “I disapprove, but I’m disapproving compassionately.”

When a 2002 CDC report stated that African-American women made up 64 percent of new HIV infections among women of all races, the “educated” conclusion was that the reason for this was heterosexual sex with an African-American male who was either gay or bisexual, and not telling anyone. And to the media, that meant one thing…

We were a sexual threat.

African-American men have been portrayed as sexual threats since the days of slavery. And since then, Fear of a Black Penis has never gone away. But thanks to the CDC’s guesswork, it was about to make a huge media comeback.

In her April 2004 show, “A Secret Sex World: Living on the Down-low”, Oprah Winfrey and guest J. L. King fanned the flames of “Fear the Sexual Male Negro: He might be having sex with dudes and giving you AIDS” syndrome.

J. L. King and Oprah Winfrey

This show was so problematic that I clearly remember throwing things at my television. And the print recap is still on her website.

This behavior isn't just harmful to a relationship; it can also be life-threatening to you and your partner. In 2004, AIDS was a leading cause of death for African-Americans ages 25 to 44.

"That is startling," Oprah says. "All of my alarms went off."