She's always been wiser than me. Her response to the movie was not to see the gay versus straight issue at all - but to see rather the plight of stunted maleness, of emotionally shut-down masculinity, gay and straight, that is a form of fear and a lack of courage. Her emailed stream of consciousness:
"Went to see Brokeback with Grace last night: moving, sad, enlightening and encouraging for us married hetros. My first words to Grace at the end of the film, 'Well at least we now know they are as uncommunicative with each other in love as the straight guys are with us girls.' She laughed! Enlightening in that all that male aggression is taken out on each other, the references to their fathers and how distant they were from them, the very sweet, sad mum at the end smuggling the ashes out to him with the shirts, her innate understanding, the father's too but his clear intention not to admit it, achingly sad for the wives and children but mostly gut-wrenching for the turmoil in those men, the shutdowness of such a big part of themselves that shut down so much else with it, a life half lived. I think we have moved on in some places, in some societies. The more people see it, the more, little by little, it might change."
Here's hoping.