GENE SHALIT ALIVE, AND BACK PEDALING
Brokeback Mountain, which has been the object of such affection for so long, recently experienced its first growing pains of controversy. First the Megaplex at Jordan Commons in Sandy, Utah (a suburb of Salt Lake City), suddenly declined to screen the film. Now Gene Shalit (the film critic and his moustache) have issued an apology over comments made during his review of the film on The Today Show. In his 5 January review, Shalit called the character of Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) “a sexual predator” who “tracks Ennis [Heath Ledger] down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts.” The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) rightly took exception to Mr. Shalit’s perverse choice of words, and demanded an apology. On January 10, GLAAD received a sort of letter of apology, in which he explains, “I certainly had no intention of casting aspersions on anyone in the gay community or on the community itself.” ( I guess he got someone to look up the phrase “sexual predator” for him.)
While Shalit was backtracking on his comments, Shalit’s gay son Peter went on the offensive, writing a letter to GLAAD (reprinted in advocate.com, in which upbraided the organization for their snap — or maybe three snaps — judgment: “I am hurt by your mischaracterization of my father, a man who does not have a molecule of hate in his being. It does not speak well for GLAAD, and it is not helping our community.” The end result of all this? A responder to the story on Defamer asked, “You mean Gene Shalit’s still alive?”
