Despite the buzz over all the small, politically charged films this season, there is little chance of finding Truman Capote action figures at Burger King or remote-controlled "Crash" cars at Target. Yet there are a number of academics, entrepreneurs, singers and others who have turned to one such film as the tie-in for a variety of projects.
Call it Brokeback Inc. -- and everyone wants to buy shares.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday March 02, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 54 words Type of Material: Correction
"Brokeback Mountain" -- An article in Wednesday's Calendar section that looked at creative projects spinning off the film "Brokeback Mountain" said columnist Dan Savage had agreed to write an essay on the movie for a book planned by William Handley and Jesse Matz. The two associate professors have not yet asked Savage to participate.
Of course, "Brokeback Mountain" -- the multiple Oscar nominee about two cowboys in love -- is not the first film to generate a flurry of interest, but it may be the quickest to do so.
"You can find volumes written about 'Citizen Kane' or 'The Wizard of Oz.' This movie has only been out for months ... the response has been almost immediate," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y. "The Internet has opened up to anyone with a computer the opportunity to discuss and analyze in a way that used to be open to the very few who had access to publication media."
William Handley, an associate professor of English at USC, and Jesse Matz, an associate professor of English at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, agree that the story of two Wyoming ranch hands has quickly become a watershed film. They are compiling a book of essays on the movie's influence.
"There are very few films that become a cultural touchstone," said Handley, offering Ridley Scott's 1991 "Thelma & Louise" as an example. "With that, it was 'How dare they show women being violent?' At that time, it was about gender." A book on that film, "Thelma and Louise and Women in Hollywood," is due out this spring, and an anthology on the cultural influence of "King Kong" -- originally created in 1933 -- was published in November.
Handley and Matz are soliciting contributions from academics and nonacademics alike, including comedians and bloggers. Dan Savage, who writes a raw sex-advice column called Savage Love and is editor of a weekly Seattle newspaper, is one of a handful of writers who has agreed to pen an essay. The professors say they'd also like to get Annie Proulx, author of the New Yorker short story on which the film is based, to contribute.
Rob Latham, an associate professor of English and American studies at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, plans to use the original story, the screenplay and the film in an introductory course on sexuality he has been teaching for the last three years.
