The British series made you care about the characters and their fates. The American one didn’t, at least in the few first-season episodes I saw.

The creator of QAF in Britain is now the producer/head writer of the new Dr. Who series–and the spinoff “Torchwood.” One of the delightful things about Torchwood is that the whole Torchwood crew is bisexual and that, within the world of the story, no one seems to find this remarkable.

Richard Cohen will never mention Torchwood in his books–and not just because it’s British TV, but because it will not fit in his worldview. Here is a world, very like our own, where people face tremendous life-threatening problems, and have relationship issues, but why you’re attracted to a guy this week and a girl the next isn’t worth thinking about, much less defining one as normal and the other as pathological and then trying to root out the pathology.

And in this world, while you might get distressed over a co-worker who fancies you–or who doesn’t fancy you but fancies someone else, or who fancies you AND someone else and you don’t know whether you or your competitor will win (and aren’t even sure if you want to win), the gender of who fancies who just isn’t an issue.

And what scares Cohen and all the rest of them is that in some places, this worldview is already real (visit Travis Oliver’s MySpace page and read the blog entry “Metrosexual Etiquette,” and you’ll see what I mean), and they’re just afraid it will spread.

Later, I used to go to a bar in West Hollywood to watch it every Sunday, just as a way to hang out with my friends. Almost all of us agreed that the writing was atrociously bad, and that the series didn’t represent anything close to our lives, but at least we were guaranteed a few laughs.

During the series’ run, I met one of the series’ writers, and when I learned he wrote for QAF, I said, “Don’t get me started.” He raised his hands and said, “I know… I know. Don’t blame me… Ron and Daniel rewrite every script, for better or for worse.” I said, “Mostly for worse,” and he laughed. Even *he* knew the writing was awful, but hey, it was a paycheck.

Plus, QAF was on pay cable, so of course it was going to push the envelope in terms of what it could show, sexually and otherwise.

QAF *is* a wonderful unintentional comedy series, though.

For what it is worth, I saw Brokeback Mountain twice. I also read the short story it was based upon, and parts of the film-script (I had it with me while watching Brokeback for the second time because I was having trouble understanding Ennis’s mumble).

I can see that you aren’t going to agree with me about this. I don’t want to get into a long argument about it. I don’t think Brokeback is necessarily similar to films about Anne Frank, or to most stories that happen not to have happy endings. It’s its own thing.

I won’t repeat points I’ve already made, but I’ll note a couple of other things about Brokeback Mountain. One is that Ennis and Jack both have hostile, rejecting fathers, and we all know what that’s supposed to mean, don’t we? Warren Throckmorton certainly does:

http://www.narth.com/docs/brokeback2.html

Finally, is there any special reason why Jack’s murder happens right at the beginning of 1980s, just as the AIDS epidemic was starting? It’s difficult to see why Jack has to get murdered then, rather than at some point during the 1970s, unless they’re trying to send us a message. Whatever message that may be, it’s a troubling one.

2. 20 Centimeters. Now HERE is out, brazen transexuality. The main character dumps her stunningly gorgeous new boyfriend–in part because he has no manners, no ambition and lives at home with his parents, and in part because he’s far to enamored of the one part of her body she’s trying to raise enough money to have removed. Despite financial problems, heartbreak, and being forced to live on the edges (and hustling to get by), the main character’s belief in herself as a woman carries the day and emblazons the movie with infectious spirit.

I didn’t much like Mambo Italiano. It was poorly written and played too heavily on stereotypes.

Nonetheless, it certainly wasn’t an advertisement for the success of the ex-gay industry. Perhaps you failed to notice that Nino went on “camping trips” with his “buddy” during his happily ever after marriage. It was pretty clear that the audience was supposed to recognize that Nino did not rid himself of his attractions but instead was behaving stealthily.