Sophisticated and politically correct

I started to answer Worried American's comment with a comment of my own and then decided to answer her here.

"Worried", you would have to read the letter in context. It's as if he put sophisticated and politically correct in quotes.

Trust me on this, neither term was meant as a complement.

Funny thing is I'm always getting in trouble for not being p.c. enough. I can't keep up with the terminology and I think some things get a little silly.

The fundamentalists are always coming up with new ways to describe us. While I, personally, would prefer the word "progressive", I've decided to make their descriptions my own and remove a little of the sting. Therefore I'm a woolly headed, pinko, flaming liberal who should go back to San Francisco where I came from with my fellow commies.

Sophisticated is a different thing entirely. It did have me rolling on the floor laughing. I'm much closer to the lower end of the economic spectrum than the upper and I read with fascination the doings of the "sophisticated" folk here.

On second thought, here's the letter. Brokeback Mountain opened here on Friday so he must be gnashing his teeth by now.

I'll save my comments on his glorification of John Wayne movies for another rant.


Delivery of The Sun-Star

Film shouldn't show here

Last Updated: January 26, 2006, 07:30:33 AM PST

Editor: After reading the sophisticated and entirely politically correct Ann Adams' letter to the editor regarding "Brokeback Mountain," I could not help but respond in brief. The reason this movie is not showing in Merced is because it wouldn't sell here.

Hollywood has sought to reshape the political landscape and push its leftist opinions on the masses in the package of film for years. Anytime a filmmaker produces a new diatribe that pushes the envelope a little further on morality and takes a jab at traditional values, the inner circle of Hollywood pat each other on the back, go on and on in the media about what a brave leap the director took, and predictably rake in the Golden Globes and Oscars. I have come to discover in recent years that the films that usually do the best at the Academy Awards are often not those that the public loved or found value in, but rather the pictures that were the most risque and presented a bold liberal agenda the most effectively. How many times have I heard people say that they were so disappointed in the movie that just won best picture? More than just a few.

Which brings us to why "Brokeback Mountain" is not playing in Merced County. Bearing only the credentials that Hollywood has proclaimed a movie to be bold and praiseworthy is not enough for us. We don't take Hollywood's word for it. Homophobic? The literal translation would be "fear of homosexuals/homosexuality." I don't think I would choose not to see "Brokeback Mountain" out of a fear of homosexuals. Let me explain why I would not and why the theater owners believe a majority of Mercedians would not want to spend their hard-earned cash in support of this film.

There are too many people here like myself who want to preserve the sacred symbol of the cowboy and everything he has meant for the past 200 years in America. The cowboy is chivalrous and masculine. John Wayne and Roy Rogers wouldn't have left their wives for a love affair with the Lone Ranger. This movie is a twisted distortion of a classic and traditional film genre made with a political agenda at its core. I feel safe in saying that the minority who want to see movies such as this showcased in Merced will have to wait for a long time. There are too many in Merced who want to take back the cowboy from Hollywood and are applauding the fact that the movie theaters have chosen not to show it.

In closing, I will leave you with the words my good friend heard spoken recently by an old leathery skinned cowboy in west Texas: "In all my years, I ain't never seen or heard of a gay cowboy!"