As the second to last installment in its 100th anniversary film series, The Athena Cinema is playing Brokeback Mountain, a film that featured “primary LGBT characters” and helped “effect change in society.”
The first same-sex Hollywood romance to hit the mainstream, according to Alexandra Kamody, the operations director of The Athena Cinema, will play at the uptown theater for one night only.
As part of the theater’s 100th anniversary film series, Brokeback Mountain will play at the Athena on Saturday at 3 p.m. It’s the second to last film being shown in the series that is meant to illustrate the long and changing past of cinematography.
It is also Brokeback Mountain’s 10th anniversary, making the screening more fitting, Kamody said in an email. The film is about a secret relationship between ranch-hands — played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal — and their lives throughout 20 years.
“We were looking for iconic films to program for our 100th anniversary series, and we felt that this film embodied the concept that film can effect real change in our society” Kamody said in an email.
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Brokeback Mountain was also important to those who identify as LGBT, according to delfin bautista, the director of the Ohio University LGBT Center.
“(The film) sends a message that LGBT are welcome, and it features us as primary characters, not just the funny secondary character,” bautista, who uses they/them pronouns and uses the lowercase spelling of their name, said.
Because the film had prominent LGBT characters, audiences could understand those characters complexly and become more receptive to seeing them in later films, bautista said.
“The film stands as a reminder that Hollywood depictions can help shape our culture, effect change in our society and impact individual lives” Kamody said in an email.
Brokeback Mountain often depicts the challenges same-sex couples faced in the ‘60s and through to the ‘80s when they faced less acceptance.
“The film is a powerful reminder of work we still have left,” bautista said. “There are violent narratives that are still relative.”
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