All over the world, imprisoned criminals have a few things that
really brighten their day. Some of those things include receiving daily mail from socially stunted women who want to marry them, and trading in a week's worth of license plate banging money for half a pack of cigarettes at the prison commissary.
Another one of those things is prison movie night. It's a big to-do in most prison systems. It's an important enough social event to break out their uniforms with the crispest stripes, and polish the lead ball that's permanently attached to their ankles.
They may have even been able to watch the multi-awardwinning Brokeback Mountain, had its theme been a bit more prison-gay. But it was just
regular gay, so they can't. It's relieving to see one place still has morals.
A Massachusetts prison guard showed the movie Brokeback Mountain to inmates on their movie night. He was probably doing it at the prisoners' many requests, who just wanted something to talk about while
bum rubbin' the skinny guys.
A deputy supervisor came into the room just as the film was ending, and was surprised to find out that the officer running the show had not cleared the film through the proper channels. The clearance procedure is in place to ensure the films shown don't depict excessive violence, assaults on correctional staff, nudity, explicit sexual
content, or too many rainbows. We added the rainbows part. Since there was only 20 minutes left when the supervisor walked in, the show was allowed to finish. Plus the he may have wanted to see if Gyllenhaal & Ledger would ever be able to quit each other. A spokeswoman said of the incident:
“I want to make it clear, it wasn’t the subject matter – it was the graphic nature of the sexually explicit
scenes.”
And she's right there, too. Gay subject matter is not taboo in most prison systems, it's shower fodder – we saw American History X. What is taboo is squealing. Prison really hates squealers.
At least that's what we surmised when our parents kept enrolling us in the Scared Straight program. The third time we swore off stealing, but it was too late – we'd aged out.
hecklerspray, having empathy unending, is concerned for the welfare of these unfortunate prison bound dregs. How, exactly, are the inmates supposed to put on the live Brokeback reenactment in the cafeteria if they can't transcribe a script? They'd been planning it for
several half hours! White Power Bill was all set to play Gyllenhaal, and there was still open casting for Ledger, but it seemed to be leaning towards a particularly boorish looking counterfeiter. Everyone else was gonna be a sheep.
Oh well, it's the guards loss, right? Looks like the warden is gonna have to eat his birthday meatloaf while staring at the boring ol' wall. Thanks a bunch, deputy supervisor. Thanks a whole stinking bunch.
Read more:
Brokeback screening leaves prison officer in hot water – CNN
[story by Shawn Lindseth]