Despite winning the Globe and Oscars, Brokeback Mountain has had some resistance in the Caribbean. The movie follows two cowboys as they embark on a long and complicated love affair set amongst the backdrop of conservative America. It has won two top awards a Globe for Best Drama and an Oscar for Director Ang Lee. Although Lee said the film tackles how gay men and women have found love denied to them by society, the warm welcome in some Caribbean has been more than cold.

Brokeback Mountain’s tale of closeted gay love has sparked widespread controversy in a country where homosexuality is still illegal. The Jamaican Cinematograph Authority yesterday passed the film for release and it is now playing at two cinemas on the island. It has been claimed that the fact that Palace Amusement has taken the decision to air this film indicates the new low to which the morals and principles in Jamaica have been reduced.

“I’m very distressed about it,” said Major Neil Lewis of the Family Life Ministries. “We are allowing Hollywood to swamp us with the wrong things. It is dragging us down into the maelstrom of immorality.” According to Elder Allan Russell of the Emmanuel Apostolic Church, Lee’s film is an attempt to “indoctrinate the world to a most sinful act.” He called for it to be banned “before any further damage can be done to the minds of our young people.”

However the Marketing manager of Palace Melanie Graham said, “I think that we are living in an open society, no one is being forced to see it.” There has been talks of boycotting the cinemas as some citizens claim that Palace Amusement is forgetting that they have a social responsibility to the public and more earnestly, to the children that will become the leaders of tomorrow.
Bahamas also banned the film as the Bahamian Plays and Films Control Board ruled the film should not be shown because it features “extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity”. The Rainbow Alliance called it “a farce” that a small group of people should try to “provide the moral compass for the entire country”. It has also failed to reach the cinemas in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Sunday Guardian received information that the movie has been banned from being shown in T&T; but contacted yesterday; staff at the major cinemas in T&T said they could not confirm this. Asked when they expect the movie to be shown in T&T, all said they did not know. In Trinidad and Tobago, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has spoken out against the Draft National Gender Policy which proposed reform of the laws to give equal rights to gays and lesbians.

However, this controversy seems to stretch beyond the Caribbean Sea. The film has also been effectively banned in China. The government there refused to put it on a list of approved foreign films to be shown in Chinese cinemas, preventing it being shown in public. Singapore also passed the film for release, despite the island republic’s stringent homosexuality laws.