Yet, Brokeback could easily side into cultural amnesia, as did The Crying Game. After more discussion, another student came to my aid: "It was like their Brokeback Mountain." I replied that, though the films are different in many ways - lumping gays and transsexuals/-vestites together is always shifty - The Crying Game's influence on the mainstream was quite similar.
(It was highlighted in Susan Bordo's text The Male Body, required reading for my class and, I'd say, for anyone who may be reading this.) One student asked how popular Neil Jordan's film was the year of its release, and I replied - flatly, I now realize - that it became a surprise hit, thanks to controversy. More to the point, however, the “lavender scare” of the ‘50s is emblematic of the public’s perception of homosexuality as an abomination-a perception which gave helped give rise to the atmosphere of virulent homophobia in which Jack and Ennis lived.Two years ago, while teaching a freshman college writing seminar on gender issues, I discussed The Crying Game with my students. This ban led to over 5,000 firings and would have been in effect during the time of Ennis and Jack’s employment with the Forest Service, a government agency. Eisenhower signed into law Executive Order 10450, which barred “sexual perverts” from working for the government in any capacity. McCarthy and his supporters accused these “lavender lads” of being communist sympathizers who were open to blackmail.
government, which has been deemed the “Red Scare.” Less well known is the “Lavender Scare” that sought to persecute people accused of being homosexuals from working in government, schools, the military, and many other occupations. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy and lawyer Roy Cohn began a campaign to expose and expunge supposedly communist or communist-sympathetic people working in the U.S.
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