Gay cowboys threaten Wyoming [View All]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/09/wfilm09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/09/ixportal.html

A film about homosexual cowboys starring two of Hollywood's most popular sex symbols threatens to distort Wyoming's macho identity, traditionalists say.

Brokeback Mountain, based on a short story by E Annie Proulx, pairs Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as a cowboy and ranch hand fighting their secret desire for one another in the 1960s. The film, directed by Oscar-winning Ang Lee, won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival this year and is already talked of as an Oscar contender.

But some residents in America's least populated state, home to only 500,000 people and famous for its ranchers, cattle and prairies, say the film, subtitled "Love is a force of nature", does the state a disservice.

Sandy Dixon, a playwright and lifelong Wyoming resident, told the Casper Star-Tribune that she had never encountered a homosexual cowboy and said those who knew "real cowboys "would dismiss the story as "hogwash".