News :: GLBT
Anti-Gay Church Announces Plan to Picket Ledger’s Funeralby Kilian MelloyThursday Jan 24, 2008 News of 28-year-old Heath Ledger’s untimely death shocked and saddened fans around the world, but a second tremor was felt soon afterwards with news that Ledger’s funeral would draw a protest by a Kansas-based church led by Fred Phelps, known for picketing military funerals of fallen U.S. servicemembers as a way of protesting America’s relative tolerance of homosexuality.
In October of last year, a jury ruled against Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church in the case of a lawsuit filed after Phelps’ congregants picketed at a young soldier’s funeral. The finding, which ordered the church to pay nearly eleven million dollars to the young soldier’s family, is being appealed by members of the congregation, several of whom are lawyers.
Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church congregation, consisting mainly of his extended family, evidently targeted Ledger’s funeral because Ledger starred in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, in a role now regarded as Ledger’s breakout performance.
Brokeback Mountain lost the Best Picture Oscar to the movie Crash, but director Ang Lee, who previously had directed the gay fan favorite The Wedding Banquet, took the award for Best Director.
Phelps’ church released a statement on Jan. 22 announcing the protest. The statement began, "Yes. WBC will picket this pervert’s funeral, in religious protest and warning: ’Be not deceived; God is not mocked.’"
Ledger was found dead in a Manhattan residence where he was staying. A bottle of prescription sleeping pills was reportedly found in the room. An Associated Press story quoted Mara Buxbaum, Ledger’s publicist, as calling Ledger’s death an "accident," though it was not immediately known whether the actor’s death was inadvertent or not.
Ledger reportedly had been having trouble sleeping, starting at least as long ago as his time on the set of the forthcoming Christopher Nolan movie The Dark Knight, in which Ledger played the role of The Joker, a role previously played by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s 1989 film, Batman.
While filming his next role, in the movie about singer Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, Ledger continued to feel "stressed out," as he was quoted in The New York Times as saying in an interview from last November, according to the AP story.
But it was apparently Ledger’s role as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain that the statement from Phelps’ church referenced in declaring, "Heath Ledger thought it was great fun defying God Almighty and His plain word; to wit: God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers! [sic]"
The statement continued in a similar vein, referring to the film as a "sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit," and concluding, "[God] hates all persons having anything whatsoever to do with it."
Ledger’s performance in the Ang Lee-directed film, which was based on an Annie Proulx story, garnered the young actor his sole Oscar nomination.
Gay.com issued a press release in which the site expressed sorrow at Ledger’s death and outrage at Phelps’ plans to picket the U.S. locale for the Australian-born actor’s funeral.
Said Gay.com Entertainment Editor Jenny Stewart in the release, "Our gay and lesbian readers are going above and beyond posting the typical condolences," referring to an area of the site where readers could post their own commentary.
Added Stewart, "They are expressing extremely personal accounts of how Heath Ledger’s death has affected them."
Said Stewart, "Many of them feel like they’ve lost not just Ledger, but his character, Ennis Del Mar."
Stewart went on to say, "Remember--to millions in the gay community, Brokeback Mountain was the first time they’d seen their lives reflected on the big screen."
Stewart added, "For Heath Ledger to accept the role of a gay man and play it so phenomenally well spoke volumes to millions of gays."
The release included quotes from the site’s comments area, where readers poured out their feelings of grief and anguish.
"What a loss! May our loss be Heaven’s gain. I grew up in Wyoming a few miles from where Brokeback Mountain supposedly took place, and Ennis could have been me," wrote a site member whose onscreen name was Bransonbill.
Continued Bransonbill, "I lived in fear and did what I was supposed to do--got married."
Added bransonbill, "Now I have a gay partner and Heath and Jake have become my heroes. RIP, Heath."
Another site user, identified as danny.ks, was quoted in the release as writing, "Heath’s performance in Brokeback Mountain was without a doubt the most powerful and at the same time most sensitive portrayal of a gay man’s painful search for his own identity I have ever been witnessed."
Continued danny.ks, "No matter how many times I watch the DVD, I always end up crying by the end. Thank you, Heath, for having the courage to help all of us in the gay community come to a deeper awareness of who we are."
Wrote a site user identified as drewbonsai, "The straights I know who saw [Brokeback Mountain] said it really turned them around in their views regarding the nature vs. nurture debate. It helped them to better understand what gays go through when in the closet and how profound their struggle can be."
Asked drewbonasi, "Who would choose that?"
A site user identified as Bloominman wrote in to suggest that fans show solidarity and support for Ledger and for one another in the face of Phelps’ church members’ planned protest.
Wrote Bloominman, "I think, as a symbolic gesture, everyone whether gay or straight or whatever should wear a cowboy hat on the day of his funeral. Pass this idea on to all your friends. Imagine the impact this would have. The gesture would speak volumes."
In a story published in The New York Times on Jan. 24 (www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/movies/24appr.html?hp), film critic A. O. Scott wrote of Ledger’s celebrated performance as Ennis Del Mar, "A portrait of inarticulate love and thwarted desire, Ennis is a rich, complicated character succinctly sketched in Annie Proulx’s original short story and brought to heartbreaking life by the film’s screenwriters, Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry; by its director, Ang Lee; and above all by Mr. Ledger himself."
Continued Scott’s essay, "His lifelong silence, the film suggests, is less a sign of strength than of cowardice, a crippling inability to acknowledge or communicate the truth of his own feelings."
Scott’s article went on, "What made the performance so remarkable was that Mr. Ledger, without betraying Ennis’s dignity or his reserve, was nonetheless able to convey that truth to the audience. This kind of sensitivity�" the ability to signal an inner emotional state without overtly showing it�" is what distinguishes great screen acting from movie-star posing."
Continued the essay, "The dismaying sense of loss and waste at Mr. Ledger’s death at 28 comes not only because he was so young, but also because his talent was large and as yet largely unmapped."
Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.
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