Almost two years ago, we at Narnia Dispatches thought we had written about a one-case shot of canon-becomes-fictional-video in our post, "From Our Bleacher Seats: Taylor Swift's 'This is Your Life and Filmography, Jake Gyllenhaal', AKA All Too Well". In that post, we wrote about how Taylor Swift, henceforth referred to as the customary "Shifty", based her music video for All Too Well (starring Dylan O'Brien and Sadie Sink) on Jake Gyllenhaal's filmography and several real life moments. Check that link out, you won't believe the undeniability.
Who would think that something similar could happen again? No, not recently. But thanks to a pop culture twitter account which was observing a song's release anniversary, we have now found yet another instance where some folks were "inspired" by canon. And used a song and its accompanying music video to deceive and/or manipulate their audience.
The anniversary moment?
In March 2009, Shifty released the single "Crazier" for the Disney film, "Hannah Montana the Movie". She had a cameo as a club singer, performing the soundtrack song.
Please - have a look see (this is the same 2:08 video in the tweet). It is from the official music video for Crazier.
The clip shown in PopCulture/@madsdaydream's tweet was edited (shortened), but the opening scene was already enough to make one begin to wonder to themself, "Uh oh, don't tell me...we're really going to go here again?"
As the video clip from "Hannah Montana the Movie" progressed, the coincidences were too similar.
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| Travis Brody riding in on his horse to meet Hannah |
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| Jack Twist arrives to report for his job and meets Ennis Del Mar |
Going for a ride.
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| The red truck |
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| Jack Twist's red truck in Lightning Flats |
(Remember that red shirt)
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| Woohoo, Travis Brody swinging on rope into lake |
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| Travis Brody into the water |
In Brokeback Mountain, Jack and Ennis skinny dip during their working summer together. They are shown running and leaping off of a cliff, down into the water below. Out of sensitivity for viewership, there's some "editing" in the screenshot from the movie.
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| Jack and Ennis running and jumping into the water below |
And circling back to Jack Twist in his vivid red shirt (in the red truck photo) when he came to pick up Ennis at his house, so they could go on the first of what would be numerous fishing trips.
And in the Crazier video, it does look like Travis Brody is wearing a red polo, although muted.
In the music video clip, we have her and Travis dancing.
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| Miley (Hannah) and Travis Brody |
And we had Jack Twist and Lureen Newsome in Brokeback Mountain,
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| yup, dark shirt, dark hat...check ✅ |
Actually, Ennis also danced as well - with Cassie Cartwright in a western bar.
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| Ennis and Cassie Cartwright in dancing scene |
In the Hannah Montana movie, we have Travis Brody sitting alone in a restaurant when Hannah Montana runs in, excited and happy.
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| Travis Brody waiting |
In Brokeback Mountain, Ennis is also alone, eating a slice of pie in a cafe, when Cassie Cartwright enters with a date.
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| a slumped Ennis eating a slice of pie at the cafe |
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| Cassie enters the cafe w/ her date as Ennis is eating alone inside. |
Even in the short music video, we see a glimpse of landscape in the Hannah Montana movie. The tree-covered hills of Tennessee (in a fictional town of Crowley Corners, TN) form a mountainous line against the sky.
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| Beautiful, isn't it? |
Who could ever forget the beautiful mountains of Brokeback Mountain? The scenery was endless, treetops forming a similar line against the backdrop of the mountains.
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| Brokeback Mountain |
What should also be pointed out about these undeniable parallels between Hannah Montana the Movie and Brokeback Mountain is the contrast of several of the scenes.
If one hasn't seen Brokeback Mountain, the movie has many poignant and emotionally devastating scenes. Jack Twist's dancing scene with Lureen was deceiving because while he liked Lureen very much, his heart wasn't fully present. He had already fallen in love with Ennis by the time he met her, thus the dancing scene, while they were having an enjoyable time, one knows that he would have rather been in the company of Ennis. In the Hannah Montana movie scene, both she and Travis Brody are quite happy looking.
The contrast in cafe scenes is even more stark. In Brokeback Mountain, Cassie excuses herself from her date for a moment to go say hello to Ennis. She asks where he has been and, already realizing that he would never make her happy plus Jack was the one who really made him happy, Ennis gets the message across that it was not going to work for him and Cassie. She is understandably hurt because she doesn't know the real reason (being queer and in love with Jack) for his reluctance to enter into a relationship.
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| "I don't get you, Ennis Del Mar." |
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| "I was probably no fun anyways, was I?" |
In the Hannah Montana movie scene, Hannah arrives elated into the small restaurant, jumps into the seat opposite Travis, who is equally happy to see her and presents her with a bouquet of flowers.
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| All kinds of happy |
When you look at the clips from the Crazier video/Hannah Montana the Movie, the scenes are all happy and reflective of young love. In sharp contrast, Brokeback Mountain was a tragic love story, one that has moved many a watcher to tears. Many of the scenes were dark. Many of the characters' interactions were not happy ones, due to the story line of two gay men in love during a very threatening time for LGBTQ individuals.
Let's look at the timing of the release of Hannah Montana the Movie (plus the soundtrack song Crazier) and the entertainment company that owned TV show and its characters.
Brokeback was released in 2005.
Hannah Montana the Movie was released in April 2009, but began filming in 2008. Interestingly enough, Jake had mostly finished filming Prince of Persia for Disney in 2008 and the movie would be released in May 2010.
And what happened by the end of the summer of 2010 after the release of the Prince of Persia? The brief, high-profile, fauxmance between Jake and Shifty.
And we all know bearding contracts are planned well in advance, so the question should be asked, was there a correlation between that upcoming bearding contract and Disney becoming involved with the hetero version of Brokeback Mountain.
It looks like perhaps Disney studios was concerned about Jake not being able to "shake off" his queer fans associated with Brokeback Mountain.
The subliminal parallels between the HM movie and Brokeback Mountain are undeniable.
It was as though Disney wanted to "straighten" out the Brokeback imagery before Jake would be seen on the silver screen as the leading man in their summer blockbuster movie.
And it's probably not so coincidental that Shifty would be involved with the HM project. Because Shifty was an essential part of the master plan to distance Jake from the iconic gay role of Jack Twist as well as to provide cover for the promotion of Love and Other Drugs in the Fall of 2010.
No one is going to forever remember Hannah Montana the Movie. It didn't open up personal conversations or inspire and impact people, especially those in the LGBTQ community.
And yet there it was in 2009 - the subliminal imagery to try and re-write a movie's original message about the different ways people love, and visually force it back into a "one-size-needs-to-fit-all".
Disturbing and disappointing to say the least.
pic sources: You Tube, ourculturemag, alchetron, MusicNewChannel on You Tube, josie81 You Tube,
screenmusings, LilPuddingCup on You Tube, MovieStillShotsDB, Focus Pictures, altfg
our playlist: The Wings (from Brokeback Mountain) - Gustavo Santaolalla Shane August
Melissa - The Allman Brothers Band
Brokeback Mountain Suite - The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
