"Brokeback Mountain"

[altivo]

No, not the film, which I haven't seen and may not now, but the story on which it was based. All the talk about the film convinced me to look up the story "Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx. For those who want to see it, the story appears in her book Close Range: Wyoming Tales, originally published in 1999. It is only 30 pages long, so I assume the film adds a significant amount of detail that isn't in the original, making it as much a product of the screenwriter and director as of the original author. After putting together this analysis for a discussion with songcoyote elsewhere, I thought I might as well toss it out here for comments.

I could go on at some length about Proulx's characterizations, which may or may not be properly represented in the film. But I concluded that the whole story is missing something, at least from my viewpoint.

Ennis and Jack may have been obsessed with lust for each other, infatuated with each other, or seriously in love. As Proulx tells it, we can't be sure because she leaves out so much. I decided that she had taken a woman's eye view of male behavior and without any understanding of the depth that such a relationship could have, characterized it as a physical obsession so powerful that it overtook both men's lives.

This is of course possible. But for me, that's not a story. There was no romance, only hard desire and physical lust, even though she kept the details outside the frame at all times. In fact, the story she wrote should be perfectly satisfactory even to Fred Phelps. "Ennis and Jack were eaten up by their own lustful sin, their lives destroyed, as is god's will with fags," he would say.

Proulx manages to convey the manner in which "normal" society suppresses deviant behaviors, and the ways in which it can torture and destroy otherwise ordinary people. But she really gives us no idea whether she thinks this is a good thing or unacceptable. In what may in fact be an attempt to remain non-judgemental, she has left the door open to an interpretation of her story that is entirely condemnatory of male-male sexuality and/or affection. I was in fact reminded of the late 1970s, when the Gay and Lesbian Round Table of the American Library Society jokingly proposed giving an award for the "best homosexual death by car crash in fiction," because so many books were being published at the time in which a protagonist or his loved one died that way at the end. As it happened, I was a juror for the gay book award committee in 1978 and I read so many bleak and depressing novels that ended in loss and misery that I became seriously depressed myself for a while.

A tragedy, that's something I can understand. But it has to be a tragedy of broken hearts and shattered dreams. This story, well, I don't know what to think except that I didn't particularly care for it. Even Gordon Merrick did a better job of depicting the underlying emotions in male interaction, and that's saying something considering the dark and depressing nature of most of his novels.

By all means, see the film if you care to, but don't assume that it is a good thing merely because it mainstreams a relationship that appears to be gay. Consider the ways in which it may be interpreted, and let me know what you think.

Comments

[duncandahusky.livejournal.com]

We haven't had a chance to see the movie yet, so I kind of skipped your commentary. I'll come back later, I promise :-)

The story "Brokeback Mountain" was originally published in The New Yorker magazine, and was available online as recently as three weeks ago. Alas, it looks like TNY pulled it from the web, but like anything that was avilable once on the web, once it's out there you can usually find copies. Here's the complete text of the story (it's only 16 printed pages, by the way). Interestingly, linnaeus saw the movie then read the story, and he felt that Lee didn't really add that much to the story.

[scruff.livejournal.com]

*snigger* Bareback Mountain!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well yeah. It all takes place in the 60s or 70s. So sure.

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

Bareback Mountin', too.

[songcoyote.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in my response to the nice pony's comments (which appeared, as he said, in another discussion), go here. Note: spoilers.

I liked the movie, sad though it was. I felt that the love was there in spite of it all.

Light and laughter,
SongCoyote

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

Oh my. We actually disagree on this. This sort of thing has never happened before. I'm sorry, I can no longer be your friend.

well... no, of course that's not true. There are things I can nod in agreement too, but my feelings about them are different from yours. I'd write more now, but I'm supposed to be working or something. So... more later.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Remember that I'm really talking about the original prose story, not the film. I haven't seen the film, I don't know what they did with it different from what Proulx wrote in the first place. ;)

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

I didn't think the film deviated much from the prose. It might've put a little more color in, so to speak, because the scenery is gorgeous—and I'm talking the landscape here, not the actors. But I think even the scenes the screenplay writers added could've been added by Proulx had she been writing this as a novella instead of a short story; they're very much in keeping with the story. (Except the last scene, but there needed to be some redemption after all.)

All of which is to say, I couldn't guarantee you would come away from the movie feeling different from how you feel after reading the story.

[darkhorseman.livejournal.com]

There is an intresting parody going around that isnt worksafe "bareback mountian" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6870692684543699277
Its most wrong

Joke this brings to mind

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Three cowboys are seated around their campfire, passing the whiskey bottle.

There is a pause in the conversation and then the first cowboy says, "I had sex with a cow once."

After some nervous laughter the second cowboy says, "Well... I had sex with a ewe."

More nervous laughter.

Finally the third coboy pipes up with, "I had sex with a horse."

After a long pause the first cowboy goes, "Well, was it a female horse?"

Instant response from the third cowboy, "Of course a female horse, what do you think I am, queer?"

Re: Joke this brings to mind

[altivo.livejournal.com]

LOL. Naughty Horsey. ;p

The somewhat longer less flip reply

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

I noted the same stark lack of detail when I read the story too. A lot is left open to interpretation. I took it as just the way Proulx wanted to tell the story; she's not trying to advocate for any sides, just to show. This is consistent through the stories in Close Range: Wyoming Stories, though I can't say if this is the way all her writings go, since I haven't read anything else by her (not even The Shipping News, the one she won the Pulitzer for).

This lack of detail in the relationship between Jack and Ennis was OK to me, because I didn't see Jack and Ennis as the sort of people who could put together a "real" gay relationship. There was no model for such a thing in their lives, something that gets pointed out a couple of times in the movie. Ennis tells how barren of love and tenderness his upbringing was at the beginning, and later one sees how Jack's was almost equally barren. Sure, there were other options in the world at large, but not in Jack and Ennis's worlds, and you can't take options you don't know exist. One can speculate that perhaps Jack was getting wind of the other options by the 1980s, because he gets the courage to try to push the relationship a little harder. But that's only speculation. For Jack and Ennis, and the people around them, the "revolution" that happened in the late sixties and seventies might just as well have happened on the moon.

Is this all believeable? I don't know that I can state so authoritatively. I drive through western states and think "My this is pretty," but I haven't tried to live there. I do think that in the parts of the country that most city people don't think about, it is believeable. The striking thing to me, historically, is that Matthew Shepard was killed, in Wyoming, one year after Proulx's story was published. While TV shows us happy gay and lesbian lives on Will and Grace and Queer Like Folk, there are gays and lesbians whose very right to live is challenged. Even if Proulx isn't explicitly stating that it's wrong for things to be this way, we can make the inferences, and maybe all the straight people who are seeing the film and crying afterward will draw the conclusions that will eventually make it easier for gay people to live our lives.

Re: The somewhat longer less flip reply

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Everything you have to say here is perfectly valid. I agree that Proulx's style is probably intended to fit the landscape and setting as well as the characters she imagined.

What I wrote here is a very personal reaction. From what everyone was saying about the film, I expected a moving story that might evoke tears or joy. For me it didn't. Instead it produced a deep-seated and long quiescent anger, the one that once pushed me into the streets to march in protests and parades, to lead rallies, to sit on panels and appear on local television programs to field innumerable stupid and bigoted questions from an ignorant audience. That was all happening in the same time period covered by Proulx's story.

I felt a little sympathy for Jack, and none for Ennis. What may be perceived as backbone in "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it" was only a lack of backbone to me. I stood up to and survived the hate and prejudice of that era, and in at least some ways things are better now because of what many of us did then. That neither of these characters could even bring himself to say to the other "I love you" or just "I need you" doesn't produce sympathy in me at all. They couldn't even admit the truth to each other, it seemed.

I hope you and other reviewers are right that this film will open some eyes in the non-gay community, but I see equal risk that it will merely offend and cause many to turn their faces away from fairness and equal treatment, precisely because it fails to be explicit enough about the context and the reason for the constraint and failure in the relationship.

I will see it, but probably not in the theatre. I can turn off a DVD if it makes me too angry, and no one will be upset other than myself. Walking out of the theatre is open to misinterpretation that I don't want to permit.

The flawed film A Very Natural Thing (New Line, 1974, directed and written by Christopher Larkin) was more suited to my idea of what straight audiences need to see than anything I can imagine made from Proulx's story could possibly be. At least Larkin makes it clear to even the most thick headed viewer that some gay men are feeling genuine love and need rather than just physical lust for their partners.

Sorry for the rant. I just believe that Proulx's story is at best a period piece that needs lots of explanation of its social and historical context before it can be understood adequately. It won't be getting that from this kind of presentation.

The Tire Iron

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading the story. I don't know - I had no problem at all seeing the love between those two men. It was a deep love, a meaningful love, a transcendent love, and tragically, a love that could never be ultimately fulfilled. The dreams that could never be, the yearning, the longing, the closeness of souls across great distances, both physical and societal. I thought it was beautifully written. I wept at the end. I knew it was the tire iron, too...

Re: The Tire Iron

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh it was the tire iron all right. In Texas, even today, you could count on it.

It is indeed a very sad story. But as I just explained to Charlie above, it made me angry more than anything else. I'm afraid that for general audiences, it is subject to serious misinterpretation unless the context is adequately explained somehow, and I don't see that being done in a film presentation of this type.

My reaction is a personal one, and grows out of my own experiences of that time period. I know that you are old enough to have some similar memories, but if I recall correctly, you've always lived in California, which is a rather different social climate from the barren west or agricultural midwest. Its not surprising that we should see it from different angles. Probably both viewpoints are valid when given a context.

Re: The Tire Iron

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

*smiles* California isn't a monoculture. The county I live in is almost entirely rural; the main industries are silviculture and agriculture - dairy cattle and sheep, mostly. My first best friend here was a cowboy, and my first next door neighbor was a stud ram. (No, he wasn't friendly.;) Being gay isn't difficult here, as long as you live in Arcata (the college town). Everywhere else, well, you'd best be closeted or very discreet. I'm in a much worse place, personally - I'm a zoosexual and plush animal fetishist. Gays have it alot easier than me. At least homosexuality carries with it some degree of familiarity, if not societal acceptance. I don't have a prayer of that happening for the likes of me...

Re: The Tire Iron

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm well aware that California is no monoculture. :) It's much too big for that, and so much of it is ranch and farm or desert. Even so, you'd have to go back to the 30s or 40s in order to equate most parts of the state to Texas or Wyoming even in the 70s.

On the subject of zoophilia, I often point out Kinsey's statistics from the 1940s. While it isn't discussed a lot, it is more familiar than you think. Kinsey reported that the majority (about 60% I think it was) of males who grew up in rural areas had sexual experiences with animals. And that would be just a figure for those who were willing to admit it. It may be ostracized and kept hushed up, but it's far from rare. ;)

Plushies, well there I have no idea. Even though I've been an avid collector and cuddler all my life, that's as far as it went. And it has only been in the last couple of years that I was even aware that for some people it goes so much farther. I think that may be completely off the radar for most people, and especially the less imaginative ones.

Re: The Tire Iron

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

you'd have to go back to the 30s or 40s in order to equate most parts of the state to Texas or Wyoming even in the 70s

I'm not quite sure what that means. *shrugs* Anyway...

Re: Kinsey, if I recall correctly, his statistics were on bestiality. I've never had intercourse with an animal, nor has any animal had intercourse with me. I guess a better word for me is 'zooerotic'. I find certain animals to be exquisitely sexy, and my imagination takes it from there. (This is my common ground with furries.) And I guess technically I qualify as a 'zoophile', too, tho I dislike the term for its definitional ambiguity. Animals have always been the center of my personal universe, from the sacred to the profane. I have always preferred the company of animals to that of people, too. And I certainly understand animals better than I do humans. I don't think I'll ever figure people out...

Anyway, guess I chose the wrong word when I said 'familiarity', as well. I can't really think of a good word to describe what I meant, so I'll just give an example. Even if people don't like the idea of homosexuality, they can at least see some humanity in it. Almost nobody would have any sympathy for Jack or Ennis if their passion were directed toward their sheep, instead of toward each other...

Re: The Tire Iron

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually I think I understood what you meant pretty closely. I didn't mean to equate bestiality with zoophilia or zooeroticism, though I do think the lines between those are blurry at best. I simply meant that the idea is not as alien as most of my zoophile friends think it is, nor is it as rare. Yes, the hard nosed norms and church types will abhor it, but the truth is they still abhor homosexuality as well. Society, though, as a whole, tolerates both quite well as long as they aren't practiced too publicly. And that's why there is so much fuss about gays again, over the marriage issue.

Had Jack and Ennis directed their interests toward the ewes, well, there wouldn't have been a story. At least not one that most people could understand at all. Frankly, though, even as the story stands I'm not sure they'll get much sympathy. They only got a limited amount even from me, as I said above.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Since I live in a house filled with fundimentilsts I'll maybe
see this on my own. Or probably not because its become the
di rigeur "gay film of the year!" for awards to stick it to
the blue states. I will, however, quietly read the book.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Do read the book. As a writer yourself, I know you'll find it interesting. Proulx's writing is stark and almost Hemingwayesque, but she is good at what she does. She tells a good story, whether you like the story or not. And since the title on the book is NOT "Brokeback Mountain" no one in your fundamentalist household need know what you are reading. ;P

Close Range: Wyoming Tales by Annie Proulx.

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

I've read the story a second time and ruminated over it (ungulates know the benefits of slow digestion;), and it occurs to me that the first time through, I totally misinterpreted what the story is really about. You came close when you said it was:

"...a relationship that appears to be gay."

You see, this is not a story about gay cowboys, or even about homosexuality itself. It is simply a story about two men who fell in love with each other, and quite helplessly so...

It was a truthing when Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack said "Me neither." Neither of them were sexually attracted to men, were they? They were only attracted to each other. When you think about it, this makes the story much more complex. There's no solace for such a relationship in their cultural milieu, and no solace in the knowledge that millions of gay men live together happily. Jack insistently tries to suggest ways they can work things out, even going to Mexico, but in the end, you know that there is nowhere these two can be together and live in peace.

In that sense, this story is a genuine tragedy. There was no possible happy ending. Realizing this, the second time through, I cried as anguished a cry as I've cried in years. It is a desperately sad story. I hope that the film conveys even half the power of the prose. If it does, I shall be more than satisfied...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can read it that way too. Though I don't give a lot of significance to those statements about "I'm not queer." They are a denial of identification with whatever the speaker thinks "queer" means, and have nothing to do with what he feels because that isn't how the term is usually defined.

In fact the entire self-recognition process that most of us "non-normal" types go through involves that sort of denial. For many years I was neither gay nor straight because neither offered an identity that I thought fit or that I could accept. I know now that I'm not that unique, however. And I don't feel that Ennis and Jack were unique either, at least not in that respect. It doesn't devalue their feeling that they were somehow the only ones in the universe, because from their perspective they were.

[plushlover.livejournal.com]

Well, I saw the movie last night. In the screenplay, Jack is unquestionably gay, and he's actively on-the-prowl for Ennis from the get-go. To me, this turned the film into something not-quite-so-special. But there is definitely love between them as they become older. So you might like the film after all. The cinematography is quite nice, as well. And there's SHEEEEEEEPS! Lots'n'lots of 'em. Definitely a plus for me. :-)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, that's certainly a departure from Proulx.

Yeah, that wouldn't seem special to me either. I think my enthusiasm for the whole thing has been considerably dampened.

Sheeps. Well, sometimes cute, sometimes just a smelly nuisance. But I can see 'em by stepping out the back door here, or if I want more by going over to the neighbor's place around the corner. I feel about lambs the way I feel about kittens. They're adorable, but they grow up to be SHEEP. ;P

Other than wool and cuteness factor, they have limited value to me personally. Oh, I don't mean to belittle their self-worth or right to exist. But most people see them as lamb chops on the hoof, and even when I'm in the mood to eat meat, lamb or mutton is never acceptable. Ack.