"Brokeback Mountain"
Jan. 6th, 2006 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoNo, 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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
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Re: The Tire Iron
Date: 2006-01-07 10:23 am (UTC)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
Date: 2006-01-07 11:01 am (UTC)Re: The Tire Iron
Date: 2006-01-07 12:01 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2006-01-07 07:11 pm (UTC)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
Date: 2006-01-07 07:36 pm (UTC)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.