Author Topic: what's the point of the job switch?  (Read 57835 times)

Offline starboardlight

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #70 on: May 03, 2006, 07:29:08 pm »
Starboardlight,

It's been a while since I had time to sit down and watch the DVD, so my memory of the staging of that scene in the film is hazy and I won't address the film's treatment of the conversation. If, however, you are just referring to the Annie Proulx original, then I'm afraid you have it backwards.

Here's the paragragph from the story:

"The horses nickered in the darkness beyond the fire's circle of light. Ennis put his arm around Jack, pulled him close, said he saw his girls about once a month, Alma Jr. a shy seventeen-year-old with his beanpole length, Francine a little live wire. Jack slid his cold hand between Ennis's legs, said he was worried about his boy who was, no doubt about it, dyslexic or something, couldn't get anything right, fifteen years old and couldn't hardly read, he could see it though goddamn Lureen wouldn't admit to it and pretended the kid was o.k., refused to get any bitchin kind a help about it. He didn't know what the fuck the answer was. Lureen had the money and called the shots." [Boldface added by me.]

If Jack is doing anything here besides trying to warm his hand between Ennis's thighs, then he's trying to get Ennis hard so that Ennis can fuck him. Two paragraphs later we are told "they rolled down into the dirt." So in the original story anyway, I believe this passage actually tends to support my interpretation.

But thanks for reminding me of it!


whoops. i stand corrected.  ;) i'm glad you went back and checked the text. i should have done the same. it was so vivid in my mind that it was Ennis's hand.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #71 on: May 03, 2006, 09:49:17 pm »
Hi, Starboardlight,

Quote
whoops. i stand corrected.   i'm glad you went back and checked the text. i should have done the same. it was so vivid in my mind that it was Ennis's hand.

I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. That wasn't my intention. But I thought the point was important enough to the discussion to go back to the text and check.

And I understand how vivid these impressions can be. Once I was absolutely certain that Ennis said, "I'm sorry," in the Second Tent Scene!  :)

Jeff
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline starboardlight

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #72 on: May 05, 2006, 09:06:09 pm »
Hi, Starboardlight,

I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. That wasn't my intention. But I thought the point was important enough to the discussion to go back to the text and check.

And I understand how vivid these impressions can be. Once I was absolutely certain that Ennis said, "I'm sorry," in the Second Tent Scene!  :)

Jeff

nah, no worries. i embarrassed myself by not checking the text. i'm glad you did.
"To do is to be." Socrates. - "To be is to do." Plato. - "Do be do be do" Sinatra.

Offline mlewisusc

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #73 on: May 08, 2006, 02:21:45 am »
Posting for easy location later - but one thing to say: Ennis's "Boys like you" comment tend to support Jeff's interpretation about the kind of activity Ennis and Jack engaged in during their relationship.  Ennis sees himself as different from Jack because he "delivers" and Jack "receives" which makes Jack "queer" in Ennis's distorted view. 
"Good enough place" - Ennis del Mar

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #74 on: May 08, 2006, 08:24:50 am »
Posting for easy location later - but one thing to say: Ennis's "Boys like you" comment tend to support Jeff's interpretation about the kind of activity Ennis and Jack engaged in during their relationship.  Ennis sees himself as different from Jack because he "delivers" and Jack "receives" which makes Jack "queer" in Ennis's distorted view. 

To me, that seems too specific an interpretation of an open-ended remark. It assumes more knowledge of Ennis' viewpoint than I feel like I have.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #75 on: May 08, 2006, 09:46:46 am »
To me, that seems too specific an interpretation of an open-ended remark. It assumes more knowledge of Ennis' viewpoint than I feel like I have.

I really ought to let Mark argue this one with you, Katherine ( ;) ), but I hope you might come back and explain a bit more about what you mean by "It assumes more knowledge of Ennis's viewpoint." I'm not clear on your meaning here.

I haven't found Ennis's comment to be open-ended at all. On the contrary, to me it's very specific, in light of my understanding, from interpreting the evidence as I see it. Of course we don't know specifically what Ennis has heard that they have in Mexico for "boys" like Jack. But my interpretation is that Ennis knows that Jack likes to get fucked (because that's what he and Jack do), and he's heard that "boys like Jack" can get fucked in Mexico. And calling Jack a "boy" is a definite disparagement in this context, coming out of Ennis's anger. Jack is a "boy" because getting fucked is for "boys"--not men--and Jack likes to get fucked.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #76 on: May 08, 2006, 12:05:23 pm »
Well, this is either the exact thing or pretty close to the thing that you and I have argued about before, Jeff. And as I recall, I lost the last time. But what the hell, I'm always up for an argument.

I do agree with this:

And calling Jack a "boy" is a definite disparagement in this context, coming out of Ennis's anger.

Ennis is angry, and "boy" is disparaging, and "boys like you" (as opposed to "us") can be read as distinguishing Jack from Ennis in some way.

But I am still reluctant to go along with the idea that Ennis is consciously speaking in code, that boy and man refer to sexual positions, that Ennis equates receiving with queerness but does not attach a stigma to delivering. Of course you know much more about gay culture than I do, and if someone you know in real life said something like that perhaps the meaning would be clear to everybody. But you also know much more about it than Ennis does. He knows basically nothing outside of his private experiences with Jack (that he even has heard what they have in Mexico stretches credulity a bit).

Jeff, I remember your pointing out the larger, male-culture stigma about "receiving," and I get that. But if you ask me, Ennis considers himself to have crossed a pretty big line from the get-go. If he's willing to go there, who knows what else he might do. Or at least think. So what Ennis thinks about their relationship, to what extent he considers his and Jack's sexuality different -- all those issues are hazier to me than they are to you guys. Partly for the obvious reasons, I guess, but also partly because you're making what I consider an interpretive leap. In my mind, Ennis is sort of feeling his way along in the relationship, not being guided by any external norms but just by whatever unfolds between them, trying not to think too much about what it all implies.

Also, if I understand correctly, your interpretation suggests that Ennis feels a certain amount of contempt for Jack (Jack is a "boy," Ennis is a "man," Jack is "queer," Ennis prides himself on not being), and aside from this one remark I see no other sign anywhere in the movie that he does.

Now I steel myself for the reply that I couldn't possibly know anything about this. And it's true that my knowledge is inevitably limited. But Jeff, I also think your interpretation is colored by the way you see the whole scene (Mark, I don't know how you feel about this): that Ennis' breakdown is triggered by having to confront the truth about his sexuality. In that context, your reading of that line makes sense; Ennis' threat is a desperate attempt to separate himself from Jack in that respect. And I'm not saying that interpretation is "wrong" -- obviously it works for you.

But if you see the scene the way I do, which is that Ennis breaks down because he's afraid of losing Jack and can no longer stand the strain their relationship puts on him, then the Mexico remark becomes less significant. It's Ennis lashing angrily out at Jack because that's what Ennis does when he gets upset. And also to deflect the blame for canceling the August trip.

Sorry to yammer on. I told myself a few days ago I was going to start keeping my posts more brief, and until now I was doing pretty well with it.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #77 on: May 08, 2006, 01:05:03 pm »
Hey, Katherine,

Well, we have beaten a lot of this at least to a stand-still if not to death, and I'm not going to rehearse that again. I certainly did't consider that I had "won" and you had "lost" anything, just that we had expressed our respective opinions to the stand-still and had to agree to disagree because we're both sticking to our stories.

There certainly is contempt in the "boys like you" comment, but Ennis is clearly very angry, I don't for a minute believe he's really contemptuous of Jack, but it's quite possible that in his anger he's projecting some of his own internally-homophobic self-contempt onto poor Jack.

Quote
(that he even has heard what they have in Mexico stretches credulity a bit).

Well, but nevertheless he has heard it. We have to accept it because it's a given of the plot. I personally don't find it a "credulity-stretcher" because men do talk, make off-color jokes--and reinforce their own self-concept as "straight" by all kinds of homophobic jokes and remarks. Ennis has lived his whole life among the aggressive macho types who do this sort of thing. It's immature in my way of thinking, but then I'm an overly educated effete urban Northeastern homosexual.  ;D What stretches my credulity is that Jack's passion could endure twenty years the way it does (see my comments on the "Would you have lasted 20 years" thread), but that's another given of the plot, that it has.

Of course I'm making "an interpretive leap," but don't you think we all are, that anyone who even bothers trying to interpret this movie takes a leap of some kind at some point? The question is just where or over what issues we take the leap. You and I just take different leaps.

Quote
But if you see the scene the way I do, which is that Ennis breaks down because he's afraid of losing Jack and can no longer stand the strain their relationship puts on him, then the Mexico remark becomes less significant. It's Ennis lashing angrily out at Jack because that's what Ennis does when he gets upset. And also to deflect the blame for canceling the August trip.

I think I have said elsewhere that I don't dispute or disagree with these points--at least, I tried to convey that somewhere further up the line here. I just see this whole confrontation, and what is going on inside Ennis, as more complex than you do. Yes, he's afraid of losing Jack and yes, he can't stand the strain any longer, but that's not all that's going on here. But I think I've said all I have to say on that subject. This is where we take the different leaps. You clearly see what is going on inside Ennis in this scene as simpler than I do.

Oddly enough, perhaps, I could buy into your intrepretation here with respect to the Ennis of the original story, who clearly is more in touch with his feelings, more self-aware, than the Ennis we are presented with in the film--at least as I see it.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #78 on: May 08, 2006, 01:43:20 pm »
Jeff, I agree with most of what you said here. And it's true we will never come to a concensus, but oh well. I still enjoy debating. Don't take offense at my won/lost remark, but as I recall, last time I eventually conceded on the questions surrounding delivering and receiving, admitting that they're outside my area of expertise.

The one thing I don't agree with is your characterizing my version of Ennis' thoughts during the scene as "simpler." I think of them as pretty complex, and I would even admit that there is an element of what you think is the main thing. And you admit there's an element of what I think. So perhaps we actually almost agree, but just place the emphasis differently.

So if you're sick of this one, please help me think of another issue to argue about.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #79 on: May 08, 2006, 02:50:18 pm »
Jeff, I agree with most of what you said here. And it's true we will never come to a concensus, but oh well. I still enjoy debating. Don't take offense at my won/lost remark, but as I recall, last time I eventually conceded on the questions surrounding delivering and receiving, admitting that they're outside my area of expertise.

The one thing I don't agree with is your characterizing my version of Ennis' thoughts during the scene as "simpler." I think of them as pretty complex, and I would even admit that there is an element of what you think is the main thing. And you admit there's an element of what I think. So perhaps we actually almost agree, but just place the emphasis differently.

So if you're sick of this one, please help me think of another issue to argue about.


Oh, none taken, I was just concerned. I just felt that we've both stated our views about as fully as we can and hated to think that you felt you'd "lost" and I'd "won."

Maybe we are just disagreeing over emphasis from different perspectives. As to something else to debate, I'll have to get back to you on that!  :)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.