Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

TOTW 16/07: Did Alma Jr. know Ennis was gay?

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MaineWriter:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on November 28, 2007, 01:13:52 pm ---Tuesday, Honey (June 5, 1984)--as you showed me.  ;D  :-*

--- End quote ---

I was working from memory...because I knew I figured it out for you! Tuesday, Wednesday...it is not a marryin at the church kind a day! LOL

L

Marge_Innavera:

--- Quote from: tampatalon on November 26, 2007, 05:09:15 pm ---In the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner,and please excuse my paraphrase, did Alma not say about finding another woman "that me and the girls worry about you." Could this indicate that the town folk of Riverton might be running their gators that Ennis is different. The girls would surely have heard this town gossip and that confirms Ennis's preference?
--- End quote ---

I don't think they would have been speculating to any extent that was noticeable. After all, even now so many people think of gay men in terms of stereotypes that Ennis doesn't fit. Jack has only been in Riverton twice, and surely if anyone other than Alma saw them kissing that first time Ennis would have known about that by now. As for his not marrying again, this is a guy who's known to be very taciturn and something of a loner, so his not remarrying wouldn't necessarily surprise anybody.

IMO, Alma is partly trolling for information and partly referring to specific conversations she's had with the girls about their dad being alone so much. It's something that might have come up shortly after he was invited to Thanksgiving dinner; and maybe Alma had even promised the girls she'd ask him about it if she could. She wouldn't necessarily have to have only one motive.

Marge_Innavera:

--- Quote from: ProwlAmongUs on November 28, 2007, 12:32:40 am ---Yes, I think she knew her dad was gay, but I don't think she was able to put a label to it in her mind. I believe out of all the characters except Jack, she understood Ennis better than anyone. Her quiet understanding and love for her father is apparent to the point of being protective of him when Cassie enters his life. She was progressive in her thinking for her age and for the time period, but again, was probably ignorant of the terms and what those terms entailed. It would be normal for someone her age at that time and place to "see the trees, but be confused by the forest." Hey, when I was her age, I still thought "gay" meant something fun and exciting, and that was a few years after 1963, although not many.
--- End quote ---

Well, I started  high school (1963) in an era when homosexuality was completely invisible to most straight people. But I'm not sure that even a girl in a small town (small city?) in the late 1970s-early 1980s would have that little information. The power of television to blur certain geographical and cultural edges can't be underestimated.

And I do think Alma Sr.'s religiosity is based on some rather sketchy assumptions. She only refers to church twice, and both times she's referring to a social function -- the church picnic and the church social -- not a religious service. It isn't uncommon in isolated areas for the church to be a center of social events.

June 5th on a Tuesday in '84? I'll have to do some editing, it seems.

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on November 28, 2007, 01:57:59 pm ---June 5th on a Tuesday in '84? I'll have to do some editing, it seems.

--- End quote ---

With thanks to Leslie, who told me about this site when I was writing an AU fanfic about Alma, Jr.,'s wedding:

http://www.timeanddate.com

This will show that June 5, 1984, was a Tuesday.  :)

And FWIW, June 24, 1967, was a Saturday, and September 24, 1967, was a Sunday.

jstephens9:
The first time I really knew anything about gay people or what the term was again when my sister lived in Atlanta while I was growing up. My parents and I went to Atlanta to see her. I picked up some king of "underground hippie alternative" newspaper called "The Great Speckled Bird" although I believe most people simply called it "The Bird." It had an article or pictures or something of all these "gay" people who were going to have a parade and I wanted to go to it. Of course, I knew that it was not something I should tell my parents about. I remember wishing I could figure out some way to tell the "gay" people to come and get me cause I wanted to be in their parade  :) I also found out that year what those women were doing standing around and on the stationary trolley car in Underground Atlanta  :D Well, kind of, my brother in law told me they were working. I didn't really question what line of work they were in  :laugh: Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand, I imagine Alma Jr. would have been growing up in the 70s and 80s as far as when she would have first started getting an idea of the world. I can't really imagine her having much of a concept of the word gay or how her father would have fit into it especially being that she was from Riverton, Wyoming. And it is questionable whether or not she had travelled anywhere.

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