Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: Clyde-B on January 07, 2008, 09:11:59 am ---
I don’t know what heteronormative means.
--- End quote ---
In the quotations which I sourced from Harris, Mendelsohn, and Arellano, they all use that term "heteronormative". I also used it in my text simply because I couldn't think of a simpler term to use that describes the process of turning an essentially gay short story into a much more heterosexual film. Or the process that a gay man uses to fit into a closeted existence, it seems to me that such closeted men become heteronormed.
I am not by training or background a sociologist or a scholar in gender studies as some of the authors of the essays in "Reading Brokeback Mountain" are, so I am not qualified to carry on an academic discussion of the proper usage of the term. Sorry if it sounds like a pretentious sound bite.
Happy Trails!
Artiste:
Brokeplex, you give us good examples.
Thanks!
Hugs!
Clyde-B:
--- Quote from: brokeplex on January 08, 2008, 01:41:57 pm ---
In the quotations which I sourced from Harris, Mendelsohn, and Arellano, they all use that term "heteronormative". I also used it in my text simply because I couldn't think of a simpler term to use that describes the process of turning an essentially gay short story into a much more heterosexual film. Or the process that a gay man uses to fit into a closeted existence, it seems to me that such closeted men become heteronormed.
I am not by training or background a sociologist or a scholar in gender studies as some of the authors of the essays in "Reading Brokeback Mountain" are, so I am not qualified to carry on an academic discussion of the proper usage of the term. Sorry if it sounds like a pretentious sound bite.
Happy Trails!
--- End quote ---
I don't understand how scenes that show gays are out of place trying to live heterosexual lives or how uncomfortable it is to try and pretend you are something you are not "normalizes" anything. If these scenes do anything, it is to emphasize that Jack and Ennis belong together and not with their wives.
Artiste:
Clyde, may I say that I do feel that the BM movie in some ways does make Ennis and Jack lives like they are heteros... indeed!
Do you see that both Ennis and Jack got married to females??
Their marriages are not gay-males-ones!!
There is a danger here, by making such film, instead of more gay-oriented or gay-something to more heteronormed!!
I have a sample, one of my former friend... you want to hear it??
Anyone else too want to do so??
Hugs!!
brokeplex:
--- Quote from: Clyde-B on January 13, 2008, 10:52:56 pm ---I don't understand how scenes that show gays are out of place trying to live heterosexual lives or how uncomfortable it is to try and pretend you are something you are not "normalizes" anything. If these scenes do anything, it is to emphasize that Jack and Ennis belong together and not with their wives.
--- End quote ---
The film as compared to the short story is heteronormed.
This is the point made in the essays and articles in question. Whether for good or ill, the heterosexual life of Ennis and Jack are emphasized over what we read in the short story. The question raised by the authors of the essays and the articles which I noted is : why does the screen play emphasize the heterosexual life of the boys more that the short story?
The conclusion of all of the authors is that this made the film more marketable to the general public. I agree with their conclusion.
Why then did this make the film more marketable?
Because of the heteronorming pressures in this society, most straight viewers would not empathize as fully with scenes drawn from only the gay elements in Ennis and Jack's lives, but would be able to empathize fully with showing those scenes linked to their heterosexual scenes.
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