Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
Oregondoggie:
--- Quote from: RossInIllinois on January 15, 2008, 02:11:21 am ---Its simply forbidden love of a different type. In BBM the love between two men is looked upon many times as negative NEVER positive such as.. "Jack Nasty" "Stemmin the rose" "I don't have a job for you" and the rodeo clown scene and still another scene that was filmed but cut from the final film. All subtle anti gay innuendos. Why do you suppose the producers didn't hire a gay director? Think about it.
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Guess you weren't around in 1963. As for the producers not hiring a gay director? That's a non-sequitur. Gus Van Sant was not available. But why would a gay director with any integrity handle the story much differently? "Stemmin' the rose" wasn't subtle at all, it is part of the horror. It is what Annie Proulx wrote. Yes, I agree the tragedy of this story has overwhelmed some folk. Poor things are unable to see the lesson of Brokeback Mountain. Unable to be empowered by it in their own lives. Instead, they feel betrayed. They want a happy happy ending. A trip to Disneyland. No matter to them that this story is about the effects of fear and hatred in two poor boys' lives. Why the homophobes must be gloating. The theater must have been packed with bigots who came away saying it was the best anti-gay film ever made! Cow sure do have wings...
Clyde-B:
From Aristotle on the highest form of literature as art has been tragedy. Annie Proulx is a literary artist and she does not do heroes, she does not do happy endings.
Social change is necessary today, but social change is not brought about by stories with happy endings. It is brought about by stories that provoke outrage in their audience because they ended badly.
It is quite clear to most people that the ‘villain’ of BBM is homophobia, not homosexuality. Because the sympathy at the end of the movie is with Ennis, not with the moral standards of society.
Shakesthecoffecan:
--- Quote from: RossInIllinois on January 15, 2008, 01:28:11 am --- IMO this is a very anti gay film with a very good disguise as a love story to soften the blow. (no pun intended)
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IMO it is a film about two guys confronted with a part of their identity they were so unprepared for they funbled it. If it were an antigay film, then I think it failed, miserably. We have the luxary of living in the 21st century, where we are free-er than perhaps any other time in history to live our lives as we should. 1963 was not like that, nor was 1967 or 1983, especially in a rural setting. I don't see it disgusied as a love story either. It is a tragedy, showing the consequences of conformity and sublimation of self in order to remain "safe".
Shakesthecoffecan:
--- Quote from: brokeplex on December 30, 2007, 09:28:03 pm ---Harris asks, why was it necessary to kill of Jack in order for Proulx to make her point?
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And yet the death of Jack is ambigous. We are presented with the POV of Ennis, his prophacy of an Earl type murder possibly fulfilled, but how he died is left up to the reader to decide for theirselves, as Harris has obviously done. More to the point is that Jack died and as a result Ennis was left alone. With Jack's death, the door of possibility closed for him, and he was left only with his dreams.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: RossInIllinois on January 14, 2008, 09:52:08 pm ---I too feel the story and even more so the movie is anti gay. The screen play was "Hollywooded up" with more hetero relationship garbage to make the movie more saleable to the masses. Its a shame how much the movie pulled away from showing more closeness kissing holding etc. between the two men in the later years, What was shown was very highly edited not to show to much "gayness", and thats a shame.
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It wouldn't have been "Hollywooding up" the screenplay for McMurtry and Ossana to write scenes of "closeness, kissing, holding, etc." that aren't in Annie Proulx's text to begin with?
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