Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
TOTW 09/08: Were Ennis and Jack particularly bad fathers?
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on March 18, 2008, 09:01:46 pm ---
When he and Alma had the fight, right in front of the girls who were on the swingset, he's pretty much telling the girls he can't be bothered to serve them dinner!!
--- End quote ---
Heya Del,
This is an interesting comment... and definitely an interesting scene to think about carefully.
It's interesting to try to ponder what exactly is Ennis so angry about? Really, what's the big deal about Alma having to work and therefore missing this dinner? It's no news that Alma works (she's been working since the girls were really tiny)... So, this really can't be about Ennis being upset that his wife works. It doesn't seem likely that it's a gender-roles argument in that regard. So, really, what's Ennis so fired up about here? We're not given a lot of details to work with. But, in terms of fixing a simple dinner... we all know that Ennis can cook reasonably well from what we witness of him up on Brokeback. He even seems somewhat contented and interested in making food sometimes when he's cooking on Brokeback (adding extra seasoning, etc.).
It is sort of uncomfortable to see the girls witnessing the fight for me (in terms of my own personal reactions). My parents have been married quite happily for almost 40 years, but once in a while they have screaming matches... when they fight they really fight. And I remember being really scared by it as a kid. So, in a way, I think the girls' somewhat cautious reaction to the scene they witness is very good (not over-acted... but subtly the tension that they feel really seems to come through).
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 18, 2008, 10:13:03 pm ---Heya Del,
This is an interesting comment... and definitely an interesting scene to think about carefully.
It's interesting to try to ponder what exactly is Ennis so angry about? Really, what's the big deal about Alma having to work and therefore missing this dinner? It's no news that Alma works (she's been working since the girls were really tiny)... So, this really can't be about Ennis being upset that his wife works. It doesn't seem likely that it's a gender-roles argument in that regard. So, really, what's Ennis so fired up about here? We're not given a lot of details to work with. But, in terms of fixing a simple dinner... we all know that Ennis can cook reasonably well from what we witness of him up on Brokeback. He even seems somewhat contented and interested in making food sometimes when he's cooking on Brokeback (adding extra seasoning, etc.).
--- End quote ---
That still doesn't speak well of Ennis though. Alma yells back at Ennis that lunch/dinner is "on the stove", but Ennis yells back that no one is eating it, if you're not serving it. Not only is he showing his girls that it's a pain for him to have to bother to serve and feed them, but that it's beneath him to do it. It's low, women's work. He's teaching them what he expects out of women. Women serve men.
Alma is teaching the girls the better lesson there.
And what man doesn't like cooking on a camping trip? That's right up there with women 'cooking' but men barbecuing. ;)
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on March 18, 2008, 11:20:52 pm ---That still doesn't speak well of Ennis though. Alma yells back at Ennis that lunch/dinner is "on the stove", but Ennis yells back that no one is eating it, if you're not serving it. Not only is he showing his girls that it's a pain for him to have to bother to serve and feed them, but that it's beneath him to do it. It's low, women's work. He's teaching them what he expects out of women. Women serve men.
Alma is teaching the girls the better lesson there.
And what man doesn't like cooking on a camping trip? That's right up there with women 'cooking' but men barbecuing. ;)
--- End quote ---
Yes, I agree!
Alma gets better and better at standing up for herself.
At the grocery store she tries to resist Ennis's unreasonable demand that she take the kids in the middle of her shift. She's pretty good at making her case, but she backs down.
Here with the swing set argument and later when she rejects Ennis in bed, she's able to fully and completely stand up for herself. She goes to work instead of cooking dinner and she defends herself in bed (which I think is truly admirable... one of the best Alma scenes, in fact).
Still, I'm confused about exactly what Ennis is so angry about. Why is he freaking out about Alma working at this particular juncture? Alma's always worked. I mean, why is he blowing up about it now?
And, he didn't kick up a fuss about cooking for Jack at all.
fernly:
I've been trying to sort out my thoughts about how Ennis' and Jack's experiences of being raised affected their views about, and abilities to parent. Ennis and Jack both had utterly appalling experiences inflicted on them by their fathers. They both, in sharp contrast, were gentle with their own children.
When Ennis was orphaned, his brother and sister "did the best they could", but once he was 19, "no more room for" him. He wasn't a child any more, but he was certainly an inadequately parented young adult.
Jack's folks didn't "run him off" (at least not permanently) since he went back Lightning Flat after that first summer, but home for him, from what we see, seems to be, at best, more about obligation than love and joy. He seems to take joy in Bobby in the early years of his childhood, but the despair that grips Jack as Ennis keeps refusing a life together, seems to sap that joy also.
The anger at their lives that both Jack and Ennis feel spills out, and their children witness it, but it's never directed at the children. That alone isn't enough to make them 'good' parents, not by today's standards, but it's certainly more than they were given by their fathers.
And Jack and Ennis gave their kids a lot more than that.
Again, maybe not enough to make them good parents by our lights, but they were parenting 40 years ago, and doing a much better job than their fathers. Is that enough to ask, that each generation will do better than the one before?
delalluvia:
--- Quote from: atz75 on March 18, 2008, 11:34:42 pm ---Still, I'm confused about exactly what Ennis is so angry about. Why is he freaking out about Alma working at this juncture? Alma's always worked.
--- End quote ---
It's not that she's working, but that it's taking precedent over and interfering with their homelife. This is not an uncommon gripe of macho men. The husband who works, then comes home to relax, while fully expecting the wife to work, then come home to cook, clean and take care of the kids too and feels put upon if she asks him to share in that work as well. That's Ennis.
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