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: BlissC on March 17, 2008, 06:52:35 pm ---
I do think they did the best they could though. Jack taking Bobby in the tractor does show Jack tried to make an effort with his son, and he does look like he's enjoying it. Ennis meanwhile we see playing with the girls when they're younger, but as they get older, I think he just doesn't know how to relate to and talk to his daughters. The scene where he's had the fight with Alma as she's going to work and the girls are on the swings and he mutters "You want a push or something?" I think is particularly telling. Ennis is only ever really at ease with Jack, and it's almost as though he doesn't know how to talk to his daughters. Whether that's because he's surrounded by women at home, or whether it's just because he doesn't know how to talk to kids, I don't know.
My dad was like that. When my sister and I were younger he just didn't seem to know how to talk to us and what to say (hell, I'm 35 now and he still doesn't LOL!). Whether it's because like Ennis he was in a house surrounded by women, or just that he doesn't know how to talk to kids, I'm not sure, but I suspect the latter. My nephew's 9 now, and he's just the same with my nephew - he either tries too hard or tries to joke with him when it's clear he doesn't understand the joke, and can't seem to get the line right between being strict without pouncing on every little thing he does wrong. Like I said, he was just the same with me and my sister, and it's lead to strained relationships over the years. I guess some men (and I suppose some women too, but less commonly) just don't know how to relate to kids, and I get the feeling that this was the problem with Ennis. He clearly did dote on his daughters - later in the film after the divorce when he sent Jack away, he was clearly putting his girls before Jack on that occasion because he knew he only got limited time with them, and then right at the end he's clearly concerned that Alma Jnr loves this guy she's marrying (even though he doesn't know his name, but then my dad could never remember who I was seeing when I was younger either).
--- End quote ---
Heya Bliss!
I think it's a very good point to suggest that Ennis may not know how to talk to his daughters all that comfortably at times. And, it's been noted here and there that some of his affectionate gestures towards his daughters, he seems to actually have learned from Jack. The example here, is when Ennis is at Thanksgiving with the girls and Alma and Monroe... when he caresses Jenny's cheek and ear, some have seen this as a very similar gesture to Jack stroking Ennis's cheek and ear following the Earl story.
In the case of Ennis turning Jack away following his divorce, however, I really do think Ennis is sort of using his daughters as an excuse for his own fears. Yes, it's true that he had to take care of his daughters at the moment. But, he could have asked Jack to hang around for a couple of days until the visit with his daughters was over (or any number of other possible scenarios that wouldn't have involved pretty much flat out rejecting Jack's visit). When Ennis looks and sees that white truck and clams up, I think Jack really understands what he's up against. His separation from Ennis wasn't all about Ennis being married. Even now that Ennis is not married, there's still an enormous roadblock.
:-\
Thinking about Ennis and the traumatic Thanksgiving with Alma and Monroe... there's a detail in Proulx's story that may or may not come across to a film-viewer-only. In the aftermath of the Thanksgiving fight in the kitchen it says:
"He went to the Black and Blue Eagle bar that night, got drunk, had a short dirty fight and left. He didn't try to see his girls for a long time, figuring they would look him up when they got the sense and years to move out from Alma."
That seems pretty dramatic on the part of story-Ennis. It sounds like Proulx is suggesting that following that fight, he really didn't want to face his daughters again... at least until they were adults.
Peter John Shields:
"He went to the Black and Blue Eagle bar that night, got drunk, had a short dirty fight and left. He didn't try to see his girls for a long time, figuring they would look him up when they got the sense and years to move out from Alma."
Hi atz75 - my name is Pete,
Yes I agree with you - I thought that was a very interesting piece of the story and was probably hard to translate into the film - but I thought it was a very intuitive sentence of Annies.
After his divorce my brother basically said the same thing regarding his kids and his ex wife - and where some people might try to be a hands on influence I would say that Ennis (and my brother) are people who sit back and let their children make their own decisions when they are old enough to do so...this is something the child may not appreciate until they are much older and at the time feel that the withdrawal of one parent is a rejection of them - when in actual fact it is a caring act...
I also liked the scene of Ennis with the girls and the swing - I thought it was very cute and also was touched by how seemingly unaffected the girls were by their parents bickering - I think they were very confident in the love their parents had for them...
myprivatejack:
I think that we all agree in that both of them loved their children and that the possibility of sharing their lives doesn't mean a real abandon of them.And I've seen as some of us agree also in that Ennis uses very often his daughters as an excuse to avoid commitment; the perfect shield to protect himself against his lover's wishes...But I keep on asking why do you think he had even left his girls to be with Jack in the first years of their relationship,and after,little by little,they began to be more and more this excuse.Would it be only for an economical question-the pension he must pay for their living-that obliged him to accept all jobs that sometimes avoided him to be with Jack?.Or maybe he was a little tired of the situation?-even if in his inner self he wished to see and to be with his lover...-.Because Jack in the confrontation scene says that before Ennis was always willing to join him,but then "he was as elusive as the Pope"...Your opinion?.
BlissC:
--- Quote from: myprivatejack on March 18, 2008, 01:19:40 pm ---Because Jack in the confrontation scene says that before Ennis was always willing to join him,but then "he was as elusive as the Pope"...Your opinion?.
--- End quote ---
That's a good point. That sorta does make you think that there was something in Ennis that changed over the years. If I remember rightly in the line just before that, Jack says, "You used to come away easy." That was presumably referring to when he was still married and when the girls were younger. I wonder what changed for Ennis?
Or maybe it's just Jack bitching, because in the heat of that argument I think they both said things they regretted. As you say, part of it could have been that as Ennis said, in the early days he'd just quit a job to see Jack if he couldn't get time off. Even back in those days he'd still have the financial responsibility of providing for his family though, just as he did in later years with child support. Would the child support payments have put more of a strain on him though than when he was married and providing for his family?
delalluvia:
I believe Ennis was a bad father in the way that he - as the story went - took 'fishing trips' with Jack, but never brought home any fish, even though according to the movie's Alma "me and the girls love fish' and he never took them on any trips.
But he did 'buy them ice cream'.
In other words, Ennis found time for himself and his freedom to be himself was so important to him that he quit his jobs when he was younger so he could be with Jack being away from his family for sometimes a week at a time, maybe once or twice a year, regardless of his family's needs.
In the meantime never taking his family on any trips.
Alma and the children hardly have any social life at all as a family. Alma can suggest, but Ennis has to agree to an outing for it to happen and they're always local, one day events. Nothing like a camping trip on the mountains for a week.
Ennis loves his girls, but when his job calls or Jack comes up, he's quick to dump them on Alma and is gone. He loves them at his convenience.
This changes after the divorce, but as was pointed out, by the time Junior is 19, he has no clue what she is doing with her life, meaning, he's not seeing his girls regular even when he can.
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!!
And I disagree with Pete where he said:
--- Quote ---I also liked the scene of Ennis with the girls and the swing - I thought it was very cute and also was touched by how seemingly unaffected the girls were by their parents bickering - I think they were very confident in the love their parents had for them.
--- End quote ---
I thought the girls were very affected by their parents bickering. I was one of those children once. The girls don't turn their father down with a sunny smile when he asks "Y'all need a push or sumptin'?" They had been watching the fight, stopping their swinging, then when he turns his attention back to them, they quickly turn away - trying to get out of the line of fire and out from under his attention, lest they get the force of his displeasure aimed at them and say 'No."
In the story it says he used the fight to not see his girls until they were old enough to get out from under Alma's radar. This sounded like an excuse, IMO. He wasn't willing to risk further confrontations and decided to - again - dump his girls when his needs were most important. His girls were not going to understand his reasoning. As far as they were concerned, he abandoned them. They wouldn't even have his side of the story, a different opinion from their mother's. Yes, sometimes later in life they appreciate it. Sometimes. Other times, they don't care to have anything to do with a father who was more concerned with his own life than theirs.
And finally, Ennis' attitude towards his marriage and Alma didn't help his image as a good father. Again, he was wayward, used to taking off on his own whenever it suited him, leaving Alma to pick up his slack. The children also saw this. Can you blame Junior for taking more of a shine to her father than her mother? Her mother is a drudge. Her father gets to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, is independent, takes vacations where he wants to go and lets someone else do the work. I'd want to have my father's life instead of my mother's too, if I were her.
So basically, I think Ennis was a bad father. I think Jack was better in several respects, but since my comment was originally aimed at Ennis, I'll just stick with him.
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