Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
My long, rambling defense of Brokeback Mountain
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on June 05, 2006, 01:58:41 pm ---Makes me wonder if A. Proulx isn't more than a tad familiar with Virgil.
--- End quote ---
I KNOW! That part that you quoted amazes me all the time too. I can just sit and read it over and over again.
I'm sure she knows Virgil too. The coincidence here would be too great I think (especially since other elements of the story suggest some parallels too). Plus, super serious writers like Proulx tend to be exceedingly well-read (not too surprisingly). If there was ever any doubt that BBM (in it's book form) isn't true literature, well this goes a long way towards demonstrating the extreme seriousness of the story and literary references. It would actually be a fantastic question to ask Proulx. If for some unlikely reason she didn't intend or know about this parallel... I'm sure she'd be amazed (and quite happy) to find out about it.
Front-Ranger:
I missed this subject the first time around, so was overjoyed to find and read it. I'd like to add something I noticed in the scene around the table with Jack, Lureen, LaShawn, and Randall. After not seeing the movie for quite a while, I watched again with fresh eyes. You can see Lureen bristle when LaShawn starts off calling Childress a "poky little town." That's why she comes back with the reply, "I was Kappa Phi myself," a more prestigious sorority than LaShawn's. LaShawn gives the impression of a social climber, a person with low self-esteem who needs to obtain the approval of others. Here it's Lureen, so she comes back with the smidgeon of rhythm comment and, by saying she and Lureen might have to dance together, intimates that the two women are in the same boat. As they talk on, the women keep finding more and more things in common, till this starts to alarm Jack, who has perhaps become sensitized by Ennis's paranoia. He starts to brush off the veiled accusations by saying "Ain't never give it no thought," at the same time actually brushing cigarette ashes off his black finery. He asks LaShawn to dance, IMO, simply because he is drawn to her and identifies with her; they are a lot alike, the socialness, the complaints, the garrulousness. Especially the low self-esteem and need to seek the approval and love of others. But he gets a dividend from dancing with LaShawn--seeing that Randall doesn't ask Lureen to dance is another in a series of little hints that Randall is gay.
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 06, 2006, 12:04:18 pm ---That's why she comes back with the reply, "I was Tri Delt myself," a more prestigious sorority than LaShawn's.
--- End quote ---
Well, I think it was LaShawn who was Tri Delt and Lureen was Kappa Phi. I have no idea about how sororities work or the hierarchy amongst them... but you're right F-R, I think the implication is that Lureen is trying to let LaShawn know that her sorority is more prestigious. I always wonder about Jack here... he's the only one at the table without a college education and really, it seems very little experience or background with college culture at all. I've always thought of this as just one more way that Jack's Texas life makes him feel uncomfortable.
2robots4u:
atz75...in my college days the hirearchy on my particular campus was, more or less, which was "considered" more prestitious, which means which was more popular, which meant who was in it, and finally, which was the "bitchiest" We college men found most of them filled with stuck-up, rich girls, who wouldn't give us the time of day. I am of the same opinion of frats, too, so ladies, please don't attack, nor men either for that matter. That was just my school and every school was different. Kappa Phi is definitely far above Tri Delta, hence, Lureen's acid tongue when she says "Myself, I was Kappa Phi", drawing out the "Phi" just a tad. It's one of those moments when I (if I had been Lashawn and within distance) would have laid 5 across Lureen"s alltogether too pale cheek. We don't really get to know much about Lashawn, but I get the impression she does not come from money, and apparently Randall did. Any thought on that?...Doug
Luvlylittlewing:
Thank you for posting this truly brilliant defense of our film. I am blown away. Even after 100+ viewings, a little less than half of them on the big screen, I am as obssessed with BBM as ever. There are so many layers to this quiet miracle of a movie that I'll be studying it for a long, long time! Your essay is going in my memory book!
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