Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 02, 2013, 08:50:52 am --- :laugh: And most of them are erect!
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:laugh:
x-man:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 01, 2013, 06:32:01 pm --- I think Ennis IS homophobic in that self-loathing sense. Both the book and movie make references that imply Ennis was extremely uncomfortable about his sexual orientation, even when just alone with Jack-- in the book, for example, Ennis will only hold Jack from behind. I think when Ennis says, "You know I ain't queer," he's expressing both what he thinks being "queer" means -- a shameful thing -- and his own wish not to face that he fits that label. I think the rational fear instilled by his earlier experiences came accompanied by feelings of shame and sickness.
I think we're meant to see the men's and the bartender's behavior as at least ambiguous, possibly including hostility or even danger but not necessarily, a reflection of what Jack experiences as he goes through life; he can never know how people will react to him, but he's willing to take a chance anyway. As far as the scene goes, under other circumstances we might not think a thing about either the pool players or the bartender. But we know it's a homophobic society, that Jack is taking a risk by hitting on Jimbo, that the bartender is likely to overhear and disapprove, that Jimbo lashes back at the offer and then goes over to talk to a group of tough men holding long sticks.
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I hope I am not flogging a dead horse. I think we have here, and at the "What if Lureen..." site, moved from looking at homophobia as how straight society views gays, and how it reacts to them, to interiorized homophobia--the self-loathing part of it. When people point to Ennis being self-loathing, the evidence is slim. Yes, by definition, Ennis' fear of being killed is a subset of homophobia, but I keep insisting on using it "as we usually use the word."
Some argue that Ennis must have been self-loathing because the place and times were homophobic, and he was a product of them. This is a conjecture based on an argument from silence. I don't think we can legitimately do that; instead we are constrained to look directly to the book and movie for our evidence. The characters can only be labeled homophobic or internally homophobic based on what they say and do.
Curiously, serious crayons, we come to different conclusions about Ennis being comfortable with his sexuality when he is alone with Jack. I regard those times--in contrast to when they around other people and thus might expose themselves to discovery--as being when Ennis is quite comfortable. In the movie Ennis utters the "You know I ain't queer" line the afternoon of the second day, when he is still a little surprised at what happened the night before. He is undoubtedly saying that he does not self-identify as gay, but what could he say but "queer"? It was the only word he knew for gay. And in the movie he says it before the events of the second night in the tent where he seems to reevaluate somewhat. In the book a version of the line occurs in the motel. Ennis is talking at some length, trying to account for his being married with children, yet still being attracted to Jack and their sex being far better than what Ennis has experienced with women. He seems to me to be genuinely bewildered, rather than homophobic. In the book Ennis does say "I ain't queer" later in the summer after they had been having a lot of sex and obviously enjoying it thoroughly. I read it as an off-hand comment to counter his realization that he was indeed queer. "I ain't queer, but this is great!" Again, what other word could he use? To read into it intense self-loathing is going a bit far.
"Ennis will only hold Jack from behind"? I missed that. We see them face to face in the second night in the tent, the following scene where Aguirre sees them (meant in the movie to stand for the Proulx passage "...both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer...as it did go"), and at the reunion when they were definitely face to face. You aren't basing your argument solely on the dozy embrace flashback, are you? Or by "holding" are you referring to fucking? (I refuse to say anal intercourse or coitus per anum. They are surely not necessary here, and are so last-century.) This business has been thoroughly explored in "Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way", including Jeff Wrangler's charmingly blunt comments in posting #284. The idea that the top is somehow more of a man than the bottom is a stereotype mostly among straights. Amongst gays it is only for the seriously deluded, and probably a source of amusement for their friends and sex-partners. I don't think such stereotyping fooled Ennis for very long, in spite of the "boys like you" line. There Ennis was out to hurt, not to be rational. So, where is Ennis uncomfortable with Jack? I thought that one of the points of book and movie was that only when they were together alone could either man be truly comfortable and happy--hence the mountains=freedom, town=oppression motif.
You still see Jack as hitting on Jimbo. My gaydar is firmly in place. I did see Randall hitting on Jack, but not with the rodeo clown. I agree that if Jack's initial innocent offer had ended up more serious, that he would certainly have been all for it, but it didn't and that's not how it started. "Jimbo lashes back"? I heard a polite refusal and explanation. The bartender overheard something he had heard a thousand times before, and showed no signs of disapproval. I say again that in 1963 a man could offer to buy another man a drink without it being seen as a proposition. I know, I was there. I offered and was offered drinks to/by other men without anything sexual being implied or inferred.
In short, I don't believe that a strong case for Ennis' self-loathing due to homophobia being the guiding force in his life can be made from the evidence in the book and movie. It is reading into his character something that cannot be shown to be there without a great deal of inference.
If we are going to do critical analysis of BBM, we are probably already going too far by mixing movie with book the way we do, but we don't seem to be able to avoid it. I really wonder if adding outside information like what others, including Proulx, have to say about motivation for the finished products is really legitimate. Also we must look to the "sitz im leben" of the works, that is, look at the works in the context of their own time. For the book that time was 1997, for the movie 2005--not 1963. By those latter days it was possible to escape interiorized homophobia, and I think Ennis is an example of such an escape--not that it did him much good.
x-man:
My copy of BBM Story to Screenplay has arrived and I am now getting into it. ("Oh good," I hear you say, "Now he will lighten up!")
I now have the Collector's Edition of BBM, Proulx's short story, Story to Screenplay, three BBM wall posters, Kirchner's Meet Me on the Mountain, and I subscribe to BBMRadio. Is that it? Or do I need more to have the complete BBM tool kit? Please let me know what else I need. I can't afford the Wooden Horse or The Shirts.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: x-man on October 02, 2013, 11:27:41 am ---When people point to Ennis being self-loathing, the evidence is slim.
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I don't consider it slim. But you do have to be open to reading subtexts. For example, he speaks highly of his father, suggesting he respects his father's opinions. Yet his father had subjected him to a terrifying experience and, one assumes, kept Ennis more or less constantly terrified once he got old enough to really think about his own sexuality. Put two and two together, and you can surmise that Ennis considered the old man to be right about homosexuality, too.
--- Quote ---Some argue that Ennis must have been self-loathing because the place and times were homophobic, and he was a product of them.
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Not me. Jack is a product of the same times and is not self-loathing. This conclusion is based on his character, as I interpret it in both the story and movie, especially the latter.
--- Quote --- The characters can only be labeled homophobic or internally homophobic based on what they say and do.
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Agreed on this. No wait, not quite. I think the characters can be labeled based on what the book/movie tells us about them, which isn't always the same thing.
Sometimes it is their direct actions, but obviously no BBM character comes out and says, "I am homophobic." You have to look at what they say and do (Ennis praising his father, saying "You know I ain't queer," preferring to hold Jack from behind, canceling August, telling Jack "It's because of you I'm like this"). But you also have to ask yourself why the book and movie make a point of showing them saying and doing those things, and other things. They're not just filling time.
For example, why do you suppose both book and movie have Ennis getting in bar fights? Why, in the movie, does one of them occur when some bikers are talking sexually, and another right after Alma's explosive Thanksgiving confrontation?
--- Quote ---Curiously, serious crayons, we come to different conclusions about Ennis being comfortable with his sexuality when he is alone with Jack. I regard those times--in contrast to when they around other people and thus might expose themselves to discovery--as being when Ennis is quite comfortable.
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He is. But part of him is also uncomfortable about his time with Jack, to the point of canceling the get-together in August.
--- Quote ---In the movie Ennis utters the "You know I ain't queer" line the afternoon of the second day, when he is still a little surprised at what happened the night before. He is undoubtedly saying that he does not self-identify as gay, but what could he say but "queer"? It was the only word he knew for gay.
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If you think I was saying that's evidence he was homophobic because "queer" is a slur, no, that's not what I meant. He said it because he thinks of being "queer" as something terrible, and desperately wants to reject that label for himself.
--- Quote ---And in the movie he says it before the events of the second night in the tent where he seems to reevaluate somewhat. In the book a version of the line occurs in the motel. Ennis is talking at some length, trying to account for his being married with children, yet still being attracted to Jack and their sex being far better than what Ennis has experienced with women. He seems to me to be genuinely bewildered, rather than homophobic.
--- End quote ---
True, Book Ennis is more outspoken, and perhaps less self-loathing, than Movie Ennis. Both the screenplay and Heath's performance turn Movie Ennis into a more bottled up, damaged figure than Book Ennis.
--- Quote ---"Ennis will only hold Jack from behind"? I missed that.
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It's in the book description of the dozy embace.
--- Quote ---We see them face to face in the second night in the tent, the following scene where Aguirre sees them (meant in the movie to stand for the Proulx passage "...both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer...as it did go"), and at the reunion when they were definitely face to face.
--- End quote ---
Right. The movie shows them face to face, but the book says Ennis never wanted to embrace Jack face to face.
--- Quote --- Or by "holding" are you referring to fucking?
--- End quote ---
No.
--- Quote ---You still see Jack as hitting on Jimbo. My gaydar is firmly in place. I did see Randall hitting on Jack, but not with the rodeo clown.
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I'm not going to argue that my gaydar is stronger than yours. Obviously it's not. I'll only say that in the seven years since I saw the movie and started discussing it, I don't remember many people not interpreting the scene that way.
--- Quote --- I say again that in 1963 a man could offer to buy another man a drink without it being seen as a proposition. I know, I was there. I offered and was offered drinks to/by other men without anything sexual being implied or inferred.
--- End quote ---
Of course. But it's not just that Jack offers Jimbo a drink, it's that he makes intense eye contact and holds it for longer than normal in a non-pickup situation. It's that Jimbo immediately senses what's going on and turns down the offer. That Jack then gets flustered and angry and storms out of the bar.
If you don't see that as a failed pickup, then what's the point of the scene? Jack stops in a bar and offers a clown a drink, the clown says no thanks, Jack leaves. Why would they bother to tell us that? Keep in mind that every scene, in fact every line, in BBM is there for a reason.
And remember, if you're tempted to argue that gay men do or don't do this, remember that this book was written by a straight woman, and the movie was written, directed and acted by straight people for a largely straight audience. It doesn't stretch credulity to think they are using body language that straight people would recognize, deliberately and/or inadvertently.
serious crayons:
Hey, anybody who's reading this thread now, I just made some revisions to my last post. I was in more of a hurry when I wrote it, and decided I'd better flesh it out a bit.
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