Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
x-man:
Regarding the serious crayons and Jeff Wrangler postings above:
Guys, you both make assumption that John Twist (and the mother) knew about Jack's being gay, and according to each of you, did or did not accept it graciously. What am I missing? Why can't the father be telling Ennis, although scornfully, that since he knows where BBM is doesn't need Ennis' help?
It seems to me that the evidence is very suppositional. 1. From the story, the "knowing look" by the father. Proulx never hints at what he might "know." 2. From the movie, John Twist does seem to give added emphasis to the "Tell you what, I know..." line, but never elaborates. 3. When Jack returns to the family home after the first summer, to "go back up to my daddy's place, give him a hand over the winter" he most likely talked at the dinner table, etc., about Ennis all the time, and told them he wanted to return to BBM to repeat his experience of the first summer. 4. At some point Jack must have told his mother NOT to wash The Shirts. Mothers obsessively was their children's clothes. At some point in the 20 years she "kept his room like it was when he was a boy" she would have found the shirts and, given all the blood, would have washed them, unless she had been warned specifically not to.
A knowing look that is never explained, Jack's talking about Ennis all the time, the warning about the shirts: is it really enough to suggest that the parents knew they were lovers rather than just good friends?
I wish I could see more to it than that the father did indeed know where BBM was and did not need help. If I were going to be persuaded by anything, it would be the shirts--a very romantic gesture by Jack to be sure, but is it really enough to alert the 2 parents, who were not the most sophisticated people in the world? And it was 1963, not 2013, after all. I am really asking this as a question--is there anything more to it than what I am suggesting?
By way of a personal note, that we are reaching back to 1963 is important. When I was 19 I lived in a place far more enlightened than rural Wyoming. I was living on-and-off at my parents' home. But I had a lover (in personality he was Jack, but otherwise he was Ennis to my Jack--JW, you know what I am saying). I very frequently brought him home to sleep in the "guest room." We always slept in the same bed, and my parents were not stupid. They must have known it, but they didn't ask, and I didn't tell. They were far more worldly than the Twists, but in 1958 you had to be pretty brave to take on the uproar that coming out would cause. I wasn't up to it, and neither were they. So it is hard for me to comprehend Jack's parents, given when and where they lived, knowing and tacitly accepting Jack's sexual orientation, especially since they never saw the two together. In my own case, years later when I again infrequently saw my parents, I simply talked as if they knew, and they did the same. Alma's reaction to knowing about Ennis was far more the "enlightened" order of the day back then.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote ---A knowing look that is never explained, Jack's talking about Ennis all the time, the warning about the shirts: is it really enough to suggest that the parents knew they were lovers rather than just good friends?
I wish I could see more to it than that the father did indeed know where BBM was and did not need help. If I were going to be persuaded by anything, it would be the shirts--a very romantic gesture by Jack to be sure, but is it really enough to alert the 2 parents, who were not the most sophisticated people in the world? And it was 1963, not 2013, after all. I am really asking this as a question--is there anything more to it than what I am suggesting?
--- End quote ---
I wonder whether you're not giving rural Wyomingites enough credit, x-man? Remember Ennis's story of Earl and Rich? Ennis says he was about 9 years old when Earl was murdered, which would place that event in about 1953--and the clear implication, the reason Ennis tells Jack the story, is that Earl was killed because he was known to be queer.
"They" say parents always know. If your parents knew without you telling them that you're--ahem--queer, don't you suppose Jack's parents would know?
That "knowing look" says about it all to me. Jack's father knew exactly what went on up on that mountain. And then he had to listen to Jack prattle on about leaving his wife and moving back to Lightning Flat with another man?
Incidentally, maybe you've mentioned it elsewhere and I just haven't seen the post, but otherwise this seems to me an appropriate place to suggest you get yourself a copy of Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. Annie Proulx' essay, Getting Movied, included in the book, is priceless. She discusses the lives of rural gay men with whom she is acquainted, and also rural homophobia.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: milomorris on September 23, 2013, 06:58:08 pm ---And you are right. After Jack was gone, Ennis did indeed have the wisdom to "stand it." We'll never know if the alternative of suicide ever crossed his mind, but I tend to doubt it.
--- End quote ---
I don't think it did, either, whether one is talking about the story or the film. In both genres he's still got family. He's not alone in the world--and the film gives us an ending that shows him being more open to "being there" for his daughter when she wants him.
In her essay Getting Movied, Annie Proulx mentions the high rate of suicide among elderly single rural men, but she also discusses the importance of family in the lives of rural people, and Ennis still has family.
x-man:
JW, I took your advice and ordered BBM: From Story to Screenplay. I had put off getting it because I saw it criticized here in BetterMost. Thanks for the suggestion.
About the main issue, I like what you say, but it leaves me with more questions:
Rich and Earl. Ennis seems to say that Earl was murdered just because he was living in the same house with another man, and no women on site. "Two guys livin together? No way." Rich and Earl would have come out of the 30s and 40s when homophobia was just as rampant as it was in the 50s (1953 you suggest). The two old men would have had a built-in caution about appearing queer in front of other people. I can't imagine them holding hands in public, or behaving like Ennis and Jack did at the reunion. Did their ranch house have only one bedroom? They would have been smart enough to have a second fake bedroom. Would small things like an embrace secretly witnessed by a cowhand gradually add up in the minds of the "rural Wyomingites" you mention to a reason to murder?
My parents knew/suspected I was "ahem, queer" because I did queer things like bring my lover home all the time, to sleep in the same bed all night, often wake up late, show up for breakfast together, and then take off in his convertable for a day of adventure. I never talked about girls and took no interest in them. Now that I look back, I practically hit my parents over the head with it. You ask that, if my parents knew without my telling them, wouldn't Jack's know about him? Not if he didn't do anything queer.
Jack lived a more isolated life. Did he have any boyfriends before Ennis? I would think that Ennis was the first, except that it was he who initiated the the first encounter in the tent. So what was it that first alerted the Twists that Jack was queer? Or do you believe that it was only events after the first summer that did it? You never do say what told John Twist what his son was doing on BBM. Are you saying that we must read backwards from his talking about Ennis all the time, and his "prattling all the time about leaving his wife and moving back to Lightening Flat with another man?"
Early on we learn that the first time for the two young men on the mountain was actually Jack's second summer there. There is no suggestion that there was a previous Ennis. The passion of the first night did seem to catch them both by surprise, but Jack was quick to turn over on his stomach. He knew what to do and how. (Say, do you think they ever learned how to do it face to face?) Serious crayons points out that settling down together would have required more courage from Ennis than from Jack. She might say that this could be as a result of Jack's not being as fucked up emotionally as Ennis, rather than his having prior experience to bring to the tent.
These are many questions revolving around a few issues. I am willing to change my mind here--convince me. Sorry this more rambling than are my usual. This is because I am still asking questions chaotically, rather than making rhetorical points. I would, at this point, add a happy bear face, but I don't know how to do that.
Monika:
--- Quote from: x-man on September 29, 2013, 03:14:26 am ---
Jack lived a more isolated life. Did he have any boyfriends before Ennis? I would think that Ennis was the first, except that it was he who initiated the the first encounter in the tent. So what was it that first alerted the Twists that Jack was queer? Or do you believe that it was only events after the first summer that did it? You never do say what told John Twist what his son was doing on BBM. Are you saying that we must read backwards from his talking about Ennis all the time, and his "prattling all the time about leaving his wife and moving back to Lightening Flat with another man?"
Early on we learn that the first time for the two young men on the mountain was actually Jack's second summer there. There is no suggestion that there was a previous Ennis. The passion of the first night did seem to catch them both by surprise, but Jack was quick to turn over on his stomach. He knew what to do and how.
--- End quote ---
Thanks for an interesting post, X-man! I´m gonna try and address this part, since my interpretation is that Jack does have previous experience. Here is why; In the short story, Annie Proulx mentions early on that it was Jack´s second summer on the mountain. Given the fact how short the story really is and how economical she is with words, I figure that sentence must be there for a good reason. And I think the sentence was left in the story to suggest that Jack has some previous experience and Ennis hasn´t (this being his first "summer" and all).
I also tend to think that´s how Diana Ossana/Larry McMurthy/Ang Lee chose to interpret it given how the first tent scene played out in the movie with Jack seeming to know what he was doing. Annie Proulx also hints at this during that scene, letting Jack be the one that initiates the encounter.
I tend to think that Jack hadn´t had any previous boyfriends per se, but had had at least one previous sexual encounter. But I do think that when it came to the emotional impact of their time together, he was just as unprepared as Ennis. Brokeback Mountain left both of them shell shocked, and neither one ever fully recovered from it.
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