Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
You shut up about Ennis - this ain't (all) his fault
ruthlesslyunsentimental:
--- Quote from: JakeTwist on July 02, 2006, 02:20:23 pm ---the arguements, explanation, deep analysis and interpretations in this thread are simply awsome.
--- End quote ---
Hi! I'm the original poster. Thanks for the nice things you said about this thread. I sure know how to attract 'em, don't I. You know why? It's because I know how to cook the beans just right... I add just a little bit of "Old Rose" whiskey! :laugh:
I really am glad to have anyone and everyone join in the discussion, but, as always, I'll put my two cents in.
--- Quote ---I cannot argue points as eloquently as y'all, but I am reading this thread, and I would just like to point out again (am I going to be banned from here for sounding like a broken record?) that the following conclusion is not logical IMO:
Ennis knows that being queer is having sex with men + Ennis has sex with Jack ≠ Ennis does not think of himself as queer.
How can he not? He is sane and rational, is he not?
--- End quote ---
Sane, yes. Rational, no. I still stand by keeping the equal sign in the equation. I have known men who are just like this. I knew a man who had sex very frequently with many partners (all male) and he's explained to me that he never thought of himself as gay until he was in his mid-thirties. He never saw a dead Earl kind of thing, but he said anti-homosexuality was so engrained in him that he just never made the connection. He also said he thought it would all pass someday. He doesn't believe this anymore. And, to the best of my knowledge he's been monogamous for at least the past 15 years, but he himself said he had sex with several hundred different men, all the while not calling himself gay.
The big theme of the film is the destructive effects of rural homophobia. One of those destructive effects is on Ennis’ psyche and his ability to relate concept with behavior.
--- Quote ---And he did ask Jack at the riverside "Do you ever get the feeling that people know?" I realize that sometimes people can make excuses for their behavior to the point of believing that it is something other than what it is, (I mean self-delusional) but when it comes to something as concrete as having sex with a man over and over and over for half of one's life, this ain't no little thing that's happenin here.
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I believe he's asking Jack whether people know that he's having sex with another man -- not that he's asking Jack whether people think Ennis is queer. To Ennis, it's completely different. To Ennis, what Ennis has with Jack is good and comfortable as long as he can differentiate it from "queer" guys who, to Ennis, are bad and deserving of punishment.
Now pull up a chair and have some beans. Apple pie for dessert. :laugh:
ruthlesslyunsentimental:
--- Quote from: dly64 on July 02, 2006, 04:24:05 pm ---Not everyone agrees with me on this ... so I am going to try and explain this in another way …..
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I agree with everything you said in this post (but I didn't "quote" it all just to "save space." But your examples are absolutely pitch perfect. Couldn't disagree with a word.
I'll bet Lureen thought she just kept getting prettier and prettier (like in her youth) as she applied more and more make-up and bleached her hair blonder and blonder.
ruthlesslyunsentimental:
--- Quote from: JakeTwist on July 02, 2006, 05:26:48 pm ---Well Diane, I am mightily impressed!! :) Are you a courtroom attorney or sumpin'? Your closing arguments have swayed me completely. I stlll believe my mathematical equation, but I accept your explanations too...
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I'll bet she put something in her beans... :laugh: Works every time!
ruthlesslyunsentimental:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on July 02, 2006, 03:44:56 am ---This is getting to be a strange thread. Instead of everybody debating in multiple directions, most of the posts seem to be one-on-one debates with Ruthlessly. But -- what can I say? -- here I go doing the same.
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As I said, it's what I put in the beans! :laugh:
--- Quote ---But I'm not discounting Ennis' internalized homophobia in shaping his reaction. I'm sure, in fact, that's a factor. But I prefer to be inclusive. To me, boiling it down to JUST homophobia seems to remove Ennis from the real world. Instead of experiencing a hodge-podge of real-world feelings, a mix of emotional conflicts -- homophobia, sure, but also, and perhaps primarily, jealousy because the man he has loved for 20 years is seeing other men -- he becomes a pawn in a literary scheme rather than a three-dimensional real-life living human being (which he is, isn't he? ISN''T HE??!?). ???
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Of course he's real-world. That's what makes him so precious. ;D
Many factors, no doubt. But I still stick #1 with homophobia. With Ennis, it's always back to his fears.
--- Quote ---This is what I mean. Is he Ennis, or is he Moby? Does he react like anybody might, upon hearing of their loved one's unfaithfulness, or does he react like a literary character fulfilling his thematic duty?
--- End quote ---
Wellllllll, he is in the film to show us something...
--- Quote ---I think I agree with everything here. Ennis definitely does have fears about living with Jack. They're just not his only motivation in the lakeside argument. He's not having sex with Cassie simply because Jack won't mind. It's because, yes, he doesn't want to have people know he's gay AND he doesn't think Jack would mind (personally, I think Jack minds more than Ennis realizes, but ...).
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Spot on!
--- Quote ---Does yours have "Melissa"? I am disappointed that the regular soundtrack doesn't include it, the song Ennis and Cassie dance to on their date with Alma Jr. I miss that one especially, because Ennis himself picked it from the jukebox, and it seems to unconsciously reflect his feelings about Jack and Cassie ("knowing many, loving none; sharing sorrows, having fun -- but back home he'll always run ..."). Of all the pre-existing songs in the movie, that has always been my favorite (in the context of the movie, anyway).
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Yes! And I had never heard it before I first heard it on the "voters'" track... now, it's one of my favorites! Also, the mountain song -- I can’t think of the name right off hand -- that we hear in the bus depot. How appropriate is that one?! WoW!
ednbarby:
I'd just like to take my dead horse beater out once again and chime in that I agree that while Ennis clearly is gay, he does not see himself as gay. I think that when he says, "Do you ever see someone looking at you and wonder if he knows?..." what he's talking about "knowing" about is not being a homosexual, but being a man who has sex with another man. Yes, those two things are one and the same to all of us. But not to him. And as it's been mentioned before, Diana Ossana believes that most likely, after Jack's death, Ennis would likely become even more homophobic and self-loathing. Tied up in his grief and guilt over Jack's death and the fact that it could have been avoided if he had done some things differently is his engrained shame, still, that he was in love and had sex regularly with another man. And I think tied up in that, too, would be a loyalty to Jack and his memory that would never be broken. I have trouble imagining Ennis ever being attracted to another man again because of all that. It just doesn't seem true to his character.
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