Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
The Laundry Room
Front-Ranger:
Well, I'm rather envious of the friend that got to watch BBM with you, Katherine. Maybe someday... but I also wanted to mention that Ennis is doing laundry at the end of the story. He throws all the horseblankets from the Coffeepot ranch where he is working into the pickup and hoses them off at the car wash. Then he steps across the street to the gift shop to buy a post card of Brokeback Mountain.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 08, 2006, 09:29:41 pm ---Well, I'm rather envious of the friend that got to watch BBM with you, Katherine.
--- End quote ---
That's nice of you to say, Lee, but don't be envious. She wasn't much fun, anyways, was she? That is, she's fun as a friend, but she's not much fun as a Brokie. She has seen the movie three or four times, she owns a review DVD and I've been pretty upfront with her (moreso than anyone else, anyway) about the depth of my obsession. So she's as close as I come to a "real life" Brokie friend (not including the Brokie friends I have since met in "real life" ;)) But she talks during the movie; she's not fully engaged; she's interested in, but not blown away by, all the nuances and metaphors; she doesn't find the tent scenes hot (?!); and she goes to bed halfway through (while I, of course, stay up til 2 a.m. watching to the end).
In other words, good sport though she is to humor my obsession, she falls far, far short of a real Brokie. So you're right, someday ...
OK, back to laundry. How about a negative example -- the laundry that conspicuously doesn't get washed, i.e., the blood-stained shirts. As you say, Lee:
--- Quote ---In the story, Ennis discovers Jack's shirt, hung on a nail, then Ennis's blood on the shirt, and finally, Ennis's "plaid shirt, lost, he'd thought, long ago in some damn laundry..."
--- End quote ---
Is it significant that he thought the blood had been washed out, but in fact Jack had seen to it that it wasn't?
And, Lee, I love your inclusion of "I wrang it out" being another allusion to laundry. We see Jack naked in the river and although he's not wringing it out in the other sense, we see him as the person who does the (shirt) wringing for Ennis and not vise versa. But, in fact, the wringing goes both ways. In "wrang it out," I'd bet Annie's choice of idiom is not accidental.
Front-Ranger:
That's what I love about her! Anybody else would think that Wyoming is an unlikely place to look for pithy and axiomatic idioms, but she proves us wrong. And speaking of word choice, I love your choice of idioms!
Front-Ranger:
Sometimes I like to just come back to this thread and rest, reading all the posts here, and just enjoying the coolness and darkness of the laundry room. It calms me down when I feel like I've been "through the wringer" like I feel today. :(
bbm_stitchbuffyfan:
*bump* This is a very interesting theme!
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