Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

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nakymaton:

--- Quote from: latjoreme on July 09, 2006, 11:51:47 pm ---Back to Johnny Cash. Few people would come out of that movie going, "That Johnny Cash, what a sexist!" even though Johnny also grew up in a sexist culture and as far as I can remember (seven months after seeing the movie) spent zero time caring for his kids.

--- End quote ---

This is a good point. But I think that it points out how different BBM is from most Hollywood movies. Walk the Line portrayed Johnny Cash's first wife as a shrew who didn't understand his need to play music. (Aside: I think I heard an interview with Roseanne Cash in which she briefly mentioned that the portrayal of her mother bothered her.) So any of Johnny's failings as far as family life go become easy to excuse, because the audience just wants Johnny to keep making music.

BBM could easily have made Alma and Lureen into villains. (It wouldn't even be that hard to change the condiments scene to make Alma clearly the bad person -- take out the line about "what about my job," make Ennis's expression in that look just a bit weaker and more pleading, make Alma just a bit less understanding.) But BBM doesn't do that; nobody in the movie is an angel except you and Jenny here, and nobody is clearly to blame. (And viewers argue about who's to blame, and some are unfair to Ennis, and some to Jack, and TJ was unfair to the screenwriters who inserted the women in to the story. And I think that's one reason why BBM bothers some people... you get to the end of the movie and Jack's dead and Ennis is alone and the audience doesn't even have the satisfaction of having somebody obvious to be mad at.)

Mikaela:
I'm wondering (this happens a lot!) whether to just keep silent when something is being discussed and my views have already been argued by someone else, much more eloquently than I ever could. But what the heck. I completely agree with you Katherine, and Mel, and others who share your views. Ennis is not sexist, nor is Jack - if anything, they both belong towards the other end of the scale when considering their time and place.

Without going into the filmmakers' intentions and character and specific scene analysis that has alreeady been covered here so brilliantly - I build my view on simple recognition and RL comparison. I'm of an age with Alma Junior. Born in an European city, thus different from rural Wyoming but IMO hardly less backwards. Comparing the dads of my local community where I and my siblings grew up to Ennis and Jack, I would say the vast majority of those dads showed less interest in the child-tutoring and nose-wiping and church-picnic'ing and plate-clearing than we see Ennis and Jack do. Everything to do with the kids was the mothers' responsibility. Most men did not have working wives at all, many would in fact have been appalled and would have felt it reflected poorly on them as family providers if their wives had even suggested going to work. Part time jobs were somewhat acceptable though, but only if the family couldn't manage financially without both husband and wife working. Many of those men certainly would have felt belittled if the wife was a business partner and even the main bread-winner like Lureen may be considered to be in the Twist household. Thinking back on this, I'm actually completely appalled at how the accepted and pervasive husband/wife dynamics were back then, - just one generation ago really. But that doesn't change that they actually *were* like that, - and that Ennis and Jack by comparison IMO, when considering both their behaviour towards their wives *and* how much they were engaged in their kids' wellbeing and upbringing, seem less sexist and more egalitarian than the average Joes of their time. When it comes to their care of and connection with their children, the filmmakers have deliberately chosen to present both men in a more positive light (both contrasting their own horrible fathers......) than the short story does. That's one of the main reasons I prefer the film over the short story, if forced to choose; - I am entirely happpy that Ennis and Jack are presented as (mostly) good fathers.

opinionista:

--- Quote from: latjoreme on July 09, 2006, 02:02:04 pm ---BTW, Jeff and Opinionista and ZouBeini and everyone else: Do you see Jack as sexist? After all, Jack grew up in more or less the same culture as Ennis did.

--- End quote ---

We aren't given enough information about Jack's domestic life to analize his behavior as a husband and a father. However, I think his situation was different because he wasn't the main provider. Lureen was, and that puts Jack in an weaker position. In Jack's case LD. Newsome called the shots most of the time. But I bet Jack, deep inside, could not be too different from Ennis. He probably expected from Lureen the same behavior and attitudes Ennis expected from Alma, but he had no support and no means, which made him feel powerless IMO. Ennis had more power because he was the main provider, Jack wasn't. Jack had to live under LD Newsome's shadow.

serious crayons:
Thanks for agreeing with me, Ruthlessly, and also for your excellent analyses of the two scenes.

Your ideas about the undercurrents in the ash-can argument sound right to me. Regarding Ennis, maybe he's afraid not only of abandonment, but also of what a divorce might suggest about him. Maybe he has picked up on vibes between Monroe and Alma; the rest of us certainly have. And if his wife refuses a traditional domestic role (serving dinner), if she leaves him, especially if she leaves him for another man (and kind of a wimpy man at that!), then what does that say about Ennis? Could it be more evidence that he's ... um, not the marrying kind?

You've convinced me that the grocery-store scene is not pointless. Now that you mention it, I can see that in the pre-camping scene when Alma, in that panicky voice, brings up Ennis' job and Ennis blows it off ("That foreman, he owes me ...") it does carry a faint reminder of this grocery store exchange. And that interpretation of the scene provides a better explanation than any of the others suggested here -- including mine -- for Ennis' look. It's not just simple beseeching, as I said -- "C'mon, Alma" -- it's more like, "Alma, remember we talked about this ..." That matches the slight tilt of his head and intense stare (trying to remind her of what they said, without having to discuss it in public). And that perfectly explains why she backs down so abruptly.

Yet another expample of how everything in the movie really does make sense if you look deep enough. (Well, everything except maybe some of the chronology, but that's another issue ...)

opinionista:
I respect everyone's opinion in this forum. All the postings are interesting, but there's something I would like to ask. Why do some of you think Ennis was not a chauvinist? Most men were like that during the 1960's, so it's pretty much expected that both Ennis and Jack behave that way too. As I said above, in Jack's case it's different because he wasn't the main provider, but he was a chauvinist too. Perhaps I'm too down to earth but some scenes have the purpose of creating context for us to know the kind of society the plot takes place, so the story makes sense, IMO. I also wonder why some of you think calling Ennis a chauvinist is an insult to the character. It just a feature that shows the character's mind frame, and also the time and the culture to which they belong. It pretty much explains Ennis behavior towards Jack too.

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