Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Was Mexico all about revenge or about need?
mvansand76:
I have wondered about this from the first time I saw the movie. Jack comes to Riverton after Ennis' divorce and assumes this is it: they are going to live their lives together. When that doesn't happen he heads out to Mexico. But is this trip about revenge (I'll show you what happens when you turn me down) or is it about need (right now, he isn't going to get sex from Ennis, so he heads to Mexico for that). I always think it's the first one, because it's not the sex that Jack drives all those hundreds of miles for, it's that sweet life with Ennis. I have always thought it was strange that the Mexico Sequence was right after the Jack Driving to Riverton After The Divorce Sequence because this would suggest strongly that Jack was in it for the sex. Anybody?
Aussie Chris:
I think that if it was about revenge then Jack would have raised the issue before the confrontation at the lake (where he's not really given a choice but to confess the trip to Mexico). On the other hand I agree that sex is not his primary motivator, but the desparate need for intimacy is. I could imagine that he learns the hard way in Mexico that sex and intimacy can be polar opposites when you don't care for the person your with. That's the thing about being gay, sex is too easy and love is too hard.
Toast:
I have never considered revenge as being part of the Mexican trip that we see.
Jack has just been turfed out for the weekend,
He realizes that Ennis has more than a family preventing them from being a male-male couple. So now he has a couple of days to kill, days that he desperately wanted to include some closeness and affection.
Can he go back to Lureen and cry his heart out. NO !!
So he heads off to where he knows he can be discreet. But his attitude while there in Mexico isn't "I'll show the whoresonofabitch that I can have a good time". His attitude was one of need and loneliness. And he found out that what Chris says, is correct.
--- Quote from: Aussie Chris on August 29, 2006, 05:48:34 am --- That's the thing about being gay, sex is too easy and love is too hard.
--- End quote ---
I cannot think of Jack as a revenge oriented or spiteful guy.
He was lonely, rejected and in need of a friend, even if he had to pay for the friendship. When I see that scene, I always hope that the Mexican was a good listener. Because I can see Jack talking more than fucking that night.
Momof2:
I think it was done out of anger and revenge. As I have said in another post, I do not think it was ever about just the sex. He would not have hung on and had that much hope for sex. I think he was devastated and it was more of a "I'll show him." How many people have done stupid things because they were mad only to regret it. I also think when he metioned it at the lake he was doing it more or less to make Ennis jealous. I think Jack thought maybe if Ennis thinks he has a little competition he will come to his senses and realize that they were meant to be together. Ennis just as any lover scorned reacted in an extreme anger. As long as Jack was having sex with his wife or any other woman it was ok, but if it were another man then that was a different story. I think because of the fact of how they met and how they came together that Ennis new it was something major. He would not stand for the man he loved against all social opinions to be with another man.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Aussie Chris on August 29, 2006, 05:48:34 am --- That's the thing about being gay, sex is too easy and love is too hard.
--- End quote ---
Chris, you have just encapsulated my own perception about the frequent loneliness of the gay male experience. Except I find it hard to even go for the sex--sex without an emotional connection feels so empty to me. What I really yearn for (as Jack did) is male intimacy, involving the spiritual, emotional, and physical planes, and this kind of connection is relatively rare. Jack's loneliness and isolation is an aspect of his character with which I strongly identify.
So segueing from this, I think Jack's motive in going to Mexico had less to do with revenge than with a hungry search for the intimacy and closeness that he wanted from Ennis, but of which he felt deprived. It turned out to be a futile search, but his heart propelled him to try nonetheless (Jack, as Jake has stated, is characterized by his willingness to try and try again).
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