Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Was Mexico all about revenge or about need?
nakymaton:
I can see the analogy with a kid who hasn't gotten his way. (Though I know as many adults as children who do things like that... but, yeah, "childish" is a word that could come to mind.)
What's odd about driving to Mexico in a fit of anger, though, is that it's such a damn long drive. (And after a 14-hour drive beforehand!) I mean, why didn't Jack just go to, I don't know, Denver or someplace and pick up somebody for a one-night-stand?
It's just an awful long time to keep a tantrum going.
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: goadra on August 29, 2006, 11:10:04 pm ---I disagree that he went ‘tearing off.’ As he leaves Ennis, he looks more like a chair’s been knocked out from under him, not like he’s having a tantrum. He might have driven that long distance because in a daze, feeling like he was nothin’ and going nowhere.
--- End quote ---
It's more the moment after Jack wipes that tear away, when he sets his face and we hear the engine rev, that it seems like he's angry. That's the moment when I can see Jeff's point.
JT:
I don't think Jack is being childish, vengeful or throwing tandrums. I just think he's hurt and desparate, so he's trying to fill that sexual need that he didn't get from Ennis. Jack expects to get the "complete package" when he drives 14 hrs after the divorce scene. What I mean is that he expects to get love, sex, intimacy--basically a sweet life with Ennis. But when Ennis turns him away, his world shatterred and dreams crushed. He has to pick up the pieces alone and sex is a just a piece of that "sweet life". I don't think that Jack would ever want to hurt Ennis in any way.
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: goadra on August 29, 2006, 11:27:31 pm ---Yes, you’re right, Mel. And the way he shakes his head--not just getting the tears out of the way, but perhaps also thinking, “No, I won’t dwell on this” or “I won’t let this hurt me”?
--- End quote ---
I think of that head shake as an attempt to shake off Ennis (or Jack's love for Ennis). A Love That Will Never Grow Old is playing in the background while Jack's crying, too, and I think of that song as encapsulating Jack's feelings about Ennis. (Especially the line that we actually hear -- that smile in your eyes that can light up the night.) Sometimes the music seems to work in the background to express all the mushiness that the characters can't (or won't) put into words, and that seems especially true right there.
And then Jack shakes his head, like he's trying to get rid of it all, the pain and the love and the memory of moments like the dozy embrace and everything.
And then he drives all the way to Mexico for some meaningless sex.
I think that was the first time after the reunion that Jack tried to quit Ennis. So not revenge, and not just about need, too, but also about trying to forget how much he loved Ennis.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on August 29, 2006, 10:33:19 pm ---What's odd about driving to Mexico in a fit of anger, though, is that it's such a damn long drive. (And after a 14-hour drive beforehand!) I mean, why didn't Jack just go to, I don't know, Denver or someplace and pick up somebody for a one-night-stand?
--- End quote ---
That's actually a good question--why all the way to Mexico? Maybe Annie Proulx has the answer. Maybe some of the gay men she talked to in the process of writing the story talked about going, or having gone, to Mexico for gay sex.
Although no one in his right mind ought to consider sex with a hustler in a foreign country as a "safe" activity, perhaps "getting it" in Mexico was considered "safer" in the sense that it was perceived there was less a chance you might run into someone who knows you? As in, "Hi, Jack, what are you doing in Denver?"
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