Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
19 or 20?
Monika:
--- Quote from: southendmd on August 26, 2010, 01:45:15 pm ---I'm inclined to believe that most film-goers don't do a lot of math.
--- End quote ---
That´s my guess too.
Screwing up the timeline is a pretty common thing in movies.
Lynne:
--- Quote from: Buffymon on August 23, 2010, 05:41:40 pm --- sorry for going OT but often when I read the passage where Pa Twist pees on Jack, the thought that he might have abused Jack sexually crosses my mind. It just seems as sucha perverted thing to do.
I'm just curious whether anyone else ever has made this association?
To me this might explain Jack's apparent "know-how".
--- End quote ---
Hey Monika - I'm coming late to this thread and I just saw your post here.
It is certainly something to think about.
That scene in the short story distresses me a great deal and although I don't know if sexual intercourse (experience) is intended, the abuse IMO is definite. Here is the whole paragraph:
So now he knew it had been the tire iron. He stood up, said, you bet he'd like to see Jack's room, recalled one of Jack's stories about this old man. Jack was dick-clipped and the old man was not; it bothered the son who had discovered the anatomical disconformity during a hard scene. He had been about three or four, he said, always late getting to the toilet, struggling with buttons, the seat, the height of the thing and often as not left the surroundings sprinkled down. The old man blew up about it and this one time worked into a crazy rage. "Christ, he licked the stuffin out a me, knocked me down on the bathroom floor, whipped me with his belt. I thought he was killin me. Then he says, 'You want a know what it's like with piss all over the place? I'll learn you,' and he pulls it out and lets go all over me, soaked me, then he throws a towel at me and makes me mop up the floor, take my clothes off and warsh them in the bathtub, warsh out the towel, I'm bawlin and blubberin. But while he was hosin me down I seen he had some extra material that I was missin. I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that."
I always wondered if there was more because it seems an abrupt transition from the 'hard scene' to the noticing his father was not circumcised. And perhaps men understand it better than women - to me, "no way to get it right with him" should refer to the 'hard scene' instead of the anatomical difference.
And now I'm wondering if this is really a metaphor on another level - Jack's anatomical difference representing his difference in orientation as well?
SuperDistortion:
--- Quote from: Lynne on August 26, 2010, 04:21:48 pm ---Hey Monika - I'm coming late to this thread and I just saw your post here.
It is certainly something to think about.
That scene in the short story distresses me a great deal and although I don't know if sexual intercourse (experience) is intended, the abuse IMO is definite. Here is the whole paragraph:
So now he knew it had been the tire iron. He stood up, said, you bet he'd like to see Jack's room, recalled one of Jack's stories about this old man. Jack was dick-clipped and the old man was not; it bothered the son who had discovered the anatomical disconformity during a hard scene. He had been about three or four, he said, always late getting to the toilet, struggling with buttons, the seat, the height of the thing and often as not left the surroundings sprinkled down. The old man blew up about it and this one time worked into a crazy rage. "Christ, he licked the stuffin out a me, knocked me down on the bathroom floor, whipped me with his belt. I thought he was killin me. Then he says, 'You want a know what it's like with piss all over the place? I'll learn you,' and he pulls it out and lets go all over me, soaked me, then he throws a towel at me and makes me mop up the floor, take my clothes off and warsh them in the bathtub, warsh out the towel, I'm bawlin and blubberin. But while he was hosin me down I seen he had some extra material that I was missin. I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that."
I always wondered if there was more because it seems an abrupt transition from the 'hard scene' to the noticing his father was not circumcised. And perhaps men understand it better than women - to me, "no way to get it right with him" should refer to the 'hard scene' instead of the anatomical difference.
And now I'm wondering if this is really a metaphor on another level - Jack's anatomical difference representing his difference in orientation as well?
--- End quote ---
Fascinating perspective. Definitely food for thought...
Monika:
--- Quote from: Lynne on August 26, 2010, 04:21:48 pm ---
And now I'm wondering if this is really a metaphor on another level - Jack's anatomical difference representing his difference in orientation as well?
--- End quote ---
Hi Lynne! This is what I´ve always thought- that his anatomical difference somehow represented his difference in orientation, but I have never fully understood exactly why.
Why would Pa Twist mind Jack being circumcised, and besides, it couldn´t have been news to him that he was.
Perhaps Jack was starring a bit too long at his dad´s penis?
Or maybe the "no way to get it right with him after that" does refer to "the hard scene" after all and has nothing to do with Jack being circumcised.
Where is AP when you need her? :P
chowhound:
--- Quote from: brokeplex on August 26, 2010, 01:09:16 pm ---oh, yes. there have been some discussion threads about Jack not being the biological father of Bobby. I think that Ang Lee added this suggestion to the film in order to better explain Jack's life in TX. I think this addition to the storyline improves the overall tale because it makes Jack a more believable character.
--- End quote ---
If Jack is not Bobby's biological father, then that fact alone provides a persuasive reason for Old Man Newsome's aggressive and dismissive attiitude towards Jack. We first see this when he and his wife visit the newborn Bobby. He flings his car keys at Jack, ordering him to go out to the car and find the formula they have brought and when admiring Bobby his remarks cur Jack out entirely - "he's the spittin image of his grandpa...(glances at Jack)...isn't he the spittin' image of his grandpa?"
From what Jack tells Ennis on their first reunion, it looks as though his attempts to get rid of Jack, once Jack has provided the necessary cover by marrying Lureen, have been going on for some while:
"Hell, Lureen's old man, you bet he'd give me a downpayment if I'd get lost. Already more or less said it..."
Also, if Jack is not Bobby's biological father, it makes more understandable Jack's willingness to leave his wife and newborn son to start a new life with Ennis.
This is not the only possible explanation for Old Man Newsome's attitude towards Jack but, in my opinion, it is certainly a plausible one.
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