Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
What is your take on the BBM phenomenon
x-man:
Thanks, guys. Maybe my over-amped reaction to the movie and story is based on my own experience. It was SO close to home. Unlike with Ennis, to my sorrow, my Jack is not in my dreams.
x-man:
I want to ask a question. I am not being confrontational, nor do I want to start a row. I really want to know: What is the appeal of BBM to women? Ennis and Jack are clearly only interested in each other. Alma, Lureen, and Cassie are not well done by in the story and film. I can easily--all too easily--identify either with Ennis or Jack. Who do women identify with? Do they pretend they are one of the men? Is there more to it than that? It's no good asking me to think about straight romantic films. I watch them unfold, but I cannot relate to them at all. Straight or lesbian erotic/romantic relationships are a total mystery. I cannot change that. But I still wonder if someone can explain to me how the BBM story can affect women.
Sason:
I guess there are a thousand answers to that, x-man. Here's one:
Apart from the gay bit, there's so much in the characters of Ennis and Jack that can be universal and shared by other people, e.g. straight women.
For example, off the top of my head:
Jack: never got what he wanted/needed from any man; not his father, not his father-in-law, not from random men in bars, certainly not from Ennis. I'm sure a lot of straight women can relate to that. Also there's his hopeful and positive nature, his unability to quit a relationship that probably drained him emotionally more than it actually gave him.
Ennis: his total emotional locked-in-ness. Ennis was so genuinely unhappy that he didn't even know it. He had one chance to happiness, he couldn't take it. His self-hate.
There are so many universal themes in BBM: lost chances, regret, love, once-in-a-life-time, grief, societal pressure, emotional self-cencorship (for whatever reason), unability to combine inner life with outer.
I belive all these themes, and a million more, speak to all people in various degrees, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
But I have no answer to why there aren't very many lesbian women or straight men among the brokies.
Then, of course, there is the exclusively gay experience that so many gay men around here have talked about; to see - maybe for the first time - their own life played out on the big screen.
That's the beauty of BBM: so multi-faceted, so many layers, so universal, so personal, so exclusive.
Mandy21:
Lovely answer, Sason! I would agree with all you said. My reason was twofold: 1) it is a tragic, but hopeful, love story, and what girl doesn't love that?; and 2) HELLO???? Have you seen Heath and Jake??? Eye candy all over the screen for 2 hours and 23 minutes, yippee skippee. :laugh:
Front-Ranger:
Sonja and Mandy have given wonderful answers and I have little to add. I might ask why gay men love I Love Lucy, The Wizard of Oz, Bewitched, and many other performances, but I won't. Suffice it to say that any work of great cinema or literature is loved and admired by a whole range of people, not just people who are exactly like its characters.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version