Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
A Ninth Viewing Observation
Front-Ranger:
I beg to differ on one point: Jack is not clumsy!! Jack is a totally competent person. Sure he missed the coyote. That's because he didn't have a killer instinct. But Jack is tremendously good with the sheep, and handy with camp chores. He's a laissez-faire type of person, leaving the tent be even if it don't look quite right because improving his harmonica skills is more important. Cowboys and other people who worked with livestock commonly played the harmonica and/or sang as a way to keep the animals calm, and were less likely to be hired if they couldn't sing. Jack was also perfectly good with the can opener as can be seen if you look carefully. The problem was that he was trying to open a can while lying supine and balancing the can on his stomach! Jack was also perfectly good with a lasso and a fine bullrider too, certainly not a pissant. (See my ranting on "Jack was maligned unfairly" for more on this). Furthermore, Jack was the company's best combine salesman and could ride those combines around in circles. In his later years, Jack was always equipped with the best in camping gear and tack, and he kept his truck going smoothly to Wyoming and back several times a year. No, Jack did not deserve the criticism that his dad, society, Aguirre, his father-in-law, and even Ennis heaped on him. He only deserved the unconditional love that his mother gave him and that we all deserve.
ednbarby:
Hear, hear, F-R! I was gonna jump in and defend my always put-upon and overly-maligned Jack, but you did it for me. And much more eloquently than I would have.
I'll add that I think he was pretty damned good at lighting a cigarette against the wind, too - something I never have mastered even in a slight breeze, myself.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on June 05, 2006, 01:24:50 pm ---my always put-upon and overly-maligned Jack,
--- End quote ---
Hunh?? Barb, if anyone's put-upon and overly maligned in this movie, it's not Jack! (Just consider, for example, some of the responses to those threads in the polling place -- he's everybody's best friend and favorite dreamboat!)
Or wait: It just occurred to me you might have meant he's maligned by other characters in the movie rather than members of BetterMost. Even if that's the case, though, I still don't think I'd agree -- Aguirre hates Ennis, too, LD Newsome, Mr. Twist and Jimbo are all portrayed as jerks. And Jack is liked by everyone else we see him in contact with: Lureen, Randall, LaShawn, the bartenders, his mother, Ennis ...
And Lee, I certainly didn't mean to align myself with Old Man Twist, Aguirre and LD Newsome in heaping criticism upon Jack!! (Though I don't get your reference to Ennis -- when does Ennis ever criticize Jack except in a teasing way about the harmonica and, I guess, in a personally threatened way about Mexico?)
Let me clarify my previous post. All I meant is that, as I've stated on previous threads, I think one of the things Jack finds attractive in Ennis is that Ennis is graceful at things that Jack is a bit bumbling with. Ennis catches the watch while Jack drops the keys. Ennis hits the coyote, Jack misses. Stuff like that. Of course Jack is a very skilled sheep herder, outdoorsman and cigarette lighter. He's an OK singer and bull-rider. And he's a far better conversationalist and dancer than Ennis (the former being one reason Ennis is attracted to Jack).
ednbarby:
--- Quote ---Let me clarify my previous post. All I meant is that, as I've stated on previous threads, I think one of the things Jack finds attractive in Ennis is that Ennis is graceful at things that Jack is a bit bumbling with. Ennis catches the watch while Jack drops the keys. Ennis hits the coyote, Jack misses. Stuff like that. Of course Jack is a very skilled sheep herder, outdoorsman and cigarette lighter. He's an OK singer and bull-rider. And he's a far better conversationalist and dancer than Ennis (the former being one reason Ennis is attracted to Jack).
--- End quote ---
And there are the yin and the yang making an appearance again. Each of them is skilled at all the things the other is not. Together, they make the perfect person.
I guess I just see Jack as being woefully under-appreciated by all of society (because I basically see him as a bit of a Messiah, truth told), except for his mother and Ennis, the only two people who ever loved him unconditionally.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on June 05, 2006, 02:47:18 pm ---I guess I just see Jack as being woefully under-appreciated by all of society
--- End quote ---
Well, it's a lot to expect for all of society to appreciate him as much as you do! ;) :-*
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