Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
One Man Men
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: moremojo on September 06, 2006, 10:49:04 am ---Agreed. Jack is very obviously a homosexual man who, in my opinion, is fairly in touch with that aspect of himself throughout the story.
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Yeah. Either that, or Jack fell in love with Ennis pretty much the second his foot hit the pavement outside Aguirre's trailer. And then later, he fell in love with a Mexican prostitute.
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on September 06, 2006, 11:04:20 am ---Well, in some ancient cultures it was acceptable for married women to have affairs with other women but not with men, because then their childrens' paternity wouldn't be in doubt. Today, in most cultures, it has to do with power.
Plenty of people have expressed better than me why so many heterosexual men feel threatened by the idea of men having sexual attachments to other men. However, in the case of women the dominant group finds lesbian action a turn-on so it goes without saying that too much negativity about it would put members of that group in a bit of a bind. Or as the loser-protagonist in "Married With Children" put it: "There's nothing wrong with a woman having sex with another woman - as long as there's a man watching."
That's not to imply actual tolerance for lesbianism among homophobes. Two women here in Missouri were denied an application to be foster parents last year, and took it to court. The court ruled that the reasons for their being denied - their sexual orientation - were irrelevant to the welfare of the children and our homophobic State district attorney is still in a snit about that. The prejudice against lesbians is more subtle.
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How fun to see this old thread revived!
Well, I can't help myself from commenting a bit on this post. As one of the few, long-term lesbian residents of BetterMost, it's interesting to see this issue come up a bit. I guess all I want to add (and I'm sure a bit of this is implicit in what you wrote originally... I just feel like elaborating) is that there's a vast difference between straight male fantasies of woman-on-woman action (of the sort you mention, a la Married With Children and countless other pop culture references such as Howard Stern, etc. and porn, etc.) and the true threat/ fear that real and actual lesbianism brings out culturally... which is the fear of women being completely independent of men in terms of being self-sufficient in terms of supporting ourselves AND EVEN sexually (this is not to say that friendship with men, etc. aren't constantly factors in a gay woman's life). This extreme independence flies in the face of so many cultural paradigms it's wonderful an almost funny. This anxiety about what true lesbianism means seems to come out when people (some straight men, some straight women, etc.) act like they don't understand how two women can really have sex. That, almost willful act of not-understanding reveals every aspect of cultural insecurity as far as I'm concerned.
bbm_stitchbuffyfan:
I think Ennis opened up around Jack. That's what I gathered out of the first act of the movie, how Jack sort of reels Ennis out of his shell and they mutually feel comfortable around each other.
I think Ennis was too in love with Jack to really look at another man, or person, for that matter. It's blatant that Alma and Cassie didn't mean much romantically to him. I think Jack, when Ennis hurt him so badly, tried to ease the pain through other people but found it useless.
How Ennis is only attracted to Jack, only comes alive around Jack, speaks beautiful volumes about their relationship, I think.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote ---From Marge:
Well, in some ancient cultures it was acceptable for married women to have affairs with other women but not with men, because then their childrens' paternity wouldn't be in doubt. Today, in most cultures, it has to do with power.
Plenty of people have expressed better than me why so many heterosexual men feel threatened by the idea of men having sexual attachments to other men. However, in the case of women the dominant group finds lesbian action a turn-on so it goes without saying that too much negativity about it would put members of that group in a bit of a bind. Or as the loser-protagonist in "Married With Children" put it: "There's nothing wrong with a woman having sex with another woman - as long as there's a man watching."
--- End quote ---
There's another aspect to why love between two women is not as "threatening" as the love between two men. It has it's roots in the genreal historic disregard/disdain towards women. Until the age of enlightenment women were not regarded as full-fletched human beings. And the believe that women do not have a sexuality, are therefore not sexual beings, lasted even longer.
Remains of that believe are still around these days. They show for example in sentences like "Such a thing like lesbians do not exist; there are only women who didn't find the RIGHT man yet."(*arrrgh*) Or, even more scorning, "They just need to be f*cked really good and hard" ( >:( *more arrrgh*)
So ironically the genreal disdain towards women led to less hatred towards lesbian women in comparison to gay men.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on September 07, 2006, 06:43:08 am ---So ironically the genreal disdain towards women led to less hatred towards lesbian women in comparison to gay men.
--- End quote ---
I think your analysis is spot-on, and it reminds me of how much of the homophobia directed towards gay men is often tinged with more than a touch of misogyny. It is a common misunderstanding, now receding but still fairly widespread, that gay men are men who are behaving like women, or who want to be women. The unspoken rebuke here is that these men are forsaking their God-given birthright and mimicking the position (in every sense of the word) of "lowly" women. People often don't articulate their homophobia in such plain terms, but I definitely think this is an element common in that prejudice. And this is one reason it saddens me to see women exhibit homophobia--they are aligning themselves, no doubt unwittingly, with the agents of their own oppression.
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