Well, I have had Brokeback Mountain - the movie and the original short story on my mind first of all off and on since I first heard about the movie in September 2005 when I saw some information about it on a gay online news service.
In November, I joined a Yahoo Group run by a know-it-all heterosexual-and-proud-of-it somewhat homophobic woman who lived in Australia. It was not listed as an Australian Yahoo Group; it was listed as a regular AMERICAN Yahoo Group. She did not like it when openly gay men wanted to discuss their own sexual orientation and how the story related to their own lives. She tried to claim that one's sexual orientation was not that important.
Well, as soon as a friend sent me a text copy of Annie Proulx's Dead Line, Ltd. 1997 copyrighted edition of Brokeback Mountain as published in the "Close Range" short stories book, I decided to start my own Yahoo Group with primary emphasis on the short story and that was in December 2005. I am closing that group this month because most of what is in the book and the movie as far as the issues brought up in Annie Proulx's story are concerned, my other Yahoo Groups have been covering them for several years now.
I do take time to read what is here in the BetterMost board several times a day. I have it set up that I never sign out of the board; but, the time listed only shows when I have the window open to read or post.
As a person who has lived and still lives in the Historical American West, I feel that I have a right to give my POV in regard to how the story and movie content relates to my own life and those whom I know and have known.
Some people have mistaken the states WEST of the Missisippi River to be a part of the American Mid-West. But, historically speaking, the Mid-West is EAST of the Mississippi and NORTH of the Mason-Dixon Line. I don't call Arkansas nor Louisiana Western states (both of them are actually Southern States); but, part of Missouri is in the Central Plains of the USA.
I did create a poll to find out who actually live in or have lived in the historical OLD West between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River.