Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris

[Artiste]

Thanks brokeplex and thanks Jeff!!

What can one say?? !! Movies do spark things, one's life sometime, right??  Some art critics or other ones, as well as we of the general public, try to do so too, at times; at least trying to understand life and to live with some comfort, with or without the Brokeback Mountain movie or Annie's story!!

What about the saying: that there are two sides to every coin?? Should we hid that?? I prefer freedom of thought, of speech and of living!!! Homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or other!! To try joie de vivre, yes joys of life for all, somehow that can be possible, I say!! Annie and BM movie teaches or educates that in many wondrous ways?? !! I think so!! I learn from it and from you all everyday, here!! At times, it's hard to do so; other times are understandings which are simple or been forgotten!!

Much has been said even with critics!! Much more needs to be said still, I figure... and from you all here too!! Why not to try to help one's life and that of others too?? With understanding, love as comfortable or new actions!!

And hugs!!
Hugs to all too!!

[Artiste]

Thanks garycottle!

I had not seen your comment. Just saw it now!!

Excellent!! I wish I had written that!!

Awaiting more from you,

hugs!!

[brokeplex]

 
(Roads in BBM can be said to represent established patterns and civilized life.)


I think that it’s wonderful that straight people can watch this film and see that Jack and Ennis are in love, and that their love should not have been denied.  I think it’s wonderful that they can relate to the love Jack and Ennis have for one another.  It’s true that straight people can’t relate to being in the closet, but a story like BBM can help them understand how the closet works, and on coming to know the terms they can imagine what it must be like to have to pretend to be someone that they are not.  What’s so bad about that?

As someone trained in Geography at the university level, I was curious about your thought that "roads" represent "established patterns and civilized life". Transportation infrastructure has long been seen as an indicative pattern of civilization. What we can see looking at Earth from space other than the lights of cities are the civil engineering projects (Great Wall of China, etc).

Do you feel that Ang Lee is deliberately using roads in the fashion of establishing visual order in the boys life? If so, I like that thought, and I will look at the movie somewhat differently because of it.

I share your delight that many from the heterosexual majority have taken "Brokeback Mountain" to heart. On a personal level, this movie has indirectly lead to a type of reconciliation with my sister and her tentative acceptance of my relationship with D.L.

What Arellano, and for that matter myself, are trying to say is not that heterosexual participation in the "Brokie" experience is a bad thing. She is pointing out the degree to which the screenplay was changed to encourage just such empathy, it was thoroughly heterosexualized. In fact I don't see it as a evil thing that the producers and marketers of the movie chose to further heterosexualize the movie in order to make larger profits. But it is a dangerous thing for gay men and women to close their eyes to the heteronormative impulses and compulsions which caused the changes. These heteronormative compulsions exist throughout society, everywhere, at all levels. And, as a tiny minority on shaky political grounds we are foolish to not always be on the alert as to just how powerful these heteronormative impulses can be, even when the net result is a beautiful film.

[Clyde-B]

    I don’t know what heteronormative means.  It sounds like one of those soundbyte words that get invented when people are trying to make a name for themselves and concoct their own vocabulary to gain attention.  If you have a simpler term, I would appreciate your using it.  It could cut down on the confusion.

   When it came to expanding Brokeback Mountain for the screen, there weren’t a lot of options as to where to do it.  If you expand the romance, you risk changing the entire story.  If you expand their work lives, you risk adding a lot of irrelevant material.  This is a story that is about intimate relationships, not careers.  So they chose to expand their home lives.

    When I see the scenes of them in their home lives, I don’t feel they are at all normal.  Both Jack and Ennis have a fish-out-of-water, stranger in a strange land feel to them.  They simply don’t belong there.  Ennis at Thanksgiving doesn’t look like himself, doesn’t talk like himself, he’s a guest in his own life and eventually winds up getting chased out.

     The same with Jack at Thanksgiving.  His father-in-law is also trying to force him out of his own life and take over.

     I think these added scenes are purposely written in such a way that it feels like they don’t belong in these normal lives.  They belong with each other.  And that feeling does not detract from the gay experience, it adds to the understanding of it.
 

[Artiste]

Thanks Clyde-B, thanks brokeplex!!

Interesting!! Both your comments!!

Clyde-B, you must be a movie producer or writer? Talented!

Likewise brokeplex such talent you have and show!!

The BM movie starts with roads and ends with the road (his daughter) coming to him!!

More please guys,

hugs, hugs!! May all roads lead to gay freedom!!

[brokeplex]

 I don’t know what heteronormative means. 

   
   

In the quotations which I sourced from Harris, Mendelsohn, and Arellano, they all use that term "heteronormative". I also used it in my text simply because I couldn't think of a simpler term to use that describes the process of turning an essentially gay short story into a much more heterosexual film.  Or the process that a gay man uses to fit into a closeted existence, it seems to me that such closeted men become heteronormed. 

I am not by training or background a sociologist or a scholar in gender studies as some of the authors of the essays in "Reading Brokeback Mountain" are, so I am not qualified to carry on an academic discussion of the proper usage of the term. Sorry if it sounds like a pretentious sound bite.

Happy Trails!   

[Artiste]

Brokeplex, you give us good examples.

Thanks!

Hugs!

[Clyde-B]

In the quotations which I sourced from Harris, Mendelsohn, and Arellano, they all use that term "heteronormative". I also used it in my text simply because I couldn't think of a simpler term to use that describes the process of turning an essentially gay short story into a much more heterosexual film.  Or the process that a gay man uses to fit into a closeted existence, it seems to me that such closeted men become heteronormed. 

I am not by training or background a sociologist or a scholar in gender studies as some of the authors of the essays in "Reading Brokeback Mountain" are, so I am not qualified to carry on an academic discussion of the proper usage of the term. Sorry if it sounds like a pretentious sound bite.

Happy Trails!   

I don't understand how scenes that show gays are out of place trying to live heterosexual lives or how uncomfortable it is to try and pretend you are something you are not "normalizes" anything.  If these scenes do anything, it is to emphasize that Jack and Ennis belong together and not with their wives.

[Artiste]

Clyde, may I say that I do feel that the BM movie in some ways does make Ennis and Jack lives like they are heteros... indeed!

Do you see that both Ennis and Jack got married to females??

Their marriages are not gay-males-ones!!

There is a danger here, by making such film, instead of more gay-oriented or gay-something to more heteronormed!!

I have a sample, one of my former friend... you want to hear it??

Anyone else too want to do so??

Hugs!!

[brokeplex]

I don't understand how scenes that show gays are out of place trying to live heterosexual lives or how uncomfortable it is to try and pretend you are something you are not "normalizes" anything.  If these scenes do anything, it is to emphasize that Jack and Ennis belong together and not with their wives.

The film as compared to the short story is heteronormed.

This is the point made in the essays and articles in question. Whether for good or ill, the heterosexual life of Ennis and Jack are emphasized over what we read in the short story. The question raised by the authors of the essays and the articles which I noted is : why does the screen play emphasize the heterosexual life of the boys more that the short story?

The conclusion of all of the authors is that this made the film more marketable to the general public. I agree with their conclusion.

Why then did this make the film more marketable?

Because of the heteronorming pressures in this society, most straight viewers would not empathize as fully with scenes drawn from only the gay elements in Ennis and Jack's lives, but would be able to empathize fully with showing those scenes linked to their heterosexual scenes.