Author Topic: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"  (Read 1014820 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1020 on: October 02, 2013, 09:36:53 am »
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline x-man

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1021 on: October 02, 2013, 11:27:41 am »
I think Ennis IS homophobic in that self-loathing sense. Both the book and movie make references that imply Ennis was extremely uncomfortable about his sexual orientation, even when just alone with Jack-- in the book, for example, Ennis will only hold Jack from behind. I think when Ennis says, "You know I ain't queer," he's expressing both what he thinks being "queer" means -- a shameful thing -- and his own wish not to face that he fits that label.  I think the rational fear instilled by his earlier experiences came accompanied by feelings of shame and sickness.

I think we're meant to see the men's and the bartender's behavior as at least ambiguous, possibly including hostility or even danger but not necessarily, a reflection of what Jack experiences as he goes through life; he can never know how people will react to him, but he's willing to take a chance anyway. As far as the scene goes, under other circumstances we might not think a thing about either the pool players or the bartender. But we know it's a homophobic society, that Jack is taking a risk by hitting on Jimbo, that the bartender is likely to overhear and disapprove, that Jimbo lashes back at the offer and then goes over to talk to a group of tough men holding long sticks.

I hope I am not flogging a dead horse.  I think we have here, and at the "What if Lureen..." site, moved from looking at homophobia as how straight society views gays, and how it reacts to them, to interiorized homophobia--the self-loathing part of it.  When people point to Ennis being self-loathing, the evidence is slim.  Yes, by definition, Ennis' fear of being killed is a subset of homophobia, but I keep insisting on using it "as we usually use the word." 

Some argue that Ennis must have been self-loathing because the place and times were homophobic, and he was a product of them.  This is a conjecture based on an argument from silence.  I don't think we can legitimately do that; instead we are constrained to look directly to the book and movie for our evidence.  The characters can only be labeled homophobic or internally homophobic based on what they say and do.

Curiously, serious crayons, we come to different conclusions about Ennis being comfortable with his sexuality when he is alone with Jack.  I regard those times--in contrast to when they around other people and thus might expose themselves to discovery--as being when Ennis is quite comfortable.  In the movie Ennis utters the "You know I ain't queer" line the afternoon of the second day, when he is still a little surprised at what happened the night before.  He is undoubtedly saying that he does not self-identify as gay, but what could he say but "queer"?  It was the only word he knew for gay.  And in the movie he says it before the events of the second night in the tent where he seems to reevaluate somewhat.  In the book a version of the line occurs in the motel.  Ennis is talking at some length, trying to account for his being married with children, yet still being attracted to Jack and their sex being far better than what Ennis has experienced with women.  He seems to me to be genuinely bewildered, rather than homophobic.  In the book Ennis does say "I ain't queer" later in the summer after they had been having a lot of sex and obviously enjoying it thoroughly.  I read it as an off-hand comment to counter his realization that he was indeed queer.  "I ain't queer, but this is great!"  Again, what other word could he use?  To read into it intense self-loathing is going a bit far.

"Ennis will only hold Jack from behind"?  I missed that.  We see them face to face in the second night in the tent, the following scene where Aguirre sees them (meant in the movie to stand for the Proulx passage "...both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer...as it did go"), and at the reunion when they were definitely face to face.  You aren't basing your argument solely on the dozy embrace flashback, are you?  Or by "holding" are you referring to fucking?  (I  refuse to say anal intercourse or coitus per anum.  They are surely not necessary here, and are so last-century.)  This business has been thoroughly explored in "Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way",  including Jeff Wrangler's charmingly blunt comments in posting #284.  The idea that the top is somehow more of a man than the bottom is a stereotype mostly among straights.  Amongst gays it is only for the seriously deluded, and probably a source of amusement for their friends and sex-partners.  I don't think such stereotyping fooled Ennis for very long, in spite of the "boys like you" line.  There Ennis was out to hurt, not to be rational.  So, where is Ennis uncomfortable with Jack?  I thought that one of the points of book and movie was that only when they were together alone could either man be truly comfortable and happy--hence the mountains=freedom, town=oppression motif.

You still see Jack as hitting on Jimbo.  My gaydar is firmly in place.  I did see Randall hitting on Jack, but not with the rodeo clown.  I agree that if Jack's initial innocent offer had ended up more serious, that he would certainly have been all for it, but it didn't and that's not how it started.  "Jimbo lashes back"?  I heard a polite refusal and explanation.  The bartender overheard something he had heard a thousand times before, and showed no signs of disapproval.  I say again that in 1963 a man could offer to buy another man a drink without it being seen as a proposition.  I know, I was there.  I offered and was offered drinks to/by other men without anything sexual being implied or inferred.

In short, I don't believe that a strong case for Ennis' self-loathing due to homophobia being the guiding force in his life can be made from the evidence in the book and movie.  It is reading into his character something that cannot be shown to be there without a great deal of inference.

If we are going to do critical analysis of BBM, we are probably already going too far by mixing movie with book the way we do, but we don't seem to be able to avoid it.  I really wonder if adding outside information like what others, including Proulx, have to say about motivation for the finished products is really legitimate.  Also we must look to the "sitz im leben" of the works, that is, look at the works in the context of their own time.  For the book that time was 1997, for the movie 2005--not 1963.  By those latter days it was possible to escape interiorized homophobia, and I think Ennis is an example of such an escape--not that it did him much good.
Happiness is the lasting pleasure of the mind grasping the intelligible order of reality.      --Leibniz

Offline x-man

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1022 on: October 03, 2013, 06:59:42 pm »

My copy of BBM Story to Screenplay has arrived and I am now getting into it.  ("Oh good," I hear you say, "Now he will lighten up!")

I now have the Collector's Edition of BBM, Proulx's short story, Story to Screenplay, three BBM wall posters, Kirchner's Meet Me on the Mountain, and I subscribe to BBMRadio.  Is that it?  Or do I need more to have the complete BBM tool kit?  Please let me know what else I need.  I can't afford the Wooden Horse or The Shirts.
Happiness is the lasting pleasure of the mind grasping the intelligible order of reality.      --Leibniz

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1023 on: October 03, 2013, 08:33:51 pm »
When people point to Ennis being self-loathing, the evidence is slim.

I don't consider it slim. But you do have to be open to reading subtexts. For example, he speaks highly of his father, suggesting he respects his father's opinions. Yet his father had subjected him to a terrifying experience and, one assumes, kept Ennis more or less constantly terrified once he got old enough to really think about his own sexuality. Put two and two together, and you can surmise that Ennis considered the old man to be right about homosexuality, too.

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Some argue that Ennis must have been self-loathing because the place and times were homophobic, and he was a product of them.

Not me. Jack is a product of the same times and is not self-loathing. This conclusion is based on his character, as I interpret it in both the story and movie, especially the latter.

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The characters can only be labeled homophobic or internally homophobic based on what they say and do.

Agreed on this. No wait, not quite. I think the characters can be labeled based on what the book/movie tells us about them, which isn't always the same thing.

Sometimes it is their direct actions, but obviously no BBM character comes out and says, "I am homophobic." You have to look at what they say and do (Ennis praising his father, saying "You know I ain't queer," preferring to hold Jack from behind, canceling August, telling Jack "It's because of you I'm like this"). But you also have to ask yourself why the book and movie make a point of showing them saying and doing those things, and other things. They're not just filling time.

For example, why do you suppose both book and movie have Ennis getting in bar fights? Why, in the movie, does one of them occur when some bikers are talking sexually, and another right after Alma's explosive Thanksgiving confrontation?

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Curiously, serious crayons, we come to different conclusions about Ennis being comfortable with his sexuality when he is alone with Jack.  I regard those times--in contrast to when they around other people and thus might expose themselves to discovery--as being when Ennis is quite comfortable.

He is. But part of him is also uncomfortable about his time with Jack, to the point of canceling the get-together in August.

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In the movie Ennis utters the "You know I ain't queer" line the afternoon of the second day, when he is still a little surprised at what happened the night before.  He is undoubtedly saying that he does not self-identify as gay, but what could he say but "queer"?  It was the only word he knew for gay.

If you think I was saying that's evidence he was homophobic because "queer" is a slur, no, that's not what I meant. He said it because he thinks of being "queer" as something terrible, and desperately wants to reject that label for himself.

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And in the movie he says it before the events of the second night in the tent where he seems to reevaluate somewhat.  In the book a version of the line occurs in the motel.  Ennis is talking at some length, trying to account for his being married with children, yet still being attracted to Jack and their sex being far better than what Ennis has experienced with women.  He seems to me to be genuinely bewildered, rather than homophobic.  

True, Book Ennis is more outspoken, and perhaps less self-loathing, than Movie Ennis. Both the screenplay and Heath's performance turn Movie Ennis into a more bottled up, damaged figure than Book Ennis.

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"Ennis will only hold Jack from behind"?  I missed that.

It's in the book description of the dozy embace.

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We see them face to face in the second night in the tent, the following scene where Aguirre sees them (meant in the movie to stand for the Proulx passage "...both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer...as it did go"), and at the reunion when they were definitely face to face.

Right. The movie shows them face to face, but the book says Ennis never wanted to embrace Jack face to face.

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 Or by "holding" are you referring to fucking?

No.

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You still see Jack as hitting on Jimbo.  My gaydar is firmly in place.  I did see Randall hitting on Jack, but not with the rodeo clown.

I'm not going to argue that my gaydar is stronger than yours. Obviously it's not. I'll only say that in the seven years since I saw the movie and started discussing it, I don't remember many people not interpreting the scene that way.

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I say again that in 1963 a man could offer to buy another man a drink without it being seen as a proposition.  I know, I was there.  I offered and was offered drinks to/by other men without anything sexual being implied or inferred.

Of course. But it's not just that Jack offers Jimbo a drink, it's that he makes intense eye contact and holds it for longer than normal in a non-pickup situation. It's that Jimbo immediately senses what's going on and turns down the offer. That Jack then gets flustered and angry and storms out of the bar.

If you don't see that as a failed pickup, then what's the point of the scene? Jack stops in a bar and offers a clown a drink, the clown says no thanks, Jack leaves. Why would they bother to tell us that? Keep in mind that every scene, in fact every line, in BBM is there for a reason.

And remember, if you're tempted to argue that gay men do or don't do this, remember that this book was written by a straight woman, and the movie was written, directed and acted by straight  people for a largely straight audience. It doesn't stretch credulity to think they are using body language that straight people would recognize, deliberately and/or inadvertently.


« Last Edit: October 04, 2013, 09:38:39 am by serious crayons »

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1024 on: October 04, 2013, 09:39:31 am »
Hey, anybody who's reading this thread now, I just made some revisions to my last post. I was in more of a hurry when I wrote it, and decided I'd better flesh it out a bit.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1025 on: October 04, 2013, 10:45:09 am »
He is. But part of him is also uncomfortable about his time with Jack, to the point of canceling the get-together in August.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, or, if I do, I think I don't agree. You're referring to the "What the hell happened to August?" August?

Ennis is certainly uncomfortable telling Jack he can't make it because he predicts, correctly, that Jack's going to be really angry. But I've always taken Ennis's explanation at face value. They're both older--39--and money--or the lack of it--is weighing more heavily on Ennis than when they were in their 20s, say. People often get more cautious as they grow older, less willing to quit jobs and run off to the mountains for a high-altitude fuck. Ennis has had a harder life than Jack, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was "older" at 39 than Jack was. I also wouldn't be surprised if he owed back child support, and in view of that scene in the kitchen, I expect Alma would be just the person to keep after him for it, even if she really didn't need the money for the girls (she seems to have moved up in the world to a resonably comfortable middle class existence).

No, I can't say as I see that cancellation as coming from discomfort with being with Jack per se.

(Of course, bear in mind that a couple of years ago my whole team on my own job was told we shouldn't schedule vacation for August because our supervisor expected us to be very busy at that time of year! So I can really relate to Ennis here! :laugh:)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1026 on: October 04, 2013, 11:11:34 am »
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, or, if I do, I think I don't agree. You're referring to the "What the hell happened to August?" August?

Ennis is certainly uncomfortable telling Jack he can't make it because he predicts, correctly, that Jack's going to be really angry. But I've always taken Ennis's explanation at face value. They're both older--39--and money--or the lack of it--is weighing more heavily on Ennis than when they were in their 20s, say. People often get more cautious as they grow older, less willing to quit jobs and run off to the mountains for a high-altitude fuck. Ennis has had a harder life than Jack, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was "older" at 39 than Jack was. I also wouldn't be surprised if he owed back child support, and in view of that scene in the kitchen, I expect Alma would be just the person to keep after him for it, even if she really didn't need the money for the girls (she seems to have moved up in the world to a resonably comfortable middle class existence).

I agree with you aside from the part about Alma, which I think is overly negative (regardless of their relative financial pictures, both parents need to contribute child support, but it's based on income, so if Ennis' is low the monthly payments would also be low). Absolutely, Ennis uses his job as an excuse, and I don't think he's lying. I just don't think he's telling everything to Jack, maybe not even to himself. Though I think Jack gets it.

There's another level of emotion going on below the "what the hell happened to August" exchange. To Jack, their HAFs are the most important thing in the world. He'd get there even if it meant losing a job. Just like he drove across the country on an impulse to see Ennis after the divorce. Ennis isn't holding their trips at the same priority.

And why not? Because Ennis is poorer, sure, and has to worry more about jobs and work. But also because he's much more ambivalent than Jack about the whole relationship. Yes, he loves Jack and is comfortable in his company. But he's very uncomfortable with the idea of himself as someone who would be most comfortable with "this thing" that grabs ahold of them. He not only doesn't want others to find out, he just doesn't want to be that person at all. So he finds other explanations -- work, money -- to cancel.

Writing this, I suddenly thought of Ennis' much earlier line, "I ain't in the poorhouse yet" in a new light. He sure winds up in the poorhouse in the end. Not just financially, but in terms of his life. If poverty can apply to happiness and life experiences and emotional fulfillment, his little trailer represents "the poorhouse" that way, too.


Offline x-man

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1027 on: October 04, 2013, 11:42:40 am »
If we look only at the book, the dozy embrace lines, "Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held.  And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that," completely destroys my argument about Ennis' interiorized homophobia.  I had been reading the "then" as "then at that moment."  The next line clinches it for you: "They'd never got much farther than that."  Yours is the clear meaning of the text.  I was actually rather shocked to reread those lines as saying that it had always been that way.  I realized that I was misreading the text to suit my own desire for everything to be well with the two.

I am still troubled by the reunion.  The book describes a scene if anything more passionate than the movie.  Ennis is not troubled by embracing Jack face to face.  This is accentuated by his virtual indifference to Alma's catching them when she opened the door a second time.

Would you accept the idea that movie Ennis is less homophobic than book Ennis?  Besides the reunion, in the movie, we have the "I ain't queer" happening before the second night in the tent only.  Also it is obvious to me that from their behaviour towards each other from their second night on they were lovers not casual sex-partners.  It is inconceivable to me that in 20 years their lovemaking would be limited only to Ennis taking Jack from the back and that was all there was to it.  If all there was to it was "a couple of high altitude fucks once or twice a year" would Jack even bother to say "I wish I knew how to quit you"?  If Jack just wanted a fuck he knew how to get it without Ennis.  Ennis provided love, and he must have shown it.

I think the problem disappears if we treat the movie and the  book  as separate texts.  In the book there are inconsistencies that cannot be gotten rid of by interpretation.  The movie removes them by leaving out any reference to lovedmaking as Ennis-top/Jack-bottom/fuck only.

About the Jimbo bar scene.  You ask a good question, "What's the point of that scene?"  The point is either, as I suggest #1, to show a vulnerable Jack, lonely, reaching out unsuccessfully  to another human being, emphasizing what he has lost in being separated from Ennis.  #2, as you suggest, Jack was cruising Jimbo, Jimbo knew it and was repelled, while the bartender looked on disapprovingly.  You appear to be basing your case on the screenplay as presented in Story to Screenplay: "The CLOWN looked surprised...JACK stands close to his shoulder...There is something , a frisson, a vibe that gives the CLOWN an uneasy feeling...although he remains perfectly friendly...takes his beer, stands up (and after the exchange with the bartender) JACK slams down the rest of his beer.  Looks around anxiously.  Puts a ten on the bar.  Leaves"

If that were what we saw in the movie, I would agree with you.  But that was NOT in the movie.  Jack walks over, sits on the next stool--he does not stand close to him--and the frisson and vibe to not make it from screenplay page to the actor's expression.  What we actually do see is #1.  Cruising is a more complex maneuver than looking directly at someone longer than necessary, as you claim Jack did.  Screenplay bartender watches the whole Jack/Jimbo exchange and has "seen it all."  Movie bartender does not say to Jack "Well, you win a few, you lose a few--nice try."  He does ask Jack if he has considered a roping horse, apparently discounting his efforts in the ring that day.  Only then does Jack react in anger.  He stalks out, he does not "look around anxiously."  You seem to be saying that straight people would see the scene as homoerotically charged.  Would they if not previously warned by the screenplay?

I am coming more and more to the conclusion that the difference in our positions is based on not separating the book from the original screenplay, and from the movie, and on the book having internal inconsistencies that cannot be explained away.  
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1028 on: October 04, 2013, 11:43:33 am »
There's another level of emotion going on below the "what the hell happened to August" exchange. To Jack, their HAFs are the most important thing in the world. He'd get there even if it meant losing a job. Just like he drove across the country on an impulse to see Ennis after the divorce. Ennis isn't holding their trips at the same priority.

Agreed.

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And why not? Because Ennis is poorer, sure, and has to worry more about jobs and work. But also because he's much more ambivalent than Jack about the whole relationship. Yes, he loves Jack and is comfortable in his company. But he's very uncomfortable with the idea of himself as someone who would be most comfortable with "this thing" that grabs ahold of them. He not only doesn't want others to find out, he just doesn't want to be that person at all. So he finds other explanations -- work, money -- to cancel.

Well, OK, I agree with this, up to the last part. Sounds to me like you're over-emphasizing his internalized homophobia--which is what you're describing--as his reason for cancelling. I've often said that I believe that human beings have an infinite capaclity to lie to themselves, but I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. I don't think August--specifically August--bgoes any deeper than what Ennis says. He does, after all, offer the alternative of a get-together during the hunting season, when the ranch work has slacked off. (However, I recognize that two guys getting together in an isolated cabin during the hunting season might be less likely to raise eyebrows and questions than two guys getting together in August might. Straight guys do that sort of thing all the time.)

(BTW, I didn't know that level of child support was pegged to income, but I still think Alma is not the type of person to let Ennis slide on that, not in view of the anger that finally boiled over in the kitchen that Thanksgiving.)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1029 on: October 04, 2013, 04:18:52 pm »
I don't think August--specifically August--bgoes any deeper than what Ennis says. He does, after all, offer the alternative of a get-together during the hunting season, when the ranch work has slacked off. (However, I recognize that two guys getting together in an isolated cabin during the hunting season might be less likely to raise eyebrows and questions than two guys getting together in August might. Straight guys do that sort of thing all the time.)

I don't mean August, specifically, because it's the 8th month and in Deuteronomy, 8 means ... or because it's named after Augustus, who was known for ... No. I don't even think getting together in hunting season vs. fishing season seems really that much safer.

I just mean he's willing to let a whole get-together slide, wait an additional three months before seeing Jack again. That, to me, is the behavior of someone who has changed considerably since his eager "You bet," drinking 12 beers, "Jack Fuckin Twist" days. He's either grown more cautious or more conflicted or both. The night-before conversation and the breakdown scene suggests internal conflict is at least one big factor. "It's because of you I'm like this." He loves Jack, but he doesn't want to be "like this."

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[ Alma is not the type of person to let Ennis slide on that, not in view of the anger that finally boiled over in the kitchen that Thanksgiving.)

Agreed. Though at 19 Junior is no longer of coverable age, so the payments would be half of what they used to be.