Author Topic: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"  (Read 1014810 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1040 on: October 05, 2013, 02:01:04 pm »
That's how I'm taking the "I'm nothing, I'm nobody" lines. He's never made anything of himself because he kept quitting jobs to run off to the mountains with Jack.

That too. I don't think he's lying about the financial part, or that he's speaking openly of their sexual orientation. I think he's making kind of devastated sweeping statements that cover the whole thing. He's used to being poor and getting by on very little, so although I doubt he's thrilled about it, that alone would not be enough to make him collapse in despair all of a sudden. If he were comfortably middle class, like Jack is thanks to Lureen, I don't think the scene would have played out much differently.

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Different "layer." But in the context of the "economic layer" of the conversation--why he can't take off in August--yes, I think he's blaming Jack for his own economic situation.

Oh. Well, I've never read the "it's because of you I'm like this" quite that literally. I've always read it as, "it's because of you my whole life is a deadend mess" which could include his happiness, his marriage, his kids, his job and everything else.

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And on that note--waves hand as he heads out the door for the airport to catch a flight to Denver. ...  ;D

Have a great time! Say hi to Front Ranger and any other Brokie you see!



Offline serious crayons

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1041 on: October 05, 2013, 02:09:20 pm »
I have become fascinated by the Jack/Jimbo scene.  Serious crayons raises the interesting point that the people connected to the film were straight and they were aiming it at a predominately straight audience, so they would present their intentions in a way comprehensible to a straight audience.

There's been talk that the second tent scene, nonexistent in the short story, is presented in a more romantic way than, say, Tent Scene 1, partly to appeal to/communicate with straight audiences.

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It would seem that if serious crayon's point be true, we must rethink the scene as a man approaching a woman, and that in such a scene what the man (Jack) said would be enough to alert the woman to his intentions.  Would I be right in concluding that straight men just do not offer to buy a strange woman a drink without a sexual agenda?  Or is it that women are so paranoid or have been through it often enough that they mistrust any such overture?  Or both?  If so, it is a shame.  Many enjoyable conversations or even potential friendships must be missed.

Straight men would rarely buy a strange woman a drink without a semi-sexual agenda, which is not to suggest that by accepting it she's committing to sex. If single straight people of opposite sexes start talking at length in a bar, period, regardless of who buys, the suggestion of sex is probably more at the forefront than it would be between two men. Maybe even if both were gay, unless maybe they're in a gay bar, where at least the potential for sexual agenda is sort of in the air, right? Well, then consider that 95 percent of bars are "straight bars," for all practical purposes, and you can extrapolate accordingly.

However, a straight man might by a female coworker a drink without an assumed sexual agenda, which is essentially what Jack is doing with Jimbo -- they're not strangers. But the eye contact lets Jimbo know he's looking for more than a casual chat at the bar.

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But anyone who looks like Gyllenhaal can get anybody he wants.

Except, apparently, Jimbo. Guess clowns can afford to be picky.



Offline x-man

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1042 on: October 05, 2013, 02:36:20 pm »
No, sc, you misunderstand me.  I was imagining the bartender's remarks as they might be understood in a gay bar, a gay cowboy bar, situation.  Given that they were in a straight, homophobic bar, and if the remarks were meant to be a put-down, I would certainly agree with you.
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 #1043 on: October 06, 2013, 09:45:47 am »
I think my fascination with the Jack/Jimbo scene stems from a personal event which I will tell you about in a moment.

After taking all the evidence into consideration, I think we are left with this:  BBM is a straight film being marketed to a straight audience, and designed to be comprehensible to them.  The original screenplay makes it clear that a pick-up was intended.  If the scene were pitched to a gay audience, it would have been done differently--different conversation, verbal and body-language cues, etc.  Unanswered questions for me are, Why would Jack even take such a chance in that bar, and done it so boldly, and so clumsily?And why Jimbo?  Looking like Jack, if he only wanted to hook-up with a friend, he would just have to sit there for a while.  Given the size of the bar and how crowded it was, Jack was not alone, however homophobic it was.

A couple of years before Jack hit on Jimbo, I went down to the US to visit a friend of mine from military days.  We drove south from SF to LA, then across Arizona, up to Denver, and across to Chicago.  I was all cautious and shy, but not Bill.  He gave new meaning to Out Front.  His motto was "When I cruise them they KNOW they've been cruised."  This made him quite a hit in Denver, but not in Flagstaff, AZ.  The bar we stopped in there was basically the one in the Jack/Jimbo scene.  After a couple of beers I was alone, while Bill was in the back near the pool table "interacting" with the cowboys.  The bartender came over and said, "You both have to leave."  "Why? I asked.  "You KNOW why," he replied.  And I did know.  I was just sitting there keeping my eyes to myself, but I pretty well knew what Bill was up to.  When I found him, talking to a group of rather alarmed cowboys, he was outraged that we were being thrown out, but had enough sense not to make a scene.  I realized the bartender was doing us a favour, and that we were risking the tire iron.  I was mad at Bill for putting us in such danger, but mad at myself for being so stupid as to allow it to happen.  If we had been in the Jack/Jimbo bar, I would have been sitting there quietly, while Bill would never even have looked at Jimbo, but have had Jack in a stall in the men's washroom in a flash.  The rest of the trip to Chicago went pretty much the same way.  Looking back, I can hardly believe we took such chances.  He had all the fun; I had all the paranoia.  He is, BTW, living quietly with his longtime partner in Denver, active in church affairs, not at all the wild man of our youth.
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 #1044 on: October 06, 2013, 10:17:48 am »
If the scene were pitched to a gay audience, it would have been done differently--different conversation, verbal and body-language cues, etc. 

Like what?

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Unanswered questions for me are, Why would Jack even take such a chance in that bar, and done it so boldly, and so clumsily?And why Jimbo?  Looking like Jack, if he only wanted to hook-up with a friend, he would just have to sit there for a while.  Given the size of the bar and how crowded it was, Jack was not alone, however homophobic it was.

He probably didn't have that much practice. Or maybe he normally had guys hit on him, but it had been a while. Who knows? It was all probably somewhat new to him, whereas Bill sounds much more experienced.

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A couple of years before Jack hit on Jimbo, I went down to the US to visit a friend of mine from military days.  We drove south from SF to LA, then across Arizona, up to Denver, and across to Chicago.  I was all cautious and shy, but not Bill.  He gave new meaning to Out Front.  His motto was "When I cruise them they KNOW they've been cruised."  This made him quite a hit in Denver, but not in Flagstaff, AZ.  The bar we stopped in there was basically the one in the Jack/Jimbo scene.  After a couple of beers I was alone, while Bill was in the back near the pool table "interacting" with the cowboys.  The bartender came over and said, "You both have to leave."  "Why? I asked.  "You KNOW why," he replied.  And I did know.  I was just sitting there keeping my eyes to myself, but I pretty well knew what Bill was up to.  When I found him, talking to a group of rather alarmed cowboys, he was outraged that we were being thrown out, but had enough sense not to make a scene.  I realized the bartender was doing us a favour, and that we were risking the tire iron.  I was mad at Bill for putting us in such danger, but mad at myself for being so stupid as to allow it to happen.  If we had been in the Jack/Jimbo bar, I would have been sitting there quietly, while Bill would never even have looked at Jimbo, but have had Jack in a stall in the men's washroom in a flash.  The rest of the trip to Chicago went pretty much the same way.  Looking back, I can hardly believe we took such chances.  He had all the fun; I had all the paranoia.  He is, BTW, living quietly with his longtime partner in Denver, active in church affairs, not at all the wild man of our youth.

"What do other people do?" "Move to Denver, I guess."




Offline x-man

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1045 on: October 07, 2013, 10:54:00 am »

Like what?

He probably didn't have that much practice. Or maybe he normally had guys hit on him, but it had been a while. Who knows? It was all probably somewhat new to him, whereas Bill sounds much more experienced.

"What do other people do?" "Move to Denver, I guess.

"Like what?"
This is a hard question for me to answer.  First, I haven't been in a bar, straight or gay, for a long time, so what I would say might be hopelessly outdated.  Secondly, there are probably differences between Canadian and US men, and third, I can't really offer a sort of gay alternative screenplay for the Jack/Jimbo scene because there is an infinite set of possibilities.  So I will limit myself to some general observations.

It is a commonplace amongst gays that straight men are a lot less straight when they are around gay men, and there are no straight women to provoke in them a need for macho posing.  They are softer, more vulnerable, able to be more honest about their feelings, and to open up to other men.  And in these circumstances, a lot of straight men are more up to showing affection, including sex, than they are when women are around.  (Women, you are just going to have to accept the fact that men are not only more promiscuous by nature, but also more experimental than you may realize.  And don't bother asking a straight man if this is true, he will never tell you.)  This makes social encounters between men less hazardous than between men and women.  Men can sit down and talk without all the cultural baggage between them--unless someone amongst them is so repressed he must carry on with the facade of talking about the game and banging bitches, etc.  That kind of talk does put men on guard and limits what they can say to each other.

This lies at the heart of the problem with the way the Jack/Jimbo scene is presented.  Reworking the scene as if it were a man hitting on a woman in order to make the scene comprehensible to a straight audience omits the crucial point that it is indeed between 2 men, and would not begin with eye contact that went on too long, and that preposterous "Let me buy my friend Jimbo a beer'" like he had just donated a million dollars to Cancer.  Any drink buying would be much more low key, something like "Let me get the next round," and would carry no expectations beyond acknowledging that the conversation was worth pursuing.

When it is time to think about sex, the two would already know how friendly they had become, and whether anything more was in the cards and a good idea.  One man might say, "Want to get out of here?" or some such line suggesting that they were together now.  The rest you can imagine.  There would not (at least in Canada) likely be any public displays like touching, groping, or unzipping of flies.  I have had that happen to me in the US, and I let it continue because I was caught up in the sleaziness of the scene, but he was certainly not the man I went home with.  And if you were not interested in anything more than conversation, you would just say so politely--no need to flee like Jimbo did.  Why wreck a nice conversation over that?

Canadian men are more likely to congregate in groups because there are more and bigger tables to sit at--this stemming from the days when Canadian pubs were all tables with no bar, and strangers would sit together at a table, at first perhaps quiet, but gradually joining in the general conversation.  If any special relationships seem to develop, everyone is aware of it, and accommodates accordingly--moving seats etc.  At that point if one of the pair suggests moving on, everyone else will decline leaving the two free to go off by themselves.

Casual sexual hookups such as on the street, in the baths, etc., are a totally different matter.  They can be as gritty as you imagine, and I don't want to talk about them here.

"Bill sounds much more experienced."
Bill was indeed more experienced than Jack.  In Flagstaff I warned him not to start anything, but the sight of a big room filled with cowboys was too much for him.  He was a total slut, and gloried in it.  There was nothing so sexually demeaning or sleazy he would not try, and probably enjoy.  I must admit to a certain envy.  I did try, but I just couldn't--there was no way I could match his enthusiasm and style.  Now I look back with "nostalgie de la boue," nostalgia for the mud--a delightful phrase that exactly captures my memories of the times.  But those days were my early 20's.  I did grow up eventually.  Thankfully, memories do not grow up.

"Move to Denver, I guess."
I actually thought of Bill when I first read those lines in the short story.  I am glad he is happy now.  He certainly was not when playing the slut, in spite of how well he carried it off.
Happiness is the lasting pleasure of the mind grasping the intelligible order of reality.      --Leibniz

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1046 on: October 07, 2013, 12:18:06 pm »
(Women, you are just going to have to accept the fact that men are not only more promiscuous by nature, but also more experimental than you may realize.  And don't bother asking a straight man if this is true, he will never tell you.) 

I certainly accept and know that men are more promiscuous. The second part is a little more debatable. The "straight" men that gay men come in contact with are undoubtedly more experimental. The average man in a bar playing pool in Wyoming is not.
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Offline x-man

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1047 on: October 07, 2013, 01:19:38 pm »
The "straight" men that gay men come in contact with are undoubtedly more experimental.
 

What experience could you possibly be basing that comment on?  How could you possibly know what kind of straight men gay men come in contact with?  Do you think we LIVE in gay bars and the only straight men we ever meet are the ones likely to wander in?  We do interact with the world at large, after all.  Surely you realize that.
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1048 on: October 07, 2013, 01:31:14 pm »
I am basing the comment on my experience in being in groups of straight, gay, and bisexual men and women as well as conversations I've had with straight men and gay/bisexual men about their encounters with same. When I made those comments, I wasn't thinking about men encountering other men in bars, although I have been in bars with straight men as well as gay men and have witnessed different kinds of encounters with same, and talked with men about it afterwards. But here I was just thinking about ordinary encounters amongst men at work, in shops, in parks, camping, hiking, etc. And no, I wasn't possibly saying this, I was actually saying it.
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
« Reply #1049 on: October 07, 2013, 03:45:12 pm »
BBM is a straight film being marketed to a straight audience, and designed to be comprehensible to them. 
X-man, thanks for these thought-provoking comments. My take is that BBM is a film adaptation of the book of the same name by Annie Proulx. She is not a writer of exclusively gay stories but does obviously have some close knowledge of the lives of rural gay men. BBM wasn't marketed to a straight audience exclusively but was marketed as a crossover film, an independent "art house" film that connected with a mainstream audience far beyond the hopes and expectations of its makers. Yes, I agree with you that BBM wasn't made as entertainment for a gay audience...it would be a disaster if so, because it's such a tragedy.

The original screenplay makes it clear that a pick-up was intended.  If the scene were pitched to a gay audience, it would have been done differently--different conversation, verbal and body-language cues, etc.  Unanswered questions for me are, Why would Jack even take such a chance in that bar, and done it so boldly, and so clumsily?And why Jimbo?  Looking like Jack, if he only wanted to hook-up with a friend, he would just have to sit there for a while.  Given the size of the bar and how crowded it was, Jack was not alone, however homophobic it was.

I'm not so sure the screenplay makes that clear. One of the main messages of the movie is that Jack, and especially Ennis, were in a prison possibly of their own making, that everything might have gone all right if they had chosen the sweet life together...but we'll never know for sure.

My answers to your questions: Jack was never one to hesitate, and he was only focused on getting what he wanted, not threats or other people's thoughts. He was desperately lonely and that's why he reached out to Jimbo. Why not Jimbo? He was a young buck like Jack and, besides, he wore makeup!! Jack wasn't at all aware that he was attractive and, in the book, he was not.
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