OK, now that the Meghan Daum article is getting all controversial, I had to go back and read it. I've read it before, but not for months.
First of all, remember that she wrote this in January, not long after the movie came out. She had apparently seen it only once. And her objective was not to thoroughly analyze Jack and Ennis to see if they're good boyfriend material. As far as I can tell, what she was trying to do is explain why a movie that many people expected to appeal mainly to gay men could be equally appealing to women.
The emoting Jack and Ennis do, first of all, is practically never in front of one another - the exceptions being "Sometimes I miss you so much..." and Ennis' breakdown at the lake. So if anything, we straight women are only reminded of our own screwed-up relationships with certain straight men and how those bastards never *really* talked to us, either.
Well, I'd add the reunion and TS2, but that's beside the point. I agree with you, Barb, that they don't communicate their feelings well to each other.
But I don't think Meghan Daum is saying they do, necessarily. Her main point, as I understand it, is that they show romantic emotions
period, when we rarely see straight male movie characters or maybe even real-life men do that.
IMO, she's right. How many straight men in movies can you name who, after a fight with their girlfriend, stagger into an alley and collapse in despair? I can count the number on zero fingers. Crying as they drive away from a girlfriend who has rejected them? I might have to use a few fingers, but probably not a whole hand. Waiting all day with their face pressed against the window for their girlfriend to show up? I've still got plenty of leftover fingers.
In real life, men undoubtedly do those things from time to time, but they're not really known for it. So yeah, here Daum is using a cliche. But it's a cliche with a grain of truth. I think women do, as a general rule, get more emotional about their relationships. Here, Jack and Ennis are getting emotional about their romantic relationship -- they're not expressing it to each other, but they're expressing it to the audience.
(Now, if she were saying it's because it shows two *particular* men feeling things for each other that we wish one or both of them would feel specifically for us, that'd be another story. )
Well, I'd say she does kind of hint at that, too.
I can't help but see her view as being more than a little biased. I mean, why should this movie be any more of a draw for straight women in general than any other beautiful love story ever filmed? I honestly don't think it is.
It may not
actually be more of a draw for straight women than any other love story -- obviously many more straight women saw "Titanic." And for some straight women, BBM would be harder to like for an number of reasons. But I don't think Daum was going so far as to say straight women like it more than any other movie; I think she was simply explaining why straight women like it at all.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, it
should be more of a draw, becaue it's much better than any other love story I've ever seen. Not only because of this factor, but it's one of the reasons. So I guess my view is more than a little biased, too. But then, we already knew that!