getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)

[Jeff Wrangler]

My favorite example is Old Man Twist. Just as you note in the paragraph about Ennis, you form an impression of him and then discover something significant and apparently contradictory about him practically as an afterthought. You get that OMT is a jerk, but only later do you notice, wait a minute, he's a jerk but he's not an overtly homophobic jerk.

Really? How so? Not looking to argue here, but, tell you what, I never noticed this, and I'd be interested in knowing what detail of dialogue or behavior leads you to conclude this.

Thanks!

[moremojo]

Really? How so? Not looking to argue here, but, tell you what, I never noticed this, and I'd be interested in knowing what detail of dialogue or behavior leads you to conclude this.

Thanks!

I don't mean to preempt Katherine's own response, but I happen to agree with her, and here is the reason why: Mr. Twist accepts Ennis into his home. He addresses him; not in a friendly fashion, to be sure, but he acknowledges his presence, and speaks to him as one man to another. He allows Ennis to depart the house with Jack's shirt (and God knows what else Ennis might have had under there, as far as the Twists knew--they only saw Jack's blue shirt bundled up in Ennis's hands). And all this transpires with Mr. Twist's awareness that Ennis had been his son's lover. Any virulently homophobic person probably wouldn't even done half these things; they might well have run for their gun when someone they knew to be a "queer" stepped towards their door. Mr. Twist is a hateful man, and is homophobic, but he also somehow manages to treat Ennis with a modicum of decorum. He certainly seems less virulent in his homophobia than, say, Ennis's father had been.

My apologies to you both, Jeff and Katherine, for stepping on any toes with my response. Katherine, please respond as you see fit to Jeff's inquiry, if it pleases you.

In the spirit of sharing,
Scott

[serious crayons]

I'd be interested in knowing what detail of dialogue or behavior leads you to conclude this.

My pleasure, Jeff! It took me a long time to come to this conclusion, myself. The scene is very subtle and potentially misleading. Now I think it's one of the many brilliant things in the movie.

OMT clearly knows Jack was gay ("Tell you what, I know where Brokeback Mountain is"), but he never says anything specifically negative about that. The key part is when he talks about how Jack always used to say he was gonna bring Ennis del Mar up and lick this damn ranch into shape. "He had some half-baked notion the two of you was going to move up here, build a cabin, help run the place. ... He's going to split with his wife and come back here." But, he complains sarcastically, Jack's ideas "never come to pass."

So what is he objecting to? The prospect of Jack leaving his wife for another man? Nope. He seems to have no big problem with that. His main complaint is that Jack didn't follow through with the plan. (Probably he actually could use the help). OMT calls Jack's notion half-baked, which it sort of was. But he doesn't say it's immoral or wrong or shameful or anything like that. He taunts Ennis with the news of the "other fella," yet says nothing really homophobic there, either. Even his understanding that this info will hurt Ennis implies, in a perverse way, his calm acknowledgement of their sexuality. He never says anything that he might not just as easily say if everyone involved were straight.

I love this, because both we viewers and Ennis are led to expect from the get-go that OMT will be homophobic. After all, though Ennis' dad was the worst kind of homophobe, he was otherwise a respectable guy in Ennis' eyes (fine roper, "he was right," etc.). Jack always unequivocally described OMT as a bad dad -- never taught Jack a thing, never went to see him ride, can't be pleased, no way. So here's a gay man's dad, an older Western rancher, known to be an asshole -- just imagine what a homophobe HE must be. But ... surprise!

My take on it is that this scene has multiple purposes. It's another case in which you can't judge characters by appearance. It helps explain why Jack had a healthier attitude about his sexuality than Ennis did.

Most importantly, it shows Ennis that he's been wrong all these years. He has never met anyone in his life, probably, who isn't homophobic, as far as he knows. He assumes everyone is -- assumes, in fact, that they're "right," it's just a law of the universe that homosexuality is bad. Yet here is evidence that his fears were overblown and his assumptions incorrect.

BTW, the most potentially convincing counterargument to this interpretation is OMT's emphasis on Jack's going into "the family plot." For a long time, I took that to be an allusion to "family values," with OMT saying Jack had violated them by being gay. But someone else who agreed with my interpretation of OMT theorized that it's actually a slap at Ennis -- Ennis disappointed Jack and therefore doesn't deserve the ashes. In other words, Jack's ashes belong with his parents, his family, not with the guy who consistently refused to create a family with Jack.

Scott, I was just about to post this when I saw your post. I agree with you, and our answers don't even really overlap! I'm glad to see more support for the idea. Thanks!

 

[Front-Ranger]

There's little that I can think of to add to this, but I'll try to add on a little something in the spirit of Mel's title to the post. A useful tool that writers often employ is The Old Man (TOM) who appears near the end or somewhere in the middle of the story and tells a parallel story or some piece of puzzling information and you're supposed to put that together with the main story and derive a new meaning from it. Another Western writer who does this besides AP is Cormac McCarthy (I wonder if there are any other fans of his writing around here?). So, I am thinking maybe TOM in this story is OMT, it seems so the way he delivers his lines with such gravitas. Also, I'm not going to go so far as some people and say that he is gay, but I think that Uncle Harold might have been, that he was a younger brother of OMT, and that's what OMT means when he says "I know where Brokeback Mountain is." (See, Harold, or "Hal" as I like to call him, went up on BBM 20 years ago with Joe Aguirre...STOP LEE!! [slaps self]) Anyhow, what was I saying? I shouldn't even be in the ROOM with you guys, I'll just wander away blathering to myself now....

[Jeff Wrangler]

Thanks, Katherine--and Scott, too!

Can't say as I agree with that other writer's point about the refusal to let Ennis scatter Jack's ashes as a slap at Ennis. I don't see that as having anything to do with family values, either.

I'm comfortable with my understanding, going all the way back to 1997, that the refusal to honor Jack's clearly stated wishes and allow his ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain is just that hateful and hate-filled old man's final assertion of power over the son he despised.

The unanswerable, or unresolvable, question is, do we take John Twist at his word, and assume he despised his son for being a dreamer who never followed through, or are his comments merely a veil to conceal that he really despised his son because his son was "queer"?

[dly64]

I'm comfortable with my understanding, going all the way back to 1997, that the refusal to honor Jack's clearly stated wishes and allow his ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain is just that hateful and hate-filled old man's final assertion of power over the son he despised.

The unanswerable, or unresolvable, question is, do we take John Twist at his word, and assume he despised his son for being a dreamer who never followed through, or are his comments merely a veil to conceal that he really despised his son because his son was "queer"?

I feel similarly in regards to the ashes ... I have always thought that. Never once did I think that OMT kept Jack’s ashes because he wanted them in the family plot. He did it because it was opposite of Jack’s wishes.

As for OMT’s “homophobia” (or lack of it) … honestly, I have vacillated a bit on this. I have to lean to Katherine’s and others arguments that OMT was an ass and a royal SOB, but not particularly homophobic.

[welliwont]

Also, I'm not going to go so far as some people and say that he is gay, but I think that Uncle Harold might have been, that he was a younger brother of OMT, and that's what OMT means when he says "I know where Brokeback Mountain is." (See, Harold, or "Hal" as I like to call him, went up on BBM 20 years ago with Joe Aguirre...STOP LEE!! [slaps self])

Stop it Lee, that's the PT your talkin about there, ya need to dash a bucket a water on yerself, snap out of it!   

J

[serious crayons]

I'm comfortable with my understanding, going all the way back to 1997, that the refusal to honor Jack's clearly stated wishes and allow his ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain is just that hateful and hate-filled old man's final assertion of power over the son he despised.

I think that's a perfectly good explanation, too. It's just that he mentions the"family plot" thing not once but twice, which leaves me wondering what that's all about.

The unanswerable, or unresolvable, question is, do we take John Twist at his word, and assume he despised his son for being a dreamer who never followed through, or are his comments merely a veil to conceal that he really despised his son because his son was "queer"?

I don't know why he despised his son -- or even, necessarily, that he did! he could just be a jerk -- but I don't think it's because Jack was "queer." Here's why:

I think we're so set up to expect OMT to be homophobic, because of his jerkiness and his semi-parallel to Ennis' dad, that the very fact that we DON'T see any obvious sign of it calls attention to itself. I think we are meant to notice that he's doing exactly the opposite of what we'd expect -- instead of making disparaging remarks about Jack's sexuality, he shows no disapproval whatsoever of Jack's plan to leave his wife for a man (except to call it half-baked -- as though he'd have no objection if only Jack had just planned it out better).

It's not indisputable proof -- who knows how he really feels in his heart of hearts? But as far as we can see, he's not. And I think that's what counts.

I guess at this moment I'm seeing it from the storyteller's perspective rather than from the perspective of John Twist as a real person with his own private thoughts (though I am not at all unsympathetic to that perspective, as you probably know). Why would the storytellers conceive of a character with a particular characteristic, but then show us no sign of it? To me, there needs to be some hint of a characteristic in order for it to, well, exist. If you're going to have a character lie about his real motivations, it does nobody any good if you don't in some way, however subtle, hint that he's lying. Or, for that matter, give him a reason to lie in the first place (he wouldn't lie just to be polite, would he?). I can't find either one here.

Besides, why show a character behaving just as we expect him to? That doesn't add much. To me, this scene is a little like the potato-peeling scene. The meaning of the scene wouldn't change if Jack turned around -- either way, we'd know he wants to. But it's more interesting and compelling that he doesn't.

I should mention, by the way, that John Twist doesn't say anything explicitly homophobic in the story, either, as far as I can tell. It's less noticable there, I think, because we get distracted by the peeing thing and by Ennis' musings on the tire iron scenario.

[Jeff Wrangler]

All I need to know about John Twist is contained in the following:

The old man sat silent, his hands folded on the plastic tablecloth, staring at Ennis with an angry, knowing expression. Ennis recognized in him a not uncommon type with the hard need to be the stud duck in the pond.

The "angry, knowing expression" tells me that he knows that Ennis is--or was--his son's homosexual lover (the "knowing" part), and he despises Ennis--and Jack--because of that fact (the "angry" part). He's homophobic all right--it's his motivation for being angry at Ennis.

The "hard need to be the stud duck in the pond" tells me that his refusal to allow Jack's ashes to be scattered on Brokeback Mountain is all about him asserting power over his son.

[Meryl]

Thanks for that great, thoughtful analysis, Mel.  It might just torque me back into the Open Forum.