Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Would it have worked? Merged with "Would a SWEET LIFE ever have been possible?"
Bucky:
I agree with Scott that in 1983 or 1984 things against two people of the same sex living together as partners was not acceptable in most places in the United States. The reason I say that is because that is how it worked for me as well. Of course my partner and I had one more year left in college and then we would have had to go out in the working world. I recall people back then saying AIDS was the gay plague and that people like Rock Hudson or Liberace should have died and all sorts of mean and vile things. It was more acceptable to be lesbians back then than gay men. There was just so much ignorance in the world. I never really thought we could make it but I was willing to try but he wasn't.
All I know is that I loved the guy back then but the truth is I don't love him now. I loved him the way he was in college when we were both young and had our entire lives in front of us. Now he is married and a son that is a senior in high school. I guess I am luckier than most people in that I was given a second chance and weighed my feelings, his feelings according to his email messages, my situation, his situation and came to the conclusion that I just didn't want him now twenty two years later. He has finally quit emailing me after I rejected his purposal that we "rekindle" what we had in college. There were just too many factors that had to be considered. Sometimes I think a love like that comes along once in a life time but if it is not nurtured at the time then somewhere along the line it just dies.
I think Jack and Ennis both loved each other but Ennis was too afraid to try to make a life with Jack. I think Ennis just got comfortable living with himself and seeing his daughters ever so often and having a few "fishing trips" with Jack every so often in the wilderness of the Wyoming mountains. I also think that as the years went by that Jack started getting comfortable with the lifestyle that he was living in Childress, Texas. I do think Jack would have given the whole thing up for Ennis but Ennis was not going to live with Jack although he loved him. Who knows how things would have turned out if life had been different for Jack and Ennis?
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: Bucky on September 24, 2006, 04:16:56 am --- I think Ennis just got comfortable living with himself and seeing his daughters ever so often and having a few "fishing trips" with Jack every so often in the wilderness of the Wyoming mountains.
--- End quote ---
? :o?
Ennis comfortable with their situation?
"I'm nothing. I'm nowhere."
"Why don't you let me be?"
"I can't stand this no more Jack."
Look at Ennis at the Greyhound station/diner. How miserable can one man be? And this was before he got that fateful postcard.
The whole fucking unsatisfactory situation has taken it's toll from both of them, it has worn them out. This is one of the things the whole movie is about. I really can't follow you here.
Or did I misunderstand you?
opinionista:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on September 24, 2006, 06:47:22 am ---? :o?
Ennis comfortable with their situation?
"I'm nothing. I'm nowhere."
"Why don't you let me be?"
"I can't stand this no more Jack."
Look at Ennis at the Greyhound station/diner. How miserable can one man be? And this was before he got that fateful postcard.
The whole fucking unsatisfactory situation has taken it's toll from both of them, it has worn them out. This is one of the things the whole movie is about. I really can't follow you here.
Or did I misunderstand you?
--- End quote ---
I agree with the above poster. Ennis was miserable too. In, fact I think he was the most uncomfortable of the two with the life they were living. It was a no win situation for both of them.
Scott6373:
--- Quote from: opinionista on September 24, 2006, 07:17:36 am ---I agree with the above poster. Ennis was miserable too. In, fact I think he was the most uncomfortable of the two with the life they were living. It was a no win situation for both of them.
--- End quote ---
I think everyone can agree that our boys were miserable, but that is not seminal to the discussion. I think I have stated in the past that in order to have a true view of how life was back then, we cannot recollect those days and times with our modern day sensibilities.
I've avoided saying this, but unless you are gay, you could never know what it was like to grow up gay in that particular period. Ask an African American if they think that back in the 60's and 70's a biracial relationship was ok and could have survived. The likely answer is, "probably not".
Like it or not, we are social animals, and "living on love alone", will take you only so far without the care and support structure of a human community, and up until very recently (and in some cases still not yet), that community consisted of ad hoc groups of gay, lesbian and transgender peoples, that if not for the commonality in their respective sexuality, would probably have never been friends, let alone a "community". There was no community for Jack and Ennis, because they were, like so many others in that time, caught in the middle, with no land of their own. Their situation was made worse by their lack of education and an almost complete ignorance of their own innate worth as human beings. They were not of the ilk to be activists, either by intention or accident. Jack, perhaps could have been a "knight of the cause", given time, but not if pursued Ennis the rest of his life.
My back and the backs of many others still show the scars (and I do mean scars) from bearing the hatred of the world during the 60's, 70's and 80's. It is the men and women, who demanded to be seen back then as human beings, of no less value than anyone else, that have paved the way for the younger generation of today. I used to get angry at the younger gay generation for showing such a lack of respect for their predecessors, but not anymore. It makes me smile now, because they have not known a time when they didn't have the freedoms that we fought and even died for.
Most of us are gone now. So many brilliant and worthy people, and yet there are still young men entering gay bars with machete’s, hacking at people who he fears. How far have we come? A ways, but most certainly not far enough.
nakymaton:
Scott (and everyone else):
Here's something I've been wondering about lately. The movie softens most of the characters from their portrayal in the story, and it focuses on Ennis's internal homophobia compared to the homophobia in the surrounding society. I wonder... does it soften it too much? Does it do an injustice to people who have been beaten, to focus so much on the internal struggle instead of the external struggle?
When I saw BBM in the theater, the audience members gasped when they saw Jack being beaten in flashback. Was that, plus the image of Earl's body, enough to quietly make the point that Ennis's fears were based in reality?
Is the empathy gained by inviting the entire audience, straight as well as gay, to feel Ennis's loss worth giving up explicit awareness of the very real hatred that people had (and have) to contend with?
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