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Was Ennis Gay?

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JCinNYC2006:
It's an interesting, one that I've seen elsewhere, I think even in the Safe Haven section.  To me it comes down to what the definition of gay is, and I mean gay versus homosexual.  I think of a homo as someone who is attracted to their own sex.  But being gay to me is an identity that you take on, not one that is put on you because of who you sleep with. 

But I also understand how many, probably most, people use the two interchangeably. If you asked Ennis if he was gay, he might wanna slug you and deny it.  At some point in his life maybe he became more accepting of his sexuality and even started to come out.  But I get how gay is used as shorthand.  I just don't always agree that a man to a woman who has sex with men is automatically 'gay'. 

Juan

David:
Then perhaps it can be said that there is a big difference in "being Gay" and "Acting Gay".

I am not particularly fond of guys who are too flamboyant.  I want a Man, not some swishy stereotype.     LOL

My apologies to any swishy, flamboyant guys on this board.    :-X

JCinNYC2006:
LOL, well that's a different issue.  It's funny, I have some friends who are queens who I enjoy until they become waaaay bitchy.  But I'm more put off by muscle boys who are queeny as well.  Go figure.

Juan

tiawahcowboy:
In the past 20 plus years, I have known quite a few out-of-the-closet homosexual men who were also openly gay.

Most of them were just comfortable being themselves and they did not "act gay," all the while their body language and speech patterns were spread out between being almost hyper-masculine and rather nelly queens.

But, even the most effeminate types did not feel that they had to put on makeup or dress like women to be gay.

bbm_stitchbuffyfan:

--- Quote ---This is a very interesting question to me. I am a gay man myself, and when I first saw Brokeback, back on February 18th, I felt that Ennis was a primarily heterosexual man who somehow formed this extraordinary bond of love with another person who happened to be a man. An important component of this interpretation was the fact that nowhere in the film do we ever have the sense that Ennis is attracted to any other man than Jack. From my experience and observation, this is very unusual for a homosexual man, though it is not impossible.

For the record, my sister, a straight woman, also had this same feeling that Ennis was an otherwise straight person who happened to fall in love with another man. She felt this was one of the most provocative and radical implications of the story, that the heart can lead us in directions that we might never have imagined going.

Over time, I have now come to interpret Ennis as a very repressed homosexual man. There are a number of valuable albeit sometimes subtle clues to support this view. There is a lot of evidence that Ennis is attracted to Jack from very early in their association, quite possibly from the moment he first set eyes on him. By the time of the first tent scene, there is no question that Ennis is attracted to Jack physically as well as emotionally, regardless of the specifics of his sexual identity. But later remarks that Ennis makes in the story, including the "Do you ever think people know?" comment to the "You're the reason I'm this way" rebuke in the lakeside quarrel, strongly suggest that, at least by the time he utters these words, Ennis has come to see himself as homosexual (or at least as a man attracted to another man), however much he may hate to think of himself this way. By story's end, Ennis can certainly no longer doubt Jack's homosexuality, and I think he has essentially come to terms with the realization that theirs was a homosexual relationship, if not necessarily with the conception of himself as specifically homosexual. He certainly loves Jack, a gay man, is conscious of this love, and this suggests to me that he may have accepted a homosexual identity for himself.
--- End quote ---

I really like this interpretation. I think Ennis was gay, although I cannot be sure (I love the brilliant ambiguity), and I think over time, he eventually came to accept it (even if it was still his little secret).

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