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Was Ennis Gay?
moremojo:
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.
slayers_creek_oth:
Thats a tough question but I'd have to go with yes...
dmmb_Mandy:
--- Quote from: Joe Allen Doty on May 19, 2006, 04:54:34 pm ---How much do you reallly know about sexual orientation?
I not only know by academic-style research on my own, I also by knowing real live men and women, that a person can experience all but one of their physiological sexual attractions to one gender their whole lives. I used to be in correspondence with an ordained United Methodist Church minister who told me that he only experienced one sexual attraction toward a woman and he fell in love with her and married her; but, all of his other sexual attractions had been and still were toward men.
--- End quote ---
She knows enough about sexual orientation to have and share her own throughts on it. That doesn't make her right or wrong, nor does it make you right or wrong. People interpret other people and things differently based on their own experiences and observations of others. I believe that Ennis was indeed gay. Do I know for certain? Of course not. It's just my interpretation based on how I saw the film and how I analyzed the bits of his character/personality shown in the film. Maybe he masturbated thinking of Clint Eastwood as a teenager, who knows? That certainly would have been an interesting deleted scene ;D
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: dmmb_Mandy on May 19, 2006, 10:01:27 pm ---She knows enough about sexual orientation to have and share her own throughts on it. That doesn't make her right or wrong, nor does it make you right or wrong.
--- End quote ---
Thanks, Mandy. Joe, about all I know about sexual orientation is what I've experienced in myself or observed in others. But I believe the part of my answer you're questioning (because, if I understand correctly, don't we agree that Ennis is homosexual? I know you dispute the word "gay") is whether he would have been with other men if not for Jack. You don't need a PhD in sexual orientationology to have an opinion about that -- that has more to do with general character reading. And as Mandy says, every viewer is equally qualified to draw his or her own conclusions about that.
dmmb_Mandy:
--- Quote from: Joe Allen Doty on May 19, 2006, 11:20:21 pm ---Teasing here: "masterbated?" Don't you mean masturbated? I have seen the word spelled "masterbaited," too. My brain injury does cause my fingers to misspell words at times or even omit words.
To "bate" means to "moderate, restrain." So, would "masterbate" mean one was able to "master not masturbating so much" or to "master one's self with so much restraint that one abstained from masturbating.
--- End quote ---
I do indeed know the difference between "masterbate" and "masturbate". T'was just a typo.
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