Zombie thread alert!
I have spent the better part of four months trying to figure out exactly why Brokeback got me so good. (Viewed in October 2014 for the first time.) I've seen it I don't know how many times, read the story just as much, devoured forum threads, lost sleep....and I don't know that I'm any closer to figuring out why it has permeated what seems like every cell of my being.
Like so many people here, Jack and Ennis are real people to me. I think about them like they are my friends. I dream about them. I write about them. I think about this story every hour of every day. No movie has ever done this to me. I'm not even an avid moviegoer.
I've read every response here, and I'm not sure I'm any closer to an answer about why *I'm* like this over Brokeback. Not trying to invalidate everyone else's experience or answers, just that I haven't been able to figure it out for myself.
It has changed me significantly in two ways:
1) I have a good husband and I know it. He's not perfect (he doesn't like BBM, for one) and we have our squabbles but he works hard, tries to understand me, and is a good father to our kids. I'd been taking him for granted for a long time when I first saw BBM. This movie made me realize that I can't do that. He and I don't have the OMG-see-stars kind of love that Jack and Ennis had, but I don't know that many people are lucky enough to get that big love...ever. And what I have is pretty damn good. I can't take that for granted so I became more intentional about loving him.
2) I became more vocal in my support of gay rights and marriage equality. Been an ally for a while but was a bit timid about expressing it openly.....I live in a red state and most of my friends at church/work still think being gay is wrong, unnatural, etc. Watching Jack and Ennis struggle with their relationship and their very selves, wanting so much to love openly and feeling it forbidden, it made me so angry. Each of them died a little at a time, by inches, suffocating under the weight they carried. Watching that was infuriating. So I kind of 'came out' as an unashamed ally, the opinions of others be damned. (*Please understand: I don't mean to compare this in ANY way with what it must be like to come out as gay, trans, or bisexual. That is in a completely different league and takes far more courage. You guys are my heroes.*) If I can be a safe place for some struggling kid to land, then I want to be that. Whether it's one of my kids, one of their friends, one of my friends, or one of my patients, it doesn't matter. But I don't want any two people to have to suffer like these sweet boys did. I just want to hug them both, take them home with me, and let them live their sweet life together, protected from a hateful world. It kills me every day to think it will never happen for them. Sweet beautiful Jack and sweet beautiful Ennis. I love them so much it hurts.