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Annie Proulx's still pissed...
SFEnnisSF:
http://www.theparisreview.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5901
Annie Proulx in The Paris Review
INTERVIEWER: You’ve said that the characters of Jack and Ennis from Brokeback Mountain were the first two characters that started to feel “very damn real” to you. Has it happened again since then?
PROULX: That was true of a number of the characters in Fine Just the Way It Is. But I think it happened with Brokeback Mountain because it took me so long to write that story. It took at least six weeks of steady work, which is not my usual pace. So yeah, they got a life of their own. And unfortunately, they got a life of their own for too many other people too.
INTERVIEWER: What do you mean?
PROULX: I wish I’d never written the story. It’s just been the cause of hassle and problems and irritation since the film came out. Before the film it was all right.
INTERVIEWER: Did people object to the fact that gay characters were in the center of a story about Wyoming?
PROULX: Oh, yeah. In Wyoming they won’t read it. A large section of the population is still outraged. But that’s not where the problem was. I’m used to that response from people here, who generally do not like the way I write. But the problem has come since the film. So many people have completely misunderstood the story. I think it’s important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience, but unfortunately the audience that Brokeback reached most strongly have powerful fantasy lives. And one of the reasons we keep the gates locked here is that a lot of men have decided that the story should have had a happy ending. They can’t bear the way it ends—they just can’t stand it. So they rewrite the story, including all kinds of boyfriends and new lovers and so forth after Jack is killed. And it just drives me wild. They can’t understand that the story isn’t about Jack and Ennis. It’s about homophobia; it’s about a social situation; it’s about a place and a particular mindset and morality. They just don’t get it. I can’t tell you how many of these things have been sent to me as though they’re expecting me to say, oh great, if only I’d had the sense to write it that way. And they all begin the same way—I’m not gay, but . . . The implication is that because they’re men they understand much better than I how these people would have behaved. And maybe they do. But that’s not the story I wrote. Those are not their characters. The characters belong to me by law.
INTERVIEWER: Did you get the same sort of reaction to your characters when The Shipping News was made into a film?
PROULX: No, I haven’t had the same sort of problem with anything else I’ve ever written. Nothing else. People saw it as a story about two cowboys. It was never about two cowboys. You know you have to have characters to hang the story on but I guess they were too real. A lot of people have adopted them and put their names on their license plates. Sometimes the cart gets away from the horse—the characters outgrew the intent.
SFEnnisSF:
I personally think she's over-reacting a little bit. When you write a story and leave it open ended like that, and you intend it to be "left open to interpretation", then that is what you get and that's what you should expect. And that is what happened. Some folks took their interpretation of it and expanded on it. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think she should feel honored that her characters touched and inspired so many people.
louisev:
It might be true to her character to be disgruntled about triggering the imaginations of a generation of gay readers, but it isn't very charitable. It would seem she cares more about herself than she does about the issues she writes about. Or something. Her description that the story appealed to 'those with powerful fantasy lives' - maybe she doesn't appreciate that most closeted gay men have to have powerful fantasy lives since their civil rights are so fiercely curtailed and that they are helping themselves come out of isolation by interacting with the characters she has created.
CellarDweller:
I don't think she's over-reacting at all.
I don't see her story as open ended. It's pretty clear cut, Jack is dead.
I don't knock any slash authors or fans....but I've read so many different directions the story went under, and the characters are legally owned by Annie.
She has the right to say what she feels about her creation.
I can't believe that people would send her their versions of her characters......that's really odd to me. And when you add to it that most people came to know the characters from the movie, not her story, I'm sure she's annoyed by that as well.
Lynne:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on May 04, 2009, 10:04:06 pm ---I don't think she's over-reacting at all.
I don't see her story as open ended. It's pretty clear cut, Jack is dead.
I don't knock any slash authors or fans....but I've read so many different directions the story went under, and the characters are legally owned by Annie.
She has the right to say what she feels about her creation.
I can't believe that people would send her their versions of her characters......that's really odd to me. And when you add to it that most people came to know the characters from the movie, not her story, I'm sure she's annoyed by that as well.
--- End quote ---
I agree, Chuck. And I would further say that I think there's somewhat more ambiguity in the film compared to the short story - that was McMurtry and Ossana and Ang Lee's vision. It works, but I couldn't say whether it works better than the short story version. They're hard to compare, and I read the short story first, so I'm partial to it.
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