Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Lies and deception
YaadPyar:
--- Quote from: Ellemeno on July 30, 2006, 03:29:35 pm ---When they were talking to anyone who thought they knew them, they were actually lying about who they were and what was important to them. Looked at from that facet, the constant dishonesty required is breathtaking.
How did living with this chronic deception affect them in the long term? How did it affect their sense of integrity? What were they feeling toward the people who cared about them, whom they were deceiving? Did they occasionally or even frequently consider coming clean with at least one person in their lives in Riverton or Childress? How could they bear the loneliness of not really being known by anyone?
--- End quote ---
I think those of us deeply touched by BBM resonated somehow with this particular issue - in what way are we suffering lonliness, isolation, deception, compromised integrity, etc., because of hiding aspects of who we are. How deeply closeted we are will vary from person-to-person. Maybe the lie is about our sexuality, or maybe it's about something else that others don't even perceive as shameful or bad, but we do.
My 'coming out' since BBM isn't about being gay or even something that has words connected to it. It's been about finding a way to live my life authentically - to not need to hide or apologize about who I am, and to find a way to change those things I still want to see different. I don't think I'm unique in this journey. So many of us are doing the same...finding expression in our lives in a way that honors who we truly are.
Concealing and revealing is always a very tricky balance. Not telling parts of your story for your own reasons is one thing - but hiding who you are out of fear drains vital energy from every area of life. I think I'm just recovering my full energy after 41 years of hiding away in ways I didn't even realize I was doing. I don't think I can ever go back.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 31, 2006, 06:05:00 pm ---"I didn't think we'd get into this again...Yeah, I did, redlined it all the way here from Texas." Even then, Ennis turns somber right after that comment.
--- End quote ---
Lee, in my recollection Ennis smiles or laughs after that comment (it's what I believe Elle called the "acts with his ear" moment). Then Jack asks "What about you?" and Ennis looks kind of self-conscious and sheepish but in a pleased way. It's only after Jack says, "What are we gonna do now?" that Ennis turns somber, having to think about the fact that, in his mind, there's nothin they CAN do.
--- Quote from: southendmd on July 31, 2006, 06:43:15 pm ---The closest Ennis ever gets to tender is the "sending up a prayer of thanks", but he has to make a joke out of it.
--- End quote ---
I think Jack prompts him to say more than he's able to say when he asks "for what?" Ennis pauses, as if to say, "Well, duh!" -- there's the implication that his original comment kind of speaks for itself, which of course it does. Ennis would be incapable of explicitly responding, "for sending you back into my life" or whatever. So he jokes. But I'm certain Jack gets his meaning.
Also, IMO the closest Ennis ever gets to tender is in the dozy embrace flashback, which is pretty darn tender.
--- Quote from: coffeecat33 on July 31, 2006, 07:12:49 pm ---Ennis is like a kid in this scene, scared of Jack's anger, biting his nails, scuffing his boots in the dirt and not looking Jack in the eye. He cries like a little kid, snuffling and rubbing his eyes, blaming it on Jack, ain't nothin, goin nowhere.
--- End quote ---
To me, Ennis doesn't seem at all little-kidlike here, nor would I consider him "scared of Jack's anger" in a little kid sense. Little kids get scared not because they're afraid of hurting someone's feelings but because they are afraid they'll get in trouble and be punished -- it's a self-centered kind of fear. Ennis is afraid of disappointing and hurting the man he loves -- it's the opposite of self-centered.
Similarly, when Ennis cries in that scene, it's the expression of decades of self-denial and repression and disappointment and frustration and worry and paranoia, coupled with panic that he might be losing the love of his life. That doesn't strike me as being what little kids typically cry about.
Nor, while we're on the subject, would I compare Jack's crying after the post-divorce scene to a little kid, nor for that matter any of the crying scenes in the movie. There's a whole thread around here somewhere on crying. I like to see people crying when it's an honest expression of feelings (well, I don't mean I like the fact that they're sad, only that they're able to be open about it). To compare it to a little kid's crying sounds to me like calling it immature. But I think men who are able to cry are, at least in that way, showing a degree of maturity.
--- Quote from: YaadPyar on August 01, 2006, 12:35:07 pm ---My 'coming out' since BBM isn't about being gay or even something that has words connected to it. It's been about finding a way to live my life authentically - to not need to hide or apologize about who I am, and to find a way to change those things I still want to see different.
--- End quote ---
So nicely put, Celeste.
coffeecat33:
Perhaps I should have said, his mannerisms were child-like.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: coffeecat33 on August 01, 2006, 02:17:33 pm ---Perhaps I should have said, his mannerisms were child-like.
--- End quote ---
Well, I'd have to respectfully disagree with that, too.
Shakesthecoffecan:
I think with gay men, the message hit home so well because of all the lies and deception. Most of us, especially those with some age on us, know well what it is like to both out right lie about who we are, and just constantly omit anything that would be inappropriate. Try doing this with a few drinks in you, it ain't easy. The scope of it is breath taking, and miserable. While not responcible for the world that put us in a closet, we are as individual responcible for getting out of our closets. Ennis could only finally accept how much Jack loved him standing in a closet, where the shirts had been hidden for 20 years.
What you have to bear in mind this story take pace between 1963 and 1983. How much has the world changed since 1983? I had known about AIDS for one year, there was no internet to speak of, people were freaking out over "Making Love", you can fill in the rest.
The drinking, self medicating, is a part of it as well. I am only now realizing how being gay, this one facet of my life effects every part. I have come out to several people and am so glad I did, I feel richer and feel my relationships has more intergrity than those I am in the closet about. I have learned to be upfront from the get go, before investing emotionally with someone. Our Boys had a mighty hard row to hoe.
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