Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > The Lighter Side
The "ABCs of BBM": Round 965! (Rules in first post)
southendmd:
Round 959!
The Gay Pride Round!
Please play an unplayed word, plus either:
"gay", "pride", "proud" or "queer"
memento:
An excerpt from a Planet Jackson Hole interview with Annie Proulx:
PJH: I think it's clear to anyone who reads "Brokeback Mountain" that above all it's a wrenching, starcrossed love story. It is about two cowboys, but it seems inaccurate to call it gay literature. How do you feel about the film being assailed as gay agitprop emerging from liberal Hollywood? Did you ever intend for the story to be controversial?
AP: Excuse me, but it is NOT a story about "two cowboys." It is a story about two inarticulate, confused Wyoming ranch kids in 1963 who have left home and who find themselves in a personal sexual situation they did not expect, understand, nor can manage. The only work they find is herding sheep for a summer -- some cowboys! Yet both are beguiled by the cowboy myth, as are most people who live in the state, and Ennis tries to be one but never gets beyond ranch-hand work; Jack settles on rodeo as an expression of the Western ideal. It more or less works for him until he becomes a tractor salesman. Their relationship endures for 20 years, never resolved, never faced up to, always haunted by fear and confusion. How different readers take the story is a reflection of their own personal values, attitudes, hang-ups. It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts. Far from being "liberal," Hollywood was afraid of the script as were many actors and agents. Of course, I knew the story would be seen as controversial. I doubted it would even be published and was pleased when The New Yorker very quickly accepted it. In the years since the story was published in 1997, I have received many letters from gay and straight men, not a few Wyoming-born. Some said, "You told my story," some said, "That is why I left Wyoming," and a number, from fathers, said, "Now I understand the hell my son went through." I still get these heartbreaking letters.
=aside= Paul
Nice theme.
southendmd:
In this passage from the story, Jack bitches about being gay:
"Shit. I been lookin at people on the street. This happen a other people? What the hell do they do?"
"It don't happen in Wyomin' and if it does I don't know what they do, maybe go to Denver," said Jack, sitting up, turning away from him, "and I don't give a flyin' fuck. Son of a bitch, Ennis, take a couple days off. Right now. Get us out a here. Throw your stuff in the back a my truck and let's get up in the mountains. Couple a days. Call Alma up and tell her you're goin. Come on, Ennis, you just shot my airplane out a the sky -- give me somethin' a go on. This ain't no little thing that's happenin' here."
Sason:
An excerpt from a Planet Jackson Hole interview with Annie Proulx:
PJH: I think it's clear to anyone who reads "Brokeback Mountain" that above all it's a wrenching, starcrossed love story. It is about two cowboys, but it seems inaccurate to call it gay literature. How do you feel about the film being assailed as gay agitprop emerging from liberal Hollywood? Did you ever intend for the story to be controversial?
AP: Excuse me, but it is NOT a story about "two cowboys." It is a story about two inarticulate, confused Wyoming ranch kids in 1963 who have left home and who find themselves in a personal sexual situation they did not expect, understand, nor can manage. The only work they find is herding sheep for a summer -- some cowboys! Yet both are beguiled by the cowboy myth, as are most people who live in the state, and Ennis tries to be one but never gets beyond ranch-hand work; Jack settles on rodeo as an expression of the Western ideal. It more or less works for him until he becomes a tractor salesman. Their relationship endures for 20 years, never resolved, never faced up to, always haunted by fear and confusion. How different readers take the story is a reflection of their own personal values, attitudes, hang-ups. It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts. Far from being "liberal," Hollywood was afraid of the script as were many actors and agents. Of course, I knew the story would be seen as controversial. I doubted it would even be published and was pleased when The New Yorker very quickly accepted it. In the years since the story was published in 1997, I have received many letters from gay and straight men, not a few Wyoming-born. Some said, "You told my story," some said, "That is why I left Wyoming," and a number, from fathers, said, "Now I understand the hell my son went through." I still get these heartbreaking letters.
=aside= Sandy
Thank you! :)
Fran:
When asked who the biggest supporters and detractors were in his playing a gay cowboy, Heath Ledger replied:
"No one was trying to detract me from it. Everyone was very supportive of it. I hate to call it 'daring' or 'brave.' Firemen are daring and brave. I'm acting. I didn't get hurt and I'm not mentally wounded from this experience."
Heath Ledger interview
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