Since coming back to Brokeback and Betttermost over the last few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about what makes us like this...why do we care so much about Brokeback? Why did we fall in love with Jack and Ennis? What keeps drawing us back after all this time?
I don't understand how I can grieve over two men who never really existed, and yet they are so real to me. I was thinking the other day that they'll be in their eighties now, and I would so like to believe that they've lived a long life together and had that sweet life that Jack dreamed about.
I can't escape the feeling though that there was never going to be that happy ending in any version of Jack and Ennis. I know logically that I'm talking about two people who never really existed...except that in the pages of Brokeback Mountain and through the screen and Jake and Heath they somehow became real.
I'm reading 'Someone New' at the moment, having recently re-read Human Interest and Two Crows Joy. It's keeping me on the edge of my seat, even though I know that they will eventually get back together properly because there's 'Force of Nature' still to come, but something struck me tonight...
If Annie Proulx had written about Jack and Ennis who were separated after Brokeback and only had those rare, precious weeks for so many years but then had eventually managed that sweet life, or if Ennis hadn't let Jack drive away after they came down from Brokeback, and if it was only in the fanfics that Jack died...would we all still be transfixed by Brokeback? Would we still see the "sweet life" version of their story as the "real" story of Jack and Ennis?
Like I said though, I can't escape the feeling that there was never going to be that sweet life in any version of Jack and Ennis. Over the past 20 years with all the social change, equality legislation, equal marriage and everything else, I would so like to believe that there was a different ending, but sadly I know that there are still the men out there with the tire irons.
Sorry, just in a weird reflective mood at the moment.
