Author Topic: what's the point of the job switch?  (Read 49509 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #80 on: May 08, 2006, 02:55:07 pm »
Thanks for the reassurance. And I will be always be happy to argue with you on almost anything!

TJ

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #81 on: May 08, 2006, 11:04:40 pm »
While the thread of discussion has unravelled into another tangental thread at the other end of the story, I will make a coment about "boys like you."

I think the screenplay writers misunderstood what Annie Proulx meant in the following excerpt from the printed story.

Quote
And why's it we're always in the friggin cold weather? We ought a do somethin. We ought a go south. We ought a go to Mexico one day."
   "Mexico? Jack, you know me. All the travelin I ever done is goin around the coffeepot lookin for the handle. And I'll be runnin the baler all August, that's what's the matter

with August. Lighten up, Jack. We can hunt in November, kill a nice elk. Try if I can get Don Wroe's cabin again. We had a good time that year."
   "You know, friend, this is a goddamn bitch of a unsatisfactory situation. You used a come away easy. It's like seein the pope now."
   "Jack, I got a work. Them earlier days I used a quit the jobs. You got a wife with money, a good job. You forget how it is bein broke all the time. You ever hear a child

support? I been payin out for years and got more to go. Let me tell you, I can't quit this one. And I can't get the time off. It was tough gettin this time -- some a them late heifers is still calvin. You don't leave then.

You don't. Stoutamire is a hell-raiser and he raised hell about me takin the week. I don't blame him. He probly ain't got a night's sleep since I left. The trade-off was August.

You got a better idea?"
   "I did once." The tone was bitter and accusatory.
   Ennis said nothing, straightened up slowly, rubbed at his forehead; a horse stamped inside the trailer. He walked to his truck, put his hand on the trailer, said something

that only the horses could hear, turned and walked back at a deliberate pace.
   "You been a Mexico, Jack?" Mexico was the place. He'd heard. He was cutting fence now, trespassing in the shoot-em zone.

The "Mexico was the place. He'd heard." to me refers not to a place where a guy could get "queer" sex easily; but a place where a "queer" could get killed for being one.

Offline starboardlight

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #82 on: May 09, 2006, 01:13:17 am »
But if you see the scene the way I do, which is that Ennis breaks down because he's afraid of losing Jack and can no longer stand the strain their relationship puts on him, then the Mexico remark becomes less significant. It's Ennis lashing angrily out at Jack because that's what Ennis does when he gets upset. And

I'm with you here Katherine. To me, I think Ennis, at this point, has accepted that he's queer. The evidence is in his conversation with Jack by the river as he's washing dishes. "You ever get the feeling when you're in town, ... like they know." If he thought of himself as being straight, there wouldn't be anything to know. To me, he clearly sees himself as being queer. That's not to say that maybe he didn't rationalized varying degrees of queerness, and that Jack was a worse kind than he in his remark "boys like you." Still, to me, when he breaks down in Jack's arm, it's not about confronting his queer self, but about his not being able to envision a place for them to be together and from finally realizing that he might actually lose Jack because of it.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #83 on: May 09, 2006, 09:11:35 am »
I'm with you here Katherine. To me, I think Ennis, at this point, has accepted that he's queer. The evidence is in his conversation with Jack by the river as he's washing dishes. "You ever get the feeling when you're in town, ... like they know." If he thought of himself as being straight, there wouldn't be anything to know. To me, he clearly sees himself as being queer. That's not to say that maybe he didn't rationalized varying degrees of queerness, and that Jack was a worse kind than he in his remark "boys like you." Still, to me, when he breaks down in Jack's arm, it's not about confronting his queer self, but about his not being able to envision a place for them to be together and from finally realizing that he might actually lose Jack because of it.

Well put as usual, starboardlight. I think the "you ever get the feeling" scene (was going to call it the dishwashing scene but there are a bunch of those) is more evidence that Ennis has come to understand his sexuality. I don't know if I'd call it out-and-out acceptance yet; even by the lake scene he may still be sort of grappling with the knowledge. But by the time he goes to the Twist ranch he has fully accepted it. Your description of his feelings at the lake -- "not being able to envision a place for them to be together" -- is excellent. He's not so much refusing to consider it, he just can't see it. He can't stand it, but he literally doesn't know how to fix it.

BTW, I like your new avatar.


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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #84 on: May 09, 2006, 09:50:02 am »
I agree with you, TJ, about the reference to Mexico as the place where "boys like you" could get killed. It makes better sense in the context of the dialogue. BTW, OT, but has anyone read Cormac McCarthy's books such as "All the Pretty Horses" etc. I've read all of them except Blood Meridien, don't think I could take that one. Excellent books--the movie didn't do justice. Partly because of Matt Damon, he just doesn't do anything for me. Heath would have been great in that role.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #85 on: May 09, 2006, 09:56:40 am »
Partly because of Matt Damon, he just doesn't do anything for me. Heath would have been great in that role.

This is WAY OT, sorry, but when I saw "The Brothers Grimm" I actually liked Matt better than Heath in it! What was I thinking?!? Of course, I hated the movie, so maybe that was part of the problem.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #86 on: May 09, 2006, 11:50:29 am »
I agree with you, TJ, about the reference to Mexico as the place where "boys like you" could get killed. It makes better sense in the context of the dialogue.

Sorry, but I disagree. The point of the immediately following words about Ennis "cutting fences" and "trespassing in the shoot-em zone" is clearly that he's getting into the subject of having sex with other men. That's what he's heard that "boys like Jack" can get in Mexico.

That's not to deny that it was, indeed, dangerous for Jack to go to Mexico to have sex with male hustlers, but I don't believe that's what Ennis is talking about.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

TJ

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #87 on: May 09, 2006, 04:59:21 pm »
I would make a suggestion that members reading in this thread go up to look at what I quoted from Annie Proulx's story.

Look where it says Mexico was the place. He'd heard..

Then after Jack "claims" that he had been to Mexico, look at what Ennis said in response.

 "I got a say this to you one time, Jack, and I ain't foolin. What I don't know," said Ennis, "all them things I don't know could get you killed if I should come to know them."

Because of Ennis's words, I see that he was not referring to a place for "boys like you;" he was talking about how dangerous it would be for a "queer" to go to Mexico. Ennis didn't always say exactly what he meant. (Up on Brokeback when he was going to sleep by the campfire because he was dizzy drunk, he said "Got you an extra blanket" when he meant "Have you got an extra blanket?")

He was not threatening to kill Jack if he found out what Jack had been doing with guys when they were apart; he was afraid that by the time he found out if Jack had been doing those things, Jack would have already been killed. When Ennis got upset, he did not always express himself very well.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #88 on: May 09, 2006, 10:48:35 pm »
I would make a suggestion that members reading in this thread go up to look at what I quoted from Annie Proulx's story.

Look where it says Mexico was the place. He'd heard..

Then after Jack "claims" that he had been to Mexico, look at what Ennis said in response.

 "I got a say this to you one time, Jack, and I ain't foolin. What I don't know," said Ennis, "all them things I don't know could get you killed if I should come to know them."

Because of Ennis's words, I see that he was not referring to a place for "boys like you;" he was talking about how dangerous it would be for a "queer" to go to Mexico. Ennis didn't always say exactly what he meant. (Up on Brokeback when he was going to sleep by the campfire because he was dizzy drunk, he said "Got you an extra blanket" when he meant "Have you got an extra blanket?")

He was not threatening to kill Jack if he found out what Jack had been doing with guys when they were apart; he was afraid that by the time he found out if Jack had been doing those things, Jack would have already been killed. When Ennis got upset, he did not always express himself very well.

Sorry, but, "Hunh?"

How can all those things that Ennis doesn't know get Jack killed if Ennis comes to know them, unless Ennis is the one threatening to kill Jack?

No disrespect to your opinon intended, but I think you're missing the significance of that "if I should come to know them."
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Aussie Chris

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Re: what's the point of the job switch?
« Reply #89 on: May 09, 2006, 11:29:08 pm »
How can all those things that Ennis doesn't know get Jack killed if Ennis comes to know them, unless Ennis is the one threatening to kill Jack?

I agree Jeff, this was my biggest problem with the "Ennis is just lashing out because he was afraid of losing Jack" argument.  He probably was of course, but the "might get you killed if I come to know them" line always made me feel that Ennis still considered himself "not queer", and the revelation for Ennis is that Jack "is queer" because he goes to Mexico.  I love Katherine's interpretation because it give more depth to the scene, but I still see the outburst as centred around exposed homophobia and denial.  Now when Jack challenges him back and Ennis breaks down, then I think we can entertain the idea that Ennis feared losing Jack, but even then, I think he's more worried about his own feeling of being "nothing and no-where", and it's because of Jack that he is that way.
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