BetterMost Special Report | Brokeback Evangelism: Spreading the Message & Keeping the Commitment
by: Phillip M. Dampier
Brett Thomas took a trip to Brokeback Mountain and came back a changed man. Like so many who have walked into the theater expecting a tale of love between two ranch hands walked out realizing life had changed forever.
Thomas, of Sacramento, California read Annie Proulx’s short story twice.
“The first time I read it in a flash, and that doesn’t do it justice,” said Thomas, 41.
But seeing the film would prove an awakening for Thomas.
“The film touched something deep inside, and it came out as a deep sadness mixed with euphoria – there is such terrible sorrow in the story, and yet there are moments of pure joy and love that cannot be denied or forgotten,” said Thomas.
As with many Brokeback devotees, seeing the film once doesn’t do it justice either.
“I’ve since seen it six times, with my partner, with my whole family, and by myself, and it still leaves me shaken. I am always in awe of what Annie Proulx was able to do as a writer, making such real characters and such honest emotions in such a short, poetic work,” he adds.
Thomas joins a group of thousands of people who have found one another online in an effort to understand, connect, and relate to their feelings for this film.
“It changed my life forever; I am 70 years old and have seen thousands of movies since the early days of movies, and for the life of me, I can’t recall any film that has managed to do what Brokeback Mountain has done – it shakes you and wakes you,” said Marion Idaalson of Lakeland, Florida.
“I feel like I have literally been reborn, and I spend my time being a Brokeback evangelist on the forums and websites, encouraging people to go and see this movie,” said Idaalson.
Critics complimenting the film have praised it for its realistic portrayal of coping with homosexual love in the rural west in the 1960’s. Although the story is the fictional creation of Annie Proulx who has just turned the corner on 70 and is only a relatively recent Wyoming resident, most agree she managed to write a credible and accurate story about love between two men.
That a straight female author was able to get inside the heads of two love-struck young men who carried a tentative relationship forward for 20 years was considered remarkable by many in the gay community who read the story or saw the film.
“The need to love, the need to find and hold love, the loss of a love, the passion of a great love, those are all universals, and for gay people, they are intensely personal because we are told, usually, that those things are not for us,” Thomas said.
“I think there’s also a lot of hope, not in the film, but in the gay community that maybe now people see that we do love, that we can love, that there is affection between men, and that ‘the sweet life’ that Jack wants with Ennis is a lot like their own dreams,” Thomas added.
For Thomas, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are almost like real people.
“I can’t shake the feeling that there is an Ennis out there, about 63 years old now, and somehow Annie Proulx got it exactly right. She got his life and love exactly as they happened, in every detail correct. Emotionally, character-wise, in setting and scene and word, they are utterly perfect,” Thomas said.
Thomas is adamant about not letting go of the memory of Brokeback Mountain and has created a website to encourage others to keep a commitment to the movie and its themes as well.
The Back to Brokeback Project (
http://home.earthlink.net/~backtobrokeback/index.html) asks film fans to pledge a return to Brokeback Mountain and register how they define that on Thomas’ website.
“I also want people to carry this pledge to others who may not have read the story or seen the movie so that the message of Brokeback can reach more and more people,” Thomas said.
So far, more than 275 people have done just that.
