Author Topic: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris  (Read 45614 times)

Offline Oregondoggie

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • Brokeback Mountain Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 185
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #80 on: January 15, 2008, 05:52:58 am »
Its simply forbidden love of a different type.  In BBM the love between two men is looked upon many times as negative NEVER positive such as.. "Jack Nasty"  "Stemmin the rose"  "I don't have a job for you" and the rodeo clown scene and still another scene that was filmed but cut from the final film. All subtle anti gay innuendos. Why do you suppose the producers didn't hire a gay director? Think about it.

Guess you weren't around in 1963.  As for the producers not hiring a gay director?  That's a non-sequitur.  Gus Van Sant was not available.  But why would a gay director with any integrity handle the story much differently?  "Stemmin' the rose" wasn't subtle at all, it is part of the horror.  It is what Annie Proulx wrote.  Yes, I agree the tragedy of this story has overwhelmed some folk.  Poor things are unable to see the lesson of Brokeback Mountain.  Unable to be empowered by it in their own lives.  Instead, they feel betrayed.  They want a happy happy ending.  A trip to Disneyland.  No matter to them that this story is about the effects of fear and hatred in two poor boys' lives.  Why the homophobes must be gloating. The theater must have been packed with bigots who came away saying it was the best anti-gay film ever made!  Cow sure do have wings...

Offline Clyde-B

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,769
  • Clyde-B when he was Jack and Ennis's age
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #81 on: January 15, 2008, 07:49:39 am »
    From Aristotle on the highest form of literature as art has been tragedy.  Annie Proulx is a literary artist and she does not do heroes, she does not do happy endings.

    Social change is necessary today, but social change is not brought about by stories with happy endings.  It is brought about by stories that provoke outrage in their audience because they ended badly.

    It is quite clear to most people that the ‘villain’ of BBM is homophobia, not homosexuality.  Because the sympathy at the end of the movie is with Ennis, not with the moral standards of society.

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 9,566
  • Those were the days, Alberta 2007.
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #82 on: January 15, 2008, 09:01:00 am »
IMO this is a very anti gay film with a very good disguise as a love story to soften the blow. (no pun intended)

IMO it is a film about two guys confronted with a part of their identity they were so unprepared for they funbled it. If it were an antigay film, then I think it failed, miserably. We have the luxary of living in the 21st century, where we are free-er than perhaps any other time in history to live our lives as we should. 1963 was not like that, nor was 1967 or 1983, especially in a rural setting. I don't see it disgusied as a love story either. It is a tragedy, showing the consequences of conformity and sublimation of self in order to remain "safe".
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 9,566
  • Those were the days, Alberta 2007.
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #83 on: January 15, 2008, 09:07:24 am »
Harris asks, why was it necessary to kill of Jack in order for Proulx to make her point?


And yet the death of Jack is ambigous. We are presented with the POV of Ennis, his prophacy of an Earl type murder possibly fulfilled, but how he died is left up to the reader to decide for theirselves, as Harris has obviously done. More to the point is that Jack died and as a result Ennis was left alone. With Jack's death, the door of possibility closed for him, and he was left only with his dreams.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #84 on: January 15, 2008, 10:00:35 am »
I too feel the story and even more so the movie is anti gay. The screen play was "Hollywooded up" with more hetero relationship garbage to make the movie more saleable to the masses.  Its a shame how much the movie pulled away from showing more closeness kissing holding etc. between the two men in the later years, What was shown was very highly edited not to show to much "gayness", and thats a shame.

It wouldn't have been "Hollywooding up" the screenplay for McMurtry and Ossana to write scenes of "closeness, kissing, holding, etc." that aren't in Annie Proulx's text to begin with?
"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 Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #85 on: January 15, 2008, 10:01:59 am »
If there are gay men out there that feel they can't come out because they don't identify with the boys on Queer Eye For the Straight Guy, then one shouldn't blame a segmant of the gay communtiy for projecting that image of gay men and ignoring all other examples.  It is pop culture that is constantly giving us this flat, two-dimensional portrait of gay men, not gay men themselves, or a portion thereof. 

Bravo, Gary, and Amen!
"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 Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,165
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #86 on: January 15, 2008, 10:21:55 am »
Jack and Ennis weren't gay (the term was queer in 1963). Gay has become to mean way more than a guy who wants to be in the arms of another guy. A way to dress and decorate. A way to vote. Political correctness at all cost. Relating to females more than men. Rainbow flags and parades. In later years viciousness and resentment. Youth and sex.

Jack and Ennis weren't that back when they was young, no more than they would be that today. If J&E were together today, they would not be considered gay by any standard.

Jack and Ennis were like a lot of closeted guys are today. They didn't/don't fit in to the gay mainstream lifestyle. They choose to live their lives behind rings and kids and fullfill ( so sad ) their sexual desires like Jack did or find love like they both found in a very similar way to the story of BBM.

Brokeback isn't a gay love story. It's about guys who love other guys but aren't 'gay'. They are very similar to their hetro brethern with only one exception--who they wanna fuck. Ms. Proulx understood this more so than most gay men can comprehend. The result, Brokeback Mountain.

The story was ment to be anti-gay.

Brad
   

Well, no--and a little bit yes.

This is probably not far wrong as a description of how many in mainstream hetero America perceive what it means to be gay. But this is an extremely limited view, fostered by the mass media (particularly television and movies). I'm not completely enamoured of the term gay myself, but, like it or not, in common usage in the language today, any man whose emotional attachment (love) is to other men, or who has sex with other men (especially to the exclusion of women), or who settles down and leads a partnered existence with another man, is gay. That's just what we're called today, and while it may not be ideal, I do think it's an improvement over queer or fairy or pansy or any other such term. It just seems to me to be a waste of time and energy to insist that one is not gay because one doesn't fit a media-fostered stereotype (which, in fact, like all stereotypes, has its roots in the reality of the lives of some men but by no means all who are sexually orientated toward other men).
"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 Artiste

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 15,998
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #87 on: January 15, 2008, 11:49:00 am »
RossInIllinois, may I applaud your comment:
In the begining the movie appears to break new ground until the last 1/2 hour then it starts looking like a stereotypical gay subject matter  movie where something bad has to happen to the gay guy. Not unlike the movie As Good as it Gets, and many many others. Its to bad this story/movie could not have been more of a clean slate and broken some new ground. BBM has more "gay is bad"  stereotypes and situations than the positive im afraid even for 1963. The message BBM sends is two men can fall in love and get each other off but nothing good will come of it and you will never be really happy if your "gay".  IMO this is a very anti gay film with a very good disguise as a love story to soften the blow. (no pun intended)
.......

RossINIllinois and to all too: may I say that the BM film does some cutting edge, but mainly for other issues, including some too rare gay ones. It would and could have been much much pro-gay, but only some anti-gay (if needed).

I agree with you Ross... that much more could have been done to break new grounds for gay living. And I still think that Annie and the BM producers/filmakers/screen writers still could, as one or many reasons I want an BM II, yes 2nd or serie, at least. However, similar stories to that of BM can be done by us gays, you think so too Ross and all of you??

Hugs!!

Offline ifyoucantfixit

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,049
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #88 on: January 15, 2008, 12:07:58 pm »


        If my statement now is OT just let me know and I will remove it to my own blog.  But as to the question, "Is BBM an Anti gay Polemic.  ??
        I have to ask the question, is then the movie an anti-marriage polemic.  Or is it a anti-hetero marriage polemic.
Because as I see the picture, it  portrays all forms of human connection .  Gay connection, hetero connections and marriage, as a polemic.  It therefor shows that all are doomed to fail.  Through either heartbreak, or death, or apathy.  Leaving all
who partake of those behaviors, subject to every form of human pain..Including child abandonment, and a slow and
painful death alone.
        This movie was not a documentary.  It meant not to show that you have this happen, if you do this or that.  It
was simply I believe a small window into these peoples life, showing the things that caused them to "end up here."
The women except for actual death.  Sufffered just as surely and just as painfully as the men.  They had one thing
also to battle that the men didnt.  They had no ability to stop or change the things that were happening.  Either by not even
being aware of the things that were happening.  or if they did know..They too were uneducated and ill prepared to
know what to do about it.  Alma had tried to ignore it, im sure in hopes it would run its course, and her husband would
finally return to her...That not happening she then gave it up.  She turned to some new form of a life.  But I dont think
that makes BBM a movie that is an anti-marriage polemic.  It is just the fact that bad things can happen to good people.
That ignorance is its own reward.  On all its various guises...Homophobia, or love, how to deal with an unhappy marriage..
They all are in a gordian knot of pain and unfamiliar territory..With no real equipment to deal.



     Beautiful mind

Offline Artiste

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 15,998
Re: Brokeback as an Anti-Gay Polemic : essay by W.C. Harris
« Reply #89 on: January 15, 2008, 12:22:28 pm »
Thanks ifyoucantfixit!

Wow, wow, you sure bring news when you say:[

i]is then the movie an anti-marriage polemic[/i]

Or is it a anti-hetero marriage polemic
.....

Ifyoucantfixit, may I say no as an immediate answer to those those 2 questions you pose.

However, may I also think more about that?? You could be right!! In some ways.. or totally... I feel somehow.

Awaiting news on this anti-gay polemic by you and by others, as to more research, more comments or feelings,

hugs!