Author Topic: Lies and deception  (Read 8831 times)

Offline Ellemeno

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Lies and deception
« on: July 30, 2006, 03:29:35 pm »
I have a pretty big BBM poster on my office wall, and as I was passing it a few minutes ago and looking at Our Boys, it hit me how much of the day to day they each were living was full of lies.  When they were talking to anyone who thought they knew them, they were actually lying about who they were and what was important to them.  Looked at from that facet, the constant dishonesty required is breathtaking.

How did living with this chronic deception affect them in the long term?  How did it affect their sense of integrity?  What were they feeling toward the people who cared about them, whom they were deceiving?  Did they occasionally or even frequently consider coming clean with at least one person in their lives in Riverton or Childress?  How could they bear the loneliness of not really being known by anyone?

Is part of what draws us to them the fact that we feel like we know them better than anyone else in their lives ever did (other than each other)? 




Offline bbm_stitchbuffyfan

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2006, 05:05:22 pm »
As far as your last question -- and that's a very good one -- I have no idea. Although, it is pretty neat that we know them better than their wives and kids, huh?

Otherwise, I think it took a toll on them. I'm sure they each felt an extreme disconnect when Alma or Lureen or someone would act as though (s)he knew everything about Jack/Ennis and it might have embittered them from time to time.

It would make utmost sense for them to consider time and time again to come clean but it also would make sense that this dwelling would never lead to acting on confessing.

No wonder why they felt like they were wasting their lives away in heterosexual domesticity (you know Ennis felt it too, he was just afraid to take a chance).
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Offline coffeecat33

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2006, 06:33:27 pm »
“He was a Friend of Mine” is playing, I just finished breaking down sobbing while watching the movie. Some more things in the movie became clearer to me.

Lies and deception “Without getting up he threw deadwood on the fire, the sparks flying up with their truths and lies, a few hot points of fire landing on their hands and faces, not for the first time, and they rolled down into the dirt.” – from Brokeback Mountain, the story by A. Proulx

The scene when Jack receives the postcard about the divorce and drives 14 hours to see Ennis, thinking now that Ennis is free he decided to share a “sweet life” with Jack and he is sadly mistaken. It’s poignant to see Jack so elated as he drives 'up' to Wyoming singing “King of the Road” and then is so dejected when he drives back 'down' to Texas/Mexico while Emmy Lou sings “A Love That Will Never Grow Old.” (OT: a song co-written with Bernie Taupin who of course shared a “sweet life” with Elton John. At least for a while.)

I didn’t understand why, at the lake scene, Jack asks Ennis, “All this time, and you ain’t found nobody else to marry?” I wasn’t sure what Jack was getting at, but I think it’s because once divorced, Ennis would be able to live with Jack but he refuses. When Ennis was married to Alma, he felt responsible to her, too, but after the divorce he doesn’t have that responsibility and still he refuses to live with Jack or at least be with him more often. I think it’s bitterness on Jack’s part (which comes out a little later) because Ennis didn't have the same excuse he once had of being married and having a life with Alma. He didn’t re-marry. Jack asks Ennis about a woman in his life and he answers he’s “puttin the blocks to a good-lookin little gal” He is so indifferent to Cassie that he doesn’t even mention her name. Watch Ennis/Heath’s face when Jack says he’s seeing… a rancher’s wife and they both laugh. Ennis’ face is suffused with love and affection toward Jack. Even isolated together in the mountains – no one around, they each keep up a lie. I think it’s mainly generated by Ennis who can never admit to being gay and Jack always walking on eggshells around Ennis.

Ennis laughs about Jack having an affair with a neighbor’s wife, but, when Ennis has a delayed reaction about going someplace warm, like Mexico, Ennis is so jealous he’s kill any man he met who had been with Jack. Ennis won’t be with Jack, but he doesn’t want anyone else (no man) to be with him, either.

About 30 years ago I was in a similar situation. I was in a relationship with a woman at a time where being gay/lesbian wasn't understood or accepted and it was hard sometimes. Coming out is not just something that happens once, it happens again and again every time you meet someone new and are in a new situation. Yeah, it takes a toll on a person. Jack "drank a lot." Ennis was alienated from other people and got in to physical fights. One of the saddest scenes in the film to me is Ennis sitting there all by himself eating pie in the cafe.

I think the director, Ang Lee, said that occasionally you get to glimpse private moments on film which we certainly got to do with BBM. I think the private moments with these two men is part of why they feel so real to us and we feel close to them.
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Offline Kd5000

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2006, 07:09:08 pm »
I just think they went thru the motions with their wives for lack of a better wordchocie.  They were both detached from their heterosexual world, with the exception that they may have connected with their children. Jack goes the motion of kissing his wife on the cheek and accompanies her to social functions.  He drowns himself in alcohol to ease the pain (he drank alot per his wife) and lives for his trip to WY. 

Ennis keeps up the domestic facade for awhile (even though he gets divorced, he still makes no changes which would make him less lonely), but then he simply withdraws from mainstream society, waiting for his time for Jack and an occasional visit from his children. When Jack is gone from his life, I think a part of Ennis dies as well.

Offline ednbarby

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2006, 04:32:24 pm »
Thanks, Cat, for finally illuminating that "All this time, and you still haven't found anyone to marry?" line for me.  Sheeee-it.  All these viewings, and I still hadn't figured that out!  Not fully, anyway.  And now it makes so much sense, I feel like a dunderhead for not seeing it before.  Of COURSE Jack is saying that out of bitterness - like, "You couldn't be with me but you couldn't get married, either?"  On a much lesser level, that happened to me.  The guy I was so in love with in my early 20s didn't want to settle down.  It wasn't one of those cases where the very next girl he dated he married - he did play the field for a couple of years after we broke up.  But it almost broke my heart more that he'd have rather been alone most of the time than been with me.  I was almost kind of relieved when he did get serious with someone and ultimately marry her.  That was a more palatable reason than that he just didn't love me enough to want to be with me.
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Offline southendmd

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2006, 05:24:29 pm »
Thought I'd put my two cents in:

Jack's question "all this time and you ain't found no one else to marry", Ennis' casual response about Cassie, and Jack's lie about sneaking around with a ranch foreman's wife all are part of their pact.  This pact goes back to the exchange on the mountain so many years ago: "you know I ain't queer", "me, neither". They agree to be real men, and so it's okay to talk about women; in fact there's no obvious jealousy. They have been conspiring in this lie. They just have "this thing" they do.

So, I think Jack's question is more than about bitterness; 20 years later he's still lying to please Ennis and keep their pact.

Jack breaks the pact in two ways:
1) the "I miss you so much I can hardly stand it" is pretty darn close to "I love you" and that's too queer. Ennis simply can't respond, and even withdraws the next day, with his "not til November" line.

2)Admitting to Mexico is admitting being queer and that's way too threatening to Ennis: if Jack is queer, so is Ennis. Ennis then threatens to kill Jack over it, because he cannot face this possibility in himself. All the truth comes out, and Ennis says he doesn't think he can stand it anymore.

I think the film shows how tragic it is when people lie to themselves.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2006, 06:05:00 pm »
You are so right, Paul. I recall there's one time when Jack breaks the pact and gets away with it. When he whispers into Ennis's ear at the motel, "I didn't think we'd get into this again...Yeah, I did, redlined it all the way here from Texas." Even then, Ennis turns somber right after that comment.
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2006, 06:36:31 pm »
Quote
I think the film shows how tragic it is when people lie to themselves.

Ah.  Truer words have never been written.

Thanks, Paul and Lee.  And everyone else here.  Again, just when I think I've wrung it out a hundred times and that's enough to get all the meaning out of it I'll ever need, ... , I'm at a loss as to how to finish this thought without mixing metaphors.  You get the gist.
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Offline southendmd

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2006, 06:43:15 pm »
Yes, Lee. Great example. Jack lies and then undoes the lie.
In fact, Jack then says "what about you" and Ennis simply mumbles "me, I dunno".

I also noticed in the post-divorce surprise meeting, when they man-hug, Jack's hand lingers tenderly at the back of Ennis's head, Ennis quickly pulls his hands away before introducing him to his girls.

The closest Ennis ever gets to tender is the "sending up a prayer of thanks", but he has to make a joke out of it.  And when Jack goes further with his cow-and-calf operation, Ennis puts on his hat on defensively and closes up more.

And Barb, be careful with wringing it out and all...

Offline coffeecat33

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2006, 07:12:49 pm »
So, I think Jack's question is more than about bitterness; 20 years later he's still lying to please Ennis and keep their pact.
Jack breaks the pact in two ways:
1) the "I miss you so much I can hardly stand it" is pretty darn close to "I love you" and that's too queer. Ennis simply can't respond, and even withdraws the next day, with his "not til November" line.
2)Admitting to Mexico is admitting being queer and that's way too threatening to Ennis: if Jack is queer, so is Ennis. Ennis then threatens to kill Jack over it, because he cannot face this possibility in himself. All the truth comes out, and Ennis says he doesn't think he can stand it anymore.
I think the film shows how tragic it is when people lie to themselves.

Ennis does withdraw the next day but 'Christ, Ennis had a fuckin week to say some little word about it.' Ennis is like a kid in this scene, scared of Jack's anger, biting his nails, scuffing his boots in the dirt and not looking Jack in the eye. He cries like a little kid, snuffling and rubbing his eyes, blaming it on Jack, ain't nothin, goin nowhere.

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Offline YaadPyar

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2006, 12:35:07 pm »
When they were talking to anyone who thought they knew them, they were actually lying about who they were and what was important to them.  Looked at from that facet, the constant dishonesty required is breathtaking.

How did living with this chronic deception affect them in the long term?  How did it affect their sense of integrity?  What were they feeling toward the people who cared about them, whom they were deceiving?  Did they occasionally or even frequently consider coming clean with at least one person in their lives in Riverton or Childress?  How could they bear the loneliness of not really being known by anyone?


I think those of us deeply touched by BBM resonated somehow with this particular issue - in what way are we suffering lonliness, isolation, deception, compromised integrity, etc., because of hiding aspects of who we are.  How deeply closeted we are will vary from person-to-person.  Maybe the lie is about our sexuality, or maybe it's about something else that others don't even perceive as shameful or bad, but we do.

My 'coming out' since BBM isn't about being gay or even something that has words connected to it.  It's been about finding a way to live my life authentically - to not need to hide or apologize about who I am, and to find a way to change those things I still want to see different.  I don't think I'm unique in this journey.  So many of us are doing the same...finding expression in our lives in a way that honors who we truly are.

Concealing and revealing is always a very tricky balance.  Not telling parts of your story for your own reasons is one thing - but hiding who you are out of fear drains vital energy from every area of life.  I think I'm just recovering my full energy after 41 years of hiding away in ways I didn't even realize I was doing.  I don't think I can ever go back.
"Vice, Virtue. It's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully." (Harold & Maude - 1971)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2006, 01:23:36 pm »
"I didn't think we'd get into this again...Yeah, I did, redlined it all the way here from Texas." Even then, Ennis turns somber right after that comment.

Lee, in my recollection Ennis smiles or laughs after that comment (it's what I believe Elle called the "acts with his ear" moment). Then Jack asks "What about you?" and Ennis looks kind of self-conscious and sheepish but in a pleased way. It's only after Jack says, "What are we gonna do now?" that Ennis turns somber, having to think about the fact that, in his mind, there's nothin they CAN do.

The closest Ennis ever gets to tender is the "sending up a prayer of thanks", but he has to make a joke out of it. 

I think Jack prompts him to say more than he's able to say when he asks "for what?" Ennis pauses, as if to say, "Well, duh!" -- there's the implication that his original comment kind of speaks for itself, which of course it does. Ennis would be incapable of explicitly responding, "for sending you back into my life" or whatever. So he jokes. But I'm certain Jack gets his meaning.

Also, IMO the closest Ennis ever gets to tender is in the dozy embrace flashback, which is pretty darn tender.

Ennis is like a kid in this scene, scared of Jack's anger, biting his nails, scuffing his boots in the dirt and not looking Jack in the eye. He cries like a little kid, snuffling and rubbing his eyes, blaming it on Jack, ain't nothin, goin nowhere.

To me, Ennis doesn't seem at all little-kidlike here, nor would I consider him "scared of Jack's anger" in a little kid sense. Little kids get scared not because they're afraid of hurting someone's feelings but because they are afraid they'll get in trouble and be punished -- it's a self-centered kind of fear. Ennis is afraid of disappointing and hurting the man he loves -- it's the opposite of self-centered.

Similarly, when Ennis cries in that scene, it's the expression of decades of self-denial and repression and disappointment and frustration and worry and paranoia, coupled with panic that he might be losing the love of his life. That doesn't strike me as being what little kids typically cry about.

Nor, while we're on the subject, would I compare Jack's crying after the post-divorce scene to a little kid, nor for that matter any of the crying scenes in the movie. There's a whole thread around here somewhere on crying. I like to see people crying when it's an honest expression of feelings (well, I don't mean I like the fact that they're sad, only that they're able to be open about it). To compare it to a little kid's crying sounds to me like calling it immature. But I think men who are able to cry are, at least in that way, showing a degree of maturity.

My 'coming out' since BBM isn't about being gay or even something that has words connected to it.  It's been about finding a way to live my life authentically - to not need to hide or apologize about who I am, and to find a way to change those things I still want to see different.

So nicely put, Celeste.

Offline coffeecat33

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2006, 02:17:33 pm »
Perhaps I should have said, his mannerisms were child-like.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2006, 03:24:48 pm »
Perhaps I should have said, his mannerisms were child-like.

Well, I'd have to respectfully disagree with that, too.

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2006, 03:58:08 pm »
I think with gay men, the message hit home so well because of all the lies and deception. Most of us, especially those with some age on us, know well what it is like to both out right lie about who we are, and just constantly omit anything that would be inappropriate. Try doing this with a few drinks in you, it ain't easy. The scope of it is breath taking, and miserable. While not responcible for the world that put us in a closet, we are as individual responcible for getting out of our closets. Ennis could only finally accept how much Jack loved him standing in a closet, where the shirts had been hidden for 20  years. 

What you have to bear in mind this story take pace between 1963 and 1983. How much has the world changed since 1983? I had known about AIDS for one year, there was no internet to speak of, people were freaking out over "Making Love", you can fill in the rest.

The drinking, self medicating, is a part of it as well. I am only now realizing how being gay, this one facet of my life effects every part. I have come out to several people and am so glad I did, I feel richer and feel my relationships has more intergrity than those I am in the closet about. I have learned to be upfront from the get go, before investing emotionally with someone.  Our Boys had a mighty hard row to hoe.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2006, 03:59:41 pm by shakestheground »
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2006, 04:11:16 pm »
I think with gay men, the message hit home so well because of all the lies and deception. Most of us, especially those with some age on us, know well what it is like to both out right lie about who we are, and just constantly omit anything that would be inappropriate. Try doing this with a few drinks in you, it ain't easy.

Wow, I'll bet. One of the things I value most about both the movie and my post-movie interactions with people on this board is the chance to understand at a deeper level just how hard that must be. And I would think a lot of straight people -- including those who liked the movie but in a more casual way -- gained some empathy for that experience.

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #16 on: August 03, 2006, 05:17:53 pm »
This thread's title 'Lies and deception' is more elegantly intelligent than 'When the Beard Is Too Painful to Remove' (New York Times, August 3, 2006), but you may find today's article on 'Brokeback Marriages' has some something to say...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/fashion/03marriage_bg.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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Offline Meryl

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2006, 12:31:57 pm »
bump
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Offline TexRob

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Lies and deception
« Reply #18 on: December 07, 2006, 02:29:51 pm »
Quote
How did living with this chronic deception affect them in the long term?  How did it affect their sense of integrity?  What were they feeling toward the people who cared about them, whom they were deceiving?  Did they occasionally or even frequently consider coming clean with at least one person in their lives in Riverton or Childress?  How could they bear the loneliness of not really being known by anyone?

Is part of what draws us to them the fact that we feel like we know them better than anyone else in their lives ever did (other than each other)?

Well, I'll pick up the "bump" while I'm posting today and add a couple of thoughts here.

The movie is about the closet.  That's what comes through in every frame of it.  Regardless of the differing interpretations of different aspects of it, this is what holds it all together as a cohesive work of art.

To say how Ennis and Jack felt is almost pointless to those of us who experienced the devastation of the closet firsthand.  But the real value of Brokeback Mountain is that this is the first work of any kind which has succeeded in conveying that feeling to people who've never been in the closet.

Being gay, I've often tried to describe what it feels like to other people.  I gave up years ago because no words could describe the closet.  That bothered me.  With all the books written on the subject, why didn't non-gays seem to "get it," the way we eventually got an inkling of what it's like to be black or Jewish, or some other minority?

The answer, I concluded as a result of the Brokeback Mountain phenomenon, is that gays were trying to describe the closet using the wrong medium!  For us, writing about it or talking about it wasn't working. This was a problem that had to be shown instead.  Film turned out the be the perfect medium to use.

As to the question of how the constant deception affected their integrity, what I can say is that the movie shows us how it did.   It doesn't tell us or write us -- it shows us.  What it shows, I can assure anyone who's not gay, is dead-on accurate. To answer the next question, though, I don't think Ennis dared ever consider telling anyone.  Jack considered it only because of the extreme effect the closet was having on his sense of self, which his sexuality was part of, but he paid for it with his life.

What's unique about the cruelty of the closet is that the person in it is totally isolated from his own family.  The Thanksgiving scene showing Ennis sitting as a guest at his own family's table makes this point better than millions of spoken or written words ever could.  At least if you were black or Jewish, you'd have a family to turn to.  Gays don't even have that.   

For many, the loneliness did become unbearable.  That's why people would risk life and limb by revealing themselves, and that's originally what drove the concept of coming out -- the suffering of Ennis and the murder of Jack. 

Today, the closet still exists, especially in third-world hellholes outside the West, but younger gays usually have it much easier that older ones.  I think that's why a lot of them saw the movie as a sort of anachronism and didn't relate to it. 

Poverty is a secondary theme of the movie, and many gays can't connect with the movie because they can't understand why the two couldn't just pick up and leave.  They may perceive Ennis and Jack's experiences as overwrought, but the surprising thing about the movie is that for the first time, straight people could relate to suffering that intense just by seeing it.  Perhaps in Ennis and Jack's pain they see aspects of their own lives.  That is, maybe they have their own closets about particular subjects.  That's possibly one reason we feel as if we know Ennis and Jack better than E&J's own families did.  In fact, we did.

Ang Lee was able to universalize the problem so that all could see it.






« Last Edit: December 07, 2006, 02:42:39 pm by TexRob »

Offline Meryl

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2006, 03:21:54 pm »
What a beautiful post.  Thank you TexRob.

The thing that most blew me away about Brokeback Mountain was exactly what you said:

As to the question of how the constant deception affected their integrity, what I can say is that the movie shows us how it did.   It doesn't tell us or write us -- it shows us.

No overheated plot machinations.  No hitting us over the head with obvious symbols.  Ang Lee just showed us what happened to these two men.  The utter simplicity of it is devastating all by itself.

Quote
Ang Lee was able to universalize the problem so that all could see it.

I know.  What an amazing artist and human being Ang Lee is!
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Offline mlewisusc

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Re: Lies and deception
« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2006, 10:25:32 pm »
Yes, Lee. Great example. Jack lies and then undoes the lie.
In fact, Jack then says "what about you" and Ennis simply mumbles "me, I dunno".

I also noticed in the post-divorce surprise meeting, when they man-hug, Jack's hand lingers tenderly at the back of Ennis's head, Ennis quickly pulls his hands away before introducing him to his girls.

The closest Ennis ever gets to tender is the "sending up a prayer of thanks", but he has to make a joke out of it.  And when Jack goes further with his cow-and-calf operation, Ennis puts on his hat on defensively and closes up more.

And Barb, be careful with wringing it out and all...

Just re-watched the film a couple of times recently and wanted to comment on this lack of tenderness by Ennis, particularly in the motel scene.  The posture and location tell you almost everything you need to know - he's laying back on Jack, presumably wearing nothing - pretty damn intimate (and of course, the inverse of the moment of "artless, charmed happiness" on BBM [the dozy embrace]).  Furthermore, Ennis responds to Jack's words by moving his left hand on Jack's right arm, which is encircling Ennis.  I watched the moves very carefully this last time, and it seems to me that he's rendering affectionate responses to Jack's affectionate statements but non-verbally, e.g., by rubbing Jack's arm with his hand.
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