Just letting my thoughts bounce here, as I'm reading this thread...
This is good stuff. I appreciate the great added perspective. One great thing about being able to discuss this is we all come from different backgrounds and experiences, and critically important, age groups as well.
That first scene where they meet, I feel Jack is definitely putting on the strut. Part of Jack's escape from his own poverty its to see himself some what larger than life. That stance he takes leaning against the old black GMC is as much a statement of I got the right stuff, as it is a checking out Ennis. And I agree, that image of Ennis in the mirror of Jack's truck as he shaves, it is put there to show Jack's interest in Ennis as more than just a work partner for the summer. My vibe of this scene is Jack is going 'woo eee', this guy ain't hard on the eyes at all. What might be throwing us a curve in this dance between Jack and Ennis is how Ennis is giving off these signals of don't get close to me, don't touch me, I can't deal with that.[/quote]
I agree about Jack. You notice throughout the movie Jack talks a better game than he performs. No horse has thrown him, until one does. He misses the wolf, he isn't the best rodeo cowboy out there, his co-workers dismiss him as an embarrassment, he is turned down by a rodeo clown he was hitting on, and even Jack's father tells us Jack talked a lot and did less. Ennis barely spoke at all, but in the end did more by *finally* growing his character in the final moments of the film. Jack was definitely the bolder of the two.
One interesting point, albeit more salacious, at least from the perspective of a gay guy, is that Jack's more dominant strutting and bolder risk-taking didn't translate into the tent scene, where Jack was "the bottom." Among the more macho-self conscious types, I have repeatedly heard comments about how the guy on top isn't gay, only the bottom would be (this is especially common among the Latino community). A lot of macho guys won't even admit to being a "bottom." We really don't have any added perspective about their sexual encounters to follow, to learn if they switched positions, but it wouldn't surprise me if Ennis would have never allowed himself to be on the bottom either.