Author Topic: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers  (Read 14159 times)

Offline David

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #30 on: May 26, 2006, 11:37:50 am »
  Please, say something nice quickly.  These thoughts are scary! ???


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Offline ghent

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #31 on: May 26, 2006, 04:50:06 pm »
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Wow ghent, the way you say this makes me think that you actually agree with this sentiment.
Quick, tell me something you like about BBM and rescue me from this thought!

Sorry, I stand by everything that I said. Ennis is a completely dysfunctional man in every aspect of his life except for his relationship with his kids. His dysfunctionality pathologizes virtually every aspect of his relationship with Jack. Jack Twist is an incredible character in my opinion, but his relationship with Ennis does expose a co-dependent, enabling side to queer life that gays and lesbians need to permanently leave behind them. 

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I couldn't disagree with this more.  No, no, no.  Please tell me this isn't true!  BBM is not Ennis-centric or Jack-centric, it's Ennis-And-Jack-centric.  Please, say something nice quickly.  These thoughts are scary! ???

In Annie Proulx's mind, and in the minds of many critics, BBM was Ennic-centric, not Jack and Ennis-centric. Ennis was also the favorite of straight-guy viewers of BBM, as well as many straight women desperate to understand the 'down low' syndrome. This is deeply problematic for urban queers in relationships.

Offline opinionista

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #32 on: May 26, 2006, 05:55:20 pm »
Jack Twist is an incredible character in my opinion, but his relationship with Ennis does expose a co-dependent, enabling side to queer life that gays and lesbians need to permanently leave behind them. 

Co-dependency is not just a part of queer life. It happens to everybody, gay, straight, bi or whatever. It's a human disease.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Mark Twain.

Offline Aussie Chris

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #33 on: May 26, 2006, 08:24:24 pm »
His dysfunctionality pathologizes virtually every aspect of his relationship with Jack. Jack Twist is an incredible character in my opinion, but his relationship with Ennis does expose a co-dependent, enabling side to queer life that gays and lesbians need to permanently leave behind them. 

Oh, ok then, for one minute there I thought I might have misinterpreted you. :-\

I think we saw two different films, I get nothing of what you say here.  C'est la vie...
Nothing is as common as the wish to be remarkable - William Shakespeare

Offline YaadPyar

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #34 on: May 26, 2006, 08:38:13 pm »
Co-dependency is not just a part of queer life. It happens to everybody, gay, straight, bi or whatever. It's a human disease.


Oh yeah - absolutely.  No group of like-minded inviduals gets to claim rights to univerally experienced human frailties, or exemption from them.  This is the kind of stuff that we work on individually and incrementally, inside our own hearts and lives, not in grand political or philosophical gestures. 
"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 ghent

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #35 on: May 26, 2006, 09:19:05 pm »
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Oh, ok then, for one minute there I thought I might have misinterpreted you. :-\

I think we saw two different films, I get nothing of what you say here.  C'est la vie...

We didn't see two different films; we saw the same film totally differently. That's why BBM is a classic in the making; it is a tragedy capable of invoking incredibly different reactions from different people. But what is the tragedy, ultimately? Is the tragedy that Jack and Ennis, two arguably homosexual people, never had a chance to spend their lives together? Or is the tragedy that Jack, a closeted gay man, spent twenty years of his life trying to convince a dysfunctional, emotionally-crippled and psycho-sexually confused man that he was really gay? The romantic 'believer' in me wants to embrace the former interpretation, but the experienced post-Stonewall queer in me remains open to the latter interpretation.

Offline Artiste

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #36 on: November 22, 2008, 11:31:59 pm »
But isn't that true to certain degrees about Brokeback Mountain ?

As quoted on the first post:
          the movie continued the stereotype that gay men can't maintain relationships;
- it had two gay guys that refused to settle down with each other;
- it was depressing and an overall negative for the gay community;
- it showed gay people living lies and hurting women and children.

               

Offline Monika

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Re: Dealing With the Brokeback Non-Believers
« Reply #37 on: November 23, 2008, 03:56:32 am »
We didn't see two different films; we saw the same film totally differently. That's why BBM is a classic in the making; it is a tragedy capable of invoking incredibly different reactions from different people. But what is the tragedy, ultimately? Is the tragedy that Jack and Ennis, two arguably homosexual people, never had a chance to spend their lives together? Or is the tragedy that Jack, a closeted gay man, spent twenty years of his life trying to convince a dysfunctional, emotionally-crippled and psycho-sexually confused man that he was really gay? The romantic 'believer' in me wants to embrace the former interpretation, but the experienced post-Stonewall queer in me remains open to the latter interpretation.
I agree that you can interpret the movie in many ways. Another one would be that it is a tragic tale of how one man´s inner fear stops him from making a go with the man he loves, and ultimately looses him because of it.

And how we interpret it much due to our own experiences and what we can relate to in the story.

However, I do think, there´s a main story here that is freestanding from our individual interpretations, and that is a story about how Jack and Ennis can´t bee together because of a homophobic society. What bothers me about the other interpretations is that they leave this part out and focuses on what, for example, is "wrong" with Ennis etc. To me, this is to miss the main point that Annie Proulx is trying to make, and it dimishes the storyline. Annie Proulx has said herself that Brokeback is a story about a homophobic society. She has always been interested in examining how different enviroments, areas, cultures effect the people living in them, and Brokeback is another example of that.