One of the most wierd aspects of Ennis (snip) is that he seems to be only attracted to ONE man.
(snip) Annie writes, "You know, I was sittin up here all that time tryin to figure out if I was --? I know I ain't. I mean here we both got wives and kids, right? I like doin it with women, yeah, but ..., ain't nothin like this. I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinkin about you.
The subject of Ennis's (and Jack's too) sexual orientation is one I enjoy discussing and have on several threads on other boards.
First of all, I must state and remind, that to me, there are two separate works of art: The film which Ang Lee directed and the short story which Annie Proulx wrote. And due to that there are 4 main characters: Film Ennis and Film Jack, and Story Ennis and Story Jack.
The film is not a documentary of the story. So one can not analyze in depth and make interpretations and projections of character traits by mixing the two media. It's impossible and not honestly fair to either.
Film Ennis's innate sexual orientation is heterosexual to me. Film Ennis does have to deal with fear and homophobic indoctrination. But Film Ennis is NOT a repressed homosexual in denial about his orientation.
Film Jack's innate sexual orientation is also heterosexual, but I would classify him as BI-sexual. Film Jack's character is also NOT a repressed homosexual and not in denial.
The film is undoubtedly about a Homosexual Relationship and the difficulties and impossibilities of that being experessed in a natural unfettered way in that time and in that place.
But to me, there are many layers in this film which makes it so fascinating and which allows it to stand up to deep analysis and interpretation.
One of the main layers of the film is the quesiton of sexual orientation I feel. And I feel that question is brought up, because we are presented with two heterosexually oriented men, one with more openness to easily exploring other possiblilities. Because these two men met, and because of their respective past lives of loneliness, Ennis especially, but Jack too has suffered some due to that, these two bond while alone on the mountain that first Summer. And they grow in affection and eventually they grow in love. The physical aspect of their relationship, though initially possiblly a youth and hormone driven act, is reexpressed in the context of love and emotional bonding. And it is that intense bonding which carries through their lives.
I left the quote in above even though it is from the story, and I maintain the two must be analyzed independently to be truly valid, only because, some have used that to support their view that Ennis actually homosexual. But that statement he makes, is motivated by his own awe and confusion. Not confusion about his orientation, but confusion about how can it be possible for him, as a heterosexual man, to so love his friend Jack that he is sexually excited by him as well.
In the film we only ever see Ennis interested in Jack, homosexually. There are no other past, ongoing, or will there be future homosexual relationships in his life, NOT because he is repressed, but because he is not homosexually oriented. He loved the person of Jack, and that love wanted physical expression and they gave it physical expression. But it was always ABOUT the person of Jack for Ennis. We also do see Ennis happily married for a time, actively and passionately sexual with Alma at least 4 times (the two children and the two encounters we witness). Also we see and hear that he is in a sexual relationship with Cassie. But all this time he was in love with Jack the whole person, not jack the male body. While one can try to explain away Alma has a marraige during a time when Jack and Ennis were separated with no expectation of a resumption in their relationship, one can not easily explain away the presence of Cassie in his life. One can say that because he was so in love with Jack, he was not as interested in emotional involvement with Cassie and in the end she gave up on him.
For Jack, in the film there is also, Ennis for a homosexual encounter, and then we see Jack go to Mexico and pick up the hustler. While some have interpreted this scene to be INDICATIVE of Jack's behaviour, there is another equally valid interpretation. That is, Jack first goes there after being painfully rejected by Ennis, when Jack had thought Ennis had invited him after his divorce. Jack was hurting and he needed som conforting, and he went to a place, and chose a man whose build was like his Ennis, not for a physical sexual encounter, but for the physical intimacy he wanted from Ennis. The touching and holding and closeness. While no doubt actual sex was involved, I feel that the motive for Jack's trip was emotional hurt.
Later we see Randall seemingly making insinuating suggestions to Jack and seemingly Jack is picking up on that. Later still we learn from Jack's father that in fact there was some other man in Jack's life. Some assume it is this Randall. But earlier in that scene we see Jack expressing interest in LaShawn by asking her to dance. While some may dismiss that as incidental, to me it is indicative of Jack's interest in females. When Jack later tells Ennis he is having an affair with a rancher's wife, and is likely to get shot by Lureen or the rancher, I take him literrally. Others have said he was lying there about the gender of the person to protect/decieve Ennis, but they base that on a preconceived idea that Jack is gay, and on the subsequent remark of Jack's which starts with "Truth is...." but that seems quite a natural thought progression to me. First Jack asks Ennis about getting remarried, and Ennis tells of "putting the blocks to...", then Ennis asks Jack about Lureen. While Jack indicates that they don't have much emotional sharing, his initial reaction is one of "sure normal", not anything along the lines of "never touch her", then he speaks of his affair with the rancher's wife......they have a laugh. Then there is a reflective pause....and since they have been on the subject of relationships, it is natural that Jack's mind would turn toward the lack he feels at never having enough time with Ennis, and so he says that...starting out with "Truth is.....sometimes it gets....."
As to Jack's BI sexuality, we see him readily and enthusiastically engaging with Lureen in the back seat. And then later we see him dancing with LaShawn and then later we have his word that he is having an affair with a rancher's wife. And we do see him go to Mexico, be with Ennis and we learn that there was another man in his life. So Jack has freely chosen involvements with both genders. Not once but a couple of times. To me that makes his orientation BI sexual.
As I said above, the topic is of interest to me, because I feel to lable these two as repressed homosexuals is to short change a whole layer of the film which is saying that Love IS a force of nature, and true intense love for another PERSON, can override even one's sexual orientation. I believe that can happen, and I have heard on the various boards from others who have had a similar experience to Ennis and Jack.
Certainly not all married homosexuals are really heterosexauls. Many are in denial, and many are repressed, but there are surely some males who are not homosexual but who have had a homosexual love, or at one time a relationship of some degree, never to be repeated. To automatically class this as repressed homosexuality is unfair and not true. It is possible for humans to have love for another regardless of gender or inherent sexual orientation. And it is possible for two people of the same gender to engage physically, without that necessarily implying that either one must be homosexual, or repressed.
We humans, here in the United States especially, want to force everyone under one label or another. While Philip has referenced the Kinsey scale, and it makes it easier to discuss the points of view I've tried to make in this post, it too is a means of labeling. It wants to force everyone to have some degree of orientation and maybe that is actually true, but maybe there are 1s or 10s who in every relationship in their lives act as 1s and 10s, but who may have once in their lives been involved with the opposite end of that scale. That doesn't require them to be reevaluated and reclassified. It simple means that to be human is to have sexuality and to be human is also NOT to have sexuality limited to physical impulse such as animals have for the purposes of procreation. Humans are sexual beings, and humans are emotional beings. Humans need bonding, and humans need love. There are those times when two humans bond and love and that leads to physical desire and sexual expression regardless of the genders of the two humans who love each other.
As I said ,there are long threads on this topic on other boards, and I myself initiated one on ennisjack.com called Sexual Orientation. It can be found under the parent board called Mountain Cafe.
My user name is the same there as it is here and on most all other forums.
I welcome discussion and I enjoy debate. But please, do not try to argue the points I've made about the film characters, by quoting the story or the story characters. This film was not a Biography of actual people. The film was BASED on the story, and the film is Ang Lee's interpretation of Proulx's story. And as Annie Proulx herself says....a story is not finished until the reader finishes it by bringing his/her own interpretaions and life experiences to it. So surely Ang Lee is entitled to do that too. And he did.
Jack in Maine
