Pressures to create ‘positive representations’ of same-sex desire in cinema – Brokeback Mountain - Ricardo Fonseca
It is not an easy task to analyse Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain in the context of positive representations of same-sex desire. To begin with, the fact that the movie is set in 1963, pre-Stonewall, and in a rural area of the Wyoming State in the US are key elements that need to be taken into consideration, and nobody is really sure if the movie is political or not. The movie is also not a product of the mainstream backlash of the ‘gay lib’ movement.
(…) gay life before Stonewall was characterized by silence, invisibility, and isolation. Before Stonewall, there was no history of lesbians and gay men struggling for freedom; indeed, before Stonewall, there was no gay history other than a chronicle of unrelieved oppression. But mass movements for social change do not spring full-blown into existence (…) Movements have roots
(D’Emilio, 1992: 235)
Although the story in the movie might relate to the last part of the quotation, confirming that indeed homosexuality is and has always been everywhere, it would be wrong to say that the movement after Stonewall gave an impulse to the characters of Jack and Ennis, that it helped them to be free. It was predominantly an urban movement, and perhaps Brokeback Mountain is there to tell us that such cases do happen in rural areas and that the so-called “revolution” after Stonewall didn’t after all change every gay man and woman’s mind and situation – it failed to reach those more remote places. Therefore, the movie gives us a positive account of that fact by making use of a “negative” narrative (a sad, love story), in which tragedy portrays and is a product of the kind of lifestyle they led. If anything, the movie makes us feel sympathetic towards the main characters, which makes Brokeback go far beyond sexuality. It’s about lives that can be destroyed by a society whose petty morality shapes small minds. This social commentary constitutes a positive representation of homosexuality, because even though some may see the movie as a universal story (which nevertheless also constitutes a positive image), it does relate far more to homosexuals, and it contributes to create a positive portrait of same-sex relationships.
In order to understand the strict morality of the society depicted in Brokeback, we need only to go back in time in American history to find that
Biblical condemnations of homosexual behaviour suffused American culture from its origin (…) Colonial ministers railed against sodomy in their sermons. Although the world view of most twentieth-century Americans had ceased to be as biblically centred as that of their colonial predecessors, (…) religious teachings still shaped their views of sexuality and their sexual behaviour to a large degree.
(D’Emilio, 1983 : 13)
Therefore, it is an unavoidable fact that there is a strong religious influence in the society the movie depicts. Jack’s mother, as he says, believed in the Pentecost and Ennis’ parents were Methodists. It is curious indeed that Jack is not exactly sure what the Pentecost is but does think that it is about when the world ends and people like him and Ennis go to hell. For me this scene symbolises what rural America thinks of homosexuals – sinners, evil creatures, sick human beings. We can also say that Ennis was a part of that America, that he was raised to agree with this terrible view. In fact, in the scene after they have sex for the first time, Jack says that “it’s nobody’s business but ours”, to which Ennis responds “I ain’t queer”. Jack ends the short dialogue by saying that he isn’t a “queer” either. I believe that Jack expressed what most gay people feel it should be like, that it is nothing that other people should be concerned with, but at the same time this conversation does show the narrowness of mind of that society. And both characters are trapped in it. Another curious religious reference takes place when Ennis is getting married to Alma, and repeats with the priest: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Moreover, the growing social intolerance for homosexuality helped create an atmosphere of fear which might have contributed to the writing of tragic stories like that of Brokeback Mountain. Maybe not directly, but through a series of events (during the fifties, in the USA, the police and media started a “campaign” against homosexuality, promoting anti-gay values and repression throughout the whole country), American mentality, especially the uneducated, rural one, was again influenced into thinking that homosexuals were evil and sick, much like when it was being constructed as a nation.
Speaking of identities, in his book, The Matter of Images, Richard Dyer says that “representations construct and influence the way we see other, are seen, treat others and are treated by them” (Dyer, 1992: 1) and that
It is true that such identities are never really as comprehensive as they claim – that many lesbians and gay men, for instance, do not recognize themselves in the identities claimed either within lesbian/gay cultures or by the lesbian/gay movement – but it is also the case that one cannot live outside the society, the network of representations, in which one finds oneself.
It is not an easy task to analyse Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain in the context of positive representations of same-sex desire. To begin with, the fact that the movie is set in 1963, pre-Stonewall, and in a rural area of the Wyoming State in the US are key elements that need to be taken into consideration, and nobody is really sure if the movie is political or not. The movie is also not a product of the mainstream backlash of the ‘gay lib’ movement.
(…) gay life before Stonewall was characterized by silence, invisibility, and isolation. Before Stonewall, there was no history of lesbians and gay men struggling for freedom; indeed, before Stonewall, there was no gay history other than a chronicle of unrelieved oppression. But mass movements for social change do not spring full-blown into existence (…) Movements have roots
(D’Emilio, 1992: 235)
Although the story in the movie might relate to the last part of the quotation, confirming that indeed homosexuality is and has always been everywhere, it would be wrong to say that the movement after Stonewall gave an impulse to the characters of Jack and Ennis, that it helped them to be free. It was predominantly an urban movement, and perhaps Brokeback Mountain is there to tell us that such cases do happen in rural areas and that the so-called “revolution” after Stonewall didn’t after all change every gay man and woman’s mind and situation – it failed to reach those more remote places. Therefore, the movie gives us a positive account of that fact by making use of a “negative” narrative (a sad, love story), in which tragedy portrays and is a product of the kind of lifestyle they led. If anything, the movie makes us feel sympathetic towards the main characters, which makes Brokeback go far beyond sexuality. It’s about lives that can be destroyed by a society whose petty morality shapes small minds. This social commentary constitutes a positive representation of homosexuality, because even though some may see the movie as a universal story (which nevertheless also constitutes a positive image), it does relate far more to homosexuals, and it contributes to create a positive portrait of same-sex relationships.
In order to understand the strict morality of the society depicted in Brokeback, we need only to go back in time in American history to find that
Biblical condemnations of homosexual behaviour suffused American culture from its origin (…) Colonial ministers railed against sodomy in their sermons. Although the world view of most twentieth-century Americans had ceased to be as biblically centred as that of their colonial predecessors, (…) religious teachings still shaped their views of sexuality and their sexual behaviour to a large degree.
(D’Emilio, 1983 : 13)
Therefore, it is an unavoidable fact that there is a strong religious influence in the society the movie depicts. Jack’s mother, as he says, believed in the Pentecost and Ennis’ parents were Methodists. It is curious indeed that Jack is not exactly sure what the Pentecost is but does think that it is about when the world ends and people like him and Ennis go to hell. For me this scene symbolises what rural America thinks of homosexuals – sinners, evil creatures, sick human beings. We can also say that Ennis was a part of that America, that he was raised to agree with this terrible view. In fact, in the scene after they have sex for the first time, Jack says that “it’s nobody’s business but ours”, to which Ennis responds “I ain’t queer”. Jack ends the short dialogue by saying that he isn’t a “queer” either. I believe that Jack expressed what most gay people feel it should be like, that it is nothing that other people should be concerned with, but at the same time this conversation does show the narrowness of mind of that society. And both characters are trapped in it. Another curious religious reference takes place when Ennis is getting married to Alma, and repeats with the priest: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Moreover, the growing social intolerance for homosexuality helped create an atmosphere of fear which might have contributed to the writing of tragic stories like that of Brokeback Mountain. Maybe not directly, but through a series of events (during the fifties, in the USA, the police and media started a “campaign” against homosexuality, promoting anti-gay values and repression throughout the whole country), American mentality, especially the uneducated, rural one, was again influenced into thinking that homosexuals were evil and sick, much like when it was being constructed as a nation.
Speaking of identities, in his book, The Matter of Images, Richard Dyer says that “representations construct and influence the way we see other, are seen, treat others and are treated by them” (Dyer, 1992: 1) and that
It is true that such identities are never really as comprehensive as they claim – that many lesbians and gay men, for instance, do not recognize themselves in the identities claimed either within lesbian/gay cultures or by the lesbian/gay movement – but it is also the case that one cannot live outside the society, the network of representations, in which one finds oneself.
(ibidem: 3)
The problem voiced in the film is that these characters had no idea what a gay identity was, let alone a gay movement. Therefore, they couldn’t recognise themselves in them. Moreover, their public image of cowboys, strong men brought up rather roughly, would never allow them to escape their own image of the society in which they lived: as Ennis says, “two men living together, it ain’t right”. Nevertheless, Jack does seem willing to challenge all that for their relationship, which in my opinion contributes to the positive representation of homosexuals in the movies – his courage could have changed the whole story. But coming out is difficult. The groups that access more power are heterosexuals and, as mentioned previously, their surrounding environment didn’t permit them to pursue such bold acts. Therefore, the characters’ background surprisingly constitutes a positive representation – they are both from poor, harsh, uneducated backgrounds, two ‘American losers’ as some may call them. That may help erase the preconceived idea that some people, perhaps even a few homosexuals, have that all gay men and women come from wealthy families. They were not rich at all.
As far as the movie being political or not is concerned, it is a fact that it was shot after the Matthew Shephard incident, and that Wyoming, where Brokeback Mountain takes place is the same State where Shephard was brutally left to die. Wyoming is also the State in which G. W. Bush was born. In this way the movie is not only subtly remembering gay hate crimes, but it is also commenting on Bush’s anti-gay marriage politics (let’s not forget that Ennis’ daughter gets married at the same age as he was when he first met Jack, which makes him realise how mistaken he had been for having lost his chance with him).
Stereotypes can also present a positive image of gay men in the media. Nevertheless, one of the aspects in Brokeback that helped the movie to be seen and analysed differently than others which also depict same-sex desire is that the characters are not the stereotypical image of what the “social mind” thinks of homosexuals, particularly when hearing words like “gay”. Their ways and attitudes are not effeminate and they don’t obey the rules and common images of gay men. This fact may change some preconceptions, but it could also be thought of as being restrictive and not very positive at all because if the viewers are able to feel the character’s pain and restrictiveness they will think of it as undeserved. Therefore, they are types represented through fiction:
The type is any character constructed through the use of a few immediately recognizable and defining traits, which do not change or ‘develop’ through the course of the narrative and which point to general, recurrent features of the human world.
(Dyer, 1993: 13)
Identities are a key element to Brokeback Mountain. The main characters’ fake straight identities, the married lives they arranged for themselves, which caused unhappiness to everyone including themselves, could be seen as a negative element that wouldn’t help promote the movie’s “good” image. In fact, many people probably felt anger for what they both did to their wives because betrayal and secrecy were a great part of their lives throughout the years they met each other on the mountains. But then again, in my opinion, I do believe that this unfortunate side of the story just helps us realise what happens in these cases, and how changing minds can help prevent them from ever taking. If their society were more open-minded, and their upbringing wasn’t as restrictive as it was, then perhaps they wouldn’t have chosen to live a life that was contrary to their feelings. But the fact is that Ennis, for instance, was too torn and tattered due to his childhood to ever embrace his relationship with Jack openly. When Jack tells him that “it could be like this, just like this, always”, Ennis remembers an event he witnessed as a child: his father took him to see an old man that was brutally tortured and killed because he was living with another man. They were “a joke in town, though they were pretty tough old birds”, Ennis recalls, and then goes on to express his own fear: “if this thing gets hold of us again, in the wrong time, in the wrong place, then we’re dead”. And by the time Jack gets killed, Ennis realises he let his life pass him by. Jack’s mother probably knows what her son was, and we get the feeling that she had come to terms with it, but she was rendered helpless because of her tough, castrating husband. This is all understandable if we realise that “homophobia is usually the last oppression to be mentioned, the last to be taken seriously, the last to go. But it is extremely serious, sometimes to the point of being fatal” (Abelove et al., 1993: 99).
So identity is part of what makes these characters men trapped in time and space: “‘Homosexual’ and ‘Lesbian’ have been negative sexual categories, at best to be viewed pathologically, at worst as moral degeneracy” (Dyer, 1993: 20-21). Let us not forget, again, that the gay movement of the sixties happened in big cities and it wasn’t heard of in rural America until much later, if at all. People in those areas were more concerned with economic matters, as we can also see in the movie, than anything else. Therefore, they couldn’t organise themselves, feel part of a group – they were alone.
Four types of homosexuals are considered in Dyer’s The Matter of Images, one of them being the “Macho”. Neither Jack nor Ennis fall into this category, simply because they are not even exaggeratedly masculine and they certainly don’t possess a “consciously erotic look” (idem 40). Ennis’ ways are rough and contain nothing of the erotic. Not even their clothes can be seen as contributing to that image – they are not trying hard to look masculine and express an erotic look. Moreover, they definitely don’t correspond to the image of the “sad, young man”. Jack, for instance, destroys the possibility of one looking at him and identifying him with that type when he stands up to his father-in-law.
If one went to see the movie without having heard a single world about it previously, one would immediately recognise them as tough, strong men of the American West (which they are, anyway) and maybe think that the movie was just another old-fashioned cowboy movie. I believe that it is by making these characters, types, that we can subvert the stereotypes and re-interpret them. In a sense, a meaningful analysis might show that what could be viewed as negative in Ang Lee’s stoic drama can actually construct a positive image as mentioned before: despite being social characters that represent their imprisoning and socially repressive time and age, they still own a unique individuality, which shows how their “manacles” were not only forged by the world but also by themselves. This is important because restricting yourself usually derives from being imprisoned by what surrounds you, and, although a lot of people didn’t think of Brokeback Mountain as a political movie, one can consider their restrictiveness as being so, in the way that people might be affected by it and identify with some of its characteristics, thus reinforcing its positive representation of homosexuality. It is not a question of a man having sex with another man, it is about freedom, something that people cherish and take for granted nowadays. Ang Lee’s discrete way of shooting the sex scenes also contrasts to a large degree to what happens in the book by Annie Proulx. This is also a very clear sign that there was a pressure or a desire to make it represent homosexuality positively. The movie has in fact been called a love story rather than just a gay love story, which would be a negative statement and would again isolate it in a specific category. It is nonetheless a gay movie, or a movie about a gay love relationship, but it speaks to everyone, in my opinion.
Sexual essentialism is “the idea that sex is a natural force that exists prior to social life (…) Sexual essentialism is embedded in the folk wisdoms of Western societies (…) “ (Abelove, et al., 1993: 9). Brokeback Mountain is a good example of this idea – the two men couldn’t control their desires and only when they found themselves living in society did they repress their feelings. The social life shapes their lives; they live according to their society’s model of thinking. Nevertheless, Foucault denies this theory in his book The History of Sexuality refusing “the traditional understanding of sexuality as a natural libido yearning to break free of social constraint” (apud Abelove, et al.,1993: 416). I venture myself to say that that is exactly what goes on in Brokeback Mountain, despite the fact that those desires might have been socially constructed – Western culture has always considered sex to be negative, specifically homosexual sex.
The characters are then forced to play the game of visibility/invisibility, of that which is lived and that which is kept secret – the mountain is both freedom and prison. Because they live in a narrow-minded society, they end up, as previously mentioned, involving everyone in their helpless, destructive love affair. But this “game” is deeper than that. The characters’ shirts inside Jack’s closet portray the secrecy of homosexuality and what misfortunes that might bring. Nevertheless, the main characters are still heroic in their failure – in the end Ennis still closes his closet door with the shirts inside, but a promise is made not to accept things as they still are. And this can be linked to the “coming out” step that is a part of any homosexual’s life. Brokeback Mountain does help “make visible the invisible” (Dyer, 1993: p.16), but they couldn’t finally really come out and make themselves be seen, as has been analysed throughout my essay. But the point proven by that game, in my view, is that it shows that, yes, cowboys in rural states can in fact be homosexuals, and I believe that this is one of the main elements in the movie. If we look at the scene in which Jack goes to Mexico to find a male prostitute, we may take it as negative aspect, which would make sense considering he “betrayed” Ennis, but being in the closet in the society in which he lived probably made him feel too shut down not to find consolation in those places where he could at least be himself sexually. So Mexico is visibility whereas Wyoming and Texas (which symbolise their marriages in which they were tangled) are invisibility, or the impossibility of being real.
Therefore, Mexico is also an example of reality, because if “families play a crucial role in enforcing sexual conformity” (Abelove, et al.,: 22), then Mexico is what proves that the conformity of being married is what is most fake in the whole story. They both had castrating fathers, they both embraced a straight married life, but they both knew and felt that it wasn’t real.
In the media, a battle for positive representations of same-sex desire has always been active:
Attempts to counter negative propaganda with more realistic information generally meet with censorship, and there are continuous ideological struggles over which representations of sexual communities make it into the popular media
(ibidem: p.23)
Therefore, it is my belief that Brokeback Mountain is a movie that struggles to represent homosexuality positively by depicting an isolated case, thus portraying the whole community and those who are still trapped in a restrictive society like Ennis and Jack. In my opinion this movie is about reality and what it can do to people. The fact that it didn’t fail to reach the mainstream consumers proves that it is a movie with social significance, and it is my belief that much more can be said and written about it and more specifically on certain aspects, like the difficulty of coming out of the closet.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
. Lee, Ang (2005), Brokeback Mountain. United States of America: Focus Features
Secondary sources:
. Abelove, Henry, Barale, Michèle Aina, Halperin, David M. (1993), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. United States of America: Routledge, Inc.
. D’Emilio, John (1983), Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: the making of a homosexual minority in the United States, 1940-1970. United States of America: The University of Chicago Press
. D’Emilio, John (1992), Making Trouble: essays on gay history, politics, and the university. United States of America: Poutledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
. Dyer, Richard (1993), The Matter of Images: essays on representations. Great Britain: Butler & Tanner, Ltd.
The problem voiced in the film is that these characters had no idea what a gay identity was, let alone a gay movement. Therefore, they couldn’t recognise themselves in them. Moreover, their public image of cowboys, strong men brought up rather roughly, would never allow them to escape their own image of the society in which they lived: as Ennis says, “two men living together, it ain’t right”. Nevertheless, Jack does seem willing to challenge all that for their relationship, which in my opinion contributes to the positive representation of homosexuals in the movies – his courage could have changed the whole story. But coming out is difficult. The groups that access more power are heterosexuals and, as mentioned previously, their surrounding environment didn’t permit them to pursue such bold acts. Therefore, the characters’ background surprisingly constitutes a positive representation – they are both from poor, harsh, uneducated backgrounds, two ‘American losers’ as some may call them. That may help erase the preconceived idea that some people, perhaps even a few homosexuals, have that all gay men and women come from wealthy families. They were not rich at all.
As far as the movie being political or not is concerned, it is a fact that it was shot after the Matthew Shephard incident, and that Wyoming, where Brokeback Mountain takes place is the same State where Shephard was brutally left to die. Wyoming is also the State in which G. W. Bush was born. In this way the movie is not only subtly remembering gay hate crimes, but it is also commenting on Bush’s anti-gay marriage politics (let’s not forget that Ennis’ daughter gets married at the same age as he was when he first met Jack, which makes him realise how mistaken he had been for having lost his chance with him).
Stereotypes can also present a positive image of gay men in the media. Nevertheless, one of the aspects in Brokeback that helped the movie to be seen and analysed differently than others which also depict same-sex desire is that the characters are not the stereotypical image of what the “social mind” thinks of homosexuals, particularly when hearing words like “gay”. Their ways and attitudes are not effeminate and they don’t obey the rules and common images of gay men. This fact may change some preconceptions, but it could also be thought of as being restrictive and not very positive at all because if the viewers are able to feel the character’s pain and restrictiveness they will think of it as undeserved. Therefore, they are types represented through fiction:
The type is any character constructed through the use of a few immediately recognizable and defining traits, which do not change or ‘develop’ through the course of the narrative and which point to general, recurrent features of the human world.
(Dyer, 1993: 13)
Identities are a key element to Brokeback Mountain. The main characters’ fake straight identities, the married lives they arranged for themselves, which caused unhappiness to everyone including themselves, could be seen as a negative element that wouldn’t help promote the movie’s “good” image. In fact, many people probably felt anger for what they both did to their wives because betrayal and secrecy were a great part of their lives throughout the years they met each other on the mountains. But then again, in my opinion, I do believe that this unfortunate side of the story just helps us realise what happens in these cases, and how changing minds can help prevent them from ever taking. If their society were more open-minded, and their upbringing wasn’t as restrictive as it was, then perhaps they wouldn’t have chosen to live a life that was contrary to their feelings. But the fact is that Ennis, for instance, was too torn and tattered due to his childhood to ever embrace his relationship with Jack openly. When Jack tells him that “it could be like this, just like this, always”, Ennis remembers an event he witnessed as a child: his father took him to see an old man that was brutally tortured and killed because he was living with another man. They were “a joke in town, though they were pretty tough old birds”, Ennis recalls, and then goes on to express his own fear: “if this thing gets hold of us again, in the wrong time, in the wrong place, then we’re dead”. And by the time Jack gets killed, Ennis realises he let his life pass him by. Jack’s mother probably knows what her son was, and we get the feeling that she had come to terms with it, but she was rendered helpless because of her tough, castrating husband. This is all understandable if we realise that “homophobia is usually the last oppression to be mentioned, the last to be taken seriously, the last to go. But it is extremely serious, sometimes to the point of being fatal” (Abelove et al., 1993: 99).
So identity is part of what makes these characters men trapped in time and space: “‘Homosexual’ and ‘Lesbian’ have been negative sexual categories, at best to be viewed pathologically, at worst as moral degeneracy” (Dyer, 1993: 20-21). Let us not forget, again, that the gay movement of the sixties happened in big cities and it wasn’t heard of in rural America until much later, if at all. People in those areas were more concerned with economic matters, as we can also see in the movie, than anything else. Therefore, they couldn’t organise themselves, feel part of a group – they were alone.
Four types of homosexuals are considered in Dyer’s The Matter of Images, one of them being the “Macho”. Neither Jack nor Ennis fall into this category, simply because they are not even exaggeratedly masculine and they certainly don’t possess a “consciously erotic look” (idem 40). Ennis’ ways are rough and contain nothing of the erotic. Not even their clothes can be seen as contributing to that image – they are not trying hard to look masculine and express an erotic look. Moreover, they definitely don’t correspond to the image of the “sad, young man”. Jack, for instance, destroys the possibility of one looking at him and identifying him with that type when he stands up to his father-in-law.
If one went to see the movie without having heard a single world about it previously, one would immediately recognise them as tough, strong men of the American West (which they are, anyway) and maybe think that the movie was just another old-fashioned cowboy movie. I believe that it is by making these characters, types, that we can subvert the stereotypes and re-interpret them. In a sense, a meaningful analysis might show that what could be viewed as negative in Ang Lee’s stoic drama can actually construct a positive image as mentioned before: despite being social characters that represent their imprisoning and socially repressive time and age, they still own a unique individuality, which shows how their “manacles” were not only forged by the world but also by themselves. This is important because restricting yourself usually derives from being imprisoned by what surrounds you, and, although a lot of people didn’t think of Brokeback Mountain as a political movie, one can consider their restrictiveness as being so, in the way that people might be affected by it and identify with some of its characteristics, thus reinforcing its positive representation of homosexuality. It is not a question of a man having sex with another man, it is about freedom, something that people cherish and take for granted nowadays. Ang Lee’s discrete way of shooting the sex scenes also contrasts to a large degree to what happens in the book by Annie Proulx. This is also a very clear sign that there was a pressure or a desire to make it represent homosexuality positively. The movie has in fact been called a love story rather than just a gay love story, which would be a negative statement and would again isolate it in a specific category. It is nonetheless a gay movie, or a movie about a gay love relationship, but it speaks to everyone, in my opinion.
Sexual essentialism is “the idea that sex is a natural force that exists prior to social life (…) Sexual essentialism is embedded in the folk wisdoms of Western societies (…) “ (Abelove, et al., 1993: 9). Brokeback Mountain is a good example of this idea – the two men couldn’t control their desires and only when they found themselves living in society did they repress their feelings. The social life shapes their lives; they live according to their society’s model of thinking. Nevertheless, Foucault denies this theory in his book The History of Sexuality refusing “the traditional understanding of sexuality as a natural libido yearning to break free of social constraint” (apud Abelove, et al.,1993: 416). I venture myself to say that that is exactly what goes on in Brokeback Mountain, despite the fact that those desires might have been socially constructed – Western culture has always considered sex to be negative, specifically homosexual sex.
The characters are then forced to play the game of visibility/invisibility, of that which is lived and that which is kept secret – the mountain is both freedom and prison. Because they live in a narrow-minded society, they end up, as previously mentioned, involving everyone in their helpless, destructive love affair. But this “game” is deeper than that. The characters’ shirts inside Jack’s closet portray the secrecy of homosexuality and what misfortunes that might bring. Nevertheless, the main characters are still heroic in their failure – in the end Ennis still closes his closet door with the shirts inside, but a promise is made not to accept things as they still are. And this can be linked to the “coming out” step that is a part of any homosexual’s life. Brokeback Mountain does help “make visible the invisible” (Dyer, 1993: p.16), but they couldn’t finally really come out and make themselves be seen, as has been analysed throughout my essay. But the point proven by that game, in my view, is that it shows that, yes, cowboys in rural states can in fact be homosexuals, and I believe that this is one of the main elements in the movie. If we look at the scene in which Jack goes to Mexico to find a male prostitute, we may take it as negative aspect, which would make sense considering he “betrayed” Ennis, but being in the closet in the society in which he lived probably made him feel too shut down not to find consolation in those places where he could at least be himself sexually. So Mexico is visibility whereas Wyoming and Texas (which symbolise their marriages in which they were tangled) are invisibility, or the impossibility of being real.
Therefore, Mexico is also an example of reality, because if “families play a crucial role in enforcing sexual conformity” (Abelove, et al.,: 22), then Mexico is what proves that the conformity of being married is what is most fake in the whole story. They both had castrating fathers, they both embraced a straight married life, but they both knew and felt that it wasn’t real.
In the media, a battle for positive representations of same-sex desire has always been active:
Attempts to counter negative propaganda with more realistic information generally meet with censorship, and there are continuous ideological struggles over which representations of sexual communities make it into the popular media
(ibidem: p.23)
Therefore, it is my belief that Brokeback Mountain is a movie that struggles to represent homosexuality positively by depicting an isolated case, thus portraying the whole community and those who are still trapped in a restrictive society like Ennis and Jack. In my opinion this movie is about reality and what it can do to people. The fact that it didn’t fail to reach the mainstream consumers proves that it is a movie with social significance, and it is my belief that much more can be said and written about it and more specifically on certain aspects, like the difficulty of coming out of the closet.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
. Lee, Ang (2005), Brokeback Mountain. United States of America: Focus Features
Secondary sources:
. Abelove, Henry, Barale, Michèle Aina, Halperin, David M. (1993), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. United States of America: Routledge, Inc.
. D’Emilio, John (1983), Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: the making of a homosexual minority in the United States, 1940-1970. United States of America: The University of Chicago Press
. D’Emilio, John (1992), Making Trouble: essays on gay history, politics, and the university. United States of America: Poutledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
. Dyer, Richard (1993), The Matter of Images: essays on representations. Great Britain: Butler & Tanner, Ltd.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário