Were they gay? (Jack & Ennis)

[AZ.bbm]

I am disappointed to have read this.
It seems dangerously close to “I know nothing about art but I know what I like”.
Literary, film, art, theatre, music, theories are meant to assist those with the inclination, to understand “why” they know what they like.
Ignorance is not a sin but stubbornly remaining so when the opportunity for knowledge is available, might very well be.
I fear “Too contentedly remain ignorant” is the motto imprinted on the I.D. card of all Tea Party members

-.Sexual prejudice is not a sin, either, but one is entitled to one's point of view, regardless.

You might save your appeals to tradition, sir, for someone who appreciates fallacy. Enough.

[Marge_Innavera]

We do know that movie-Ennis glommed onto his daughter's sweater after she left, so who knows, aside  from Jack's shirt, what he might have had, stashed away in that closet?!   

IMO we can safely dismiss the idea that Ennis had either a sweater fetish or the hots for one of his daughters. 

[garyd]

IMO we can safely dismiss the idea that Ennis had either a sweater fetish or the hots for one of his daughters. 

Agreed, though he DID "like the looks" of a mouse-colored grullo and Jack
had that whole "small dog" thing going on.

[AZ.bbm]

 

I don't think I was disrespecting anyone in that post.  If so, you may want to explain why you think so.

Simply put, it's okay to analyze the message, but it's disrespectful to analyze the messenger.

Simply state your position, and then allow the other member to state his, without cajoling, beseeching or imploring...

I'm not guilt-free, here, either, as when I suggested earlier that members stop trying so hard to squeeze Ennis and Jack into the gay box, that the story makes better sense if you begin with the notion that both boys are not gay - That's cajoling. And I offer my apologies for suggesting to other members that they "try to see it 'my' way."
 

Subtext.  Like nothing in TEA & SYMPATHY mentions being gay.

-Okay, that makes sense. But is subtext something that we go in to the theater with, or is it developed as the film progresses, or later? I believe you are saying that, in both instances, 'Tea & Sympathy' and BBM, you went to see the films with your own (or someone else's) preconceived notions about the orientation of the characters...?

On first viewing I tried to see Brokeback Mountain objectively without the subtext; in fact, I had heard that the film was not about "gay cowboy"  so my assumption was that Ennis was not gay (in the classic or stereotypical sense), that this was a story of two ordinary hetero men who happened to fall for each other, due to circumstances beyond their control, as happens in RL. + I knew from personal experience that hetero men occasionally fall in love with each other. So we both had our "prejudices"(assumptions).

Exactly.  That's internalized.  That's part of the point.  Or "a" point about homophobia.

Yes. I read two of Tripp's books; so I'm familiar with various types/modes of homophobia (-exogenous, endogenous, etc.).
 But at the time, i.e., before I read the SS, or joined the Forum, became familiar with AP's characters,  I had no idea that the Ennis that I saw on the big screen was such a disturbed character...Only later did I pick up this extra-story information, and the info was disjointed and the opinions seemed to be all over the spectrum.

Well, in the story it says he was "drug around until it pulled off," so that would be correct.

-Hyperbolically, perhaps...

 

Ennis says that his Dad "would pass a remark when he seen them" and later shows the young boys Earl in the ditch.  What else is Ennis learning by these things than to NOT be anything like "they was a joke."  The fact is that little Ennis knew
Earl and Rich was a joke because of his father's remarks and the fact is that Earl was in the ditch for some reason
and his father "made sure" they saw it and his father "laughed about it."

-Okay, we already knew that Ennis' old man hated queers, and we knew that he knew and ipso facto that the contemptible Mr. Del Mar wanted his boys to hate queers, too. What bearing did the Earl homicide have on Ennis' formative sexuality? After all, he hooked up with Jack, anyhow, just ten years, later..? Some are back-casting to the event,  believing that Ennis was natally homosexual, that he was only pretending to be straight, ergo he was in denial. That's plausible. Others like myself believe that he was not gay, that he jumped the fence and engaged in queer sex because of the encouragement of his (only) very good friend, and because the venue was remote, etc.  He never intended to love the man, only to f*ck him.- Romantic love just  wasn't  Ennis'  nature (I contend), which is why the sex included no intimacies.

Ennis doesn't think it was an accident--why?

I'd have to ask you why AP used the word accident when she did.  If I were the author and was
about to tell the readers what happened, I might write it that way so they wouldn't initially know
what happened--while reading it you first hear "accident" so we aren't yet sure what that means;
maybe he is still alive.  Then he calls Lureen and "in a level voice" she tells him the story.  Ennis
doesn't believe it.  Later when he meets Jack's father she writes that Ennis is convinced what
happened.  Accident is the official story.  As it would be.

-What does "As it would be" mean..??

Ennis was paranoid, that's the reason he didn't believe it was an accident.

2. Someone on this forum once wrote that a story's narrator never lies.   

If Annie had stated he was killed by homophobes or stated it was the Lureen story specifically
then it would play out differently while you're reading it.  To say it was an accident and then
have Ennis not believe it was her choice.  It then makes the reader wonder.  He didn't hear
about the accident means simply that Ennis didn't hear what the official story was it seems to me.

-I have to agree with you, here...

2. So, was the fact that AP left out any reference whatsoever to E or  J's basal sexual orientation or formative sexuality done for the same reason? She is a Hitchcock fan.

The very notion that Ennis is worried about him and Jack being together is ample evidence
there is SOME notion of homophobia that Ennis is dealing with.  Two men living together is
"a  joke," and people ridicule them (pass a remark) and Ennis "ain't no queer" and he's worried
about "people on the street lookin' at him like they know" etc.  And two men living together is
"no way."  If it's no big deal then why be so worried about it?  Gay people in small towns
instinctively know you should not be gay, or you should be quiet about it. 

 
No doubt.
There's homophobia everywhere; it's probably not as prevalent in rural communities as it is in urban society, but the effects are just as devastating for the rural victims and their families as they are for the urban ones.

If I could eradicate homophobia or racism I would not hesitate to do it. But then if I did, the spectrum of human experience would no longer be complete.
 
Oh, well.


-Az

 

[AZ.bbm]

IMO we can safely dismiss the idea that Ennis had either a sweater fetish or the hots for one of his daughters. 

Even slash/fan-fic writers wouldn't dare to go there. 



FYI -- I just noticed that there are now several books on Amazon.com which address the "gay husband" conundrum and how various women and their men deal with the situation.

[Desecra]

Hi, Des,

I have warm dreams about different male friends, especially ones I haven't seen in a while..

 I should mention that my dreams about all of my male friend except for one in particular, the one I fell in love with, have been "dry" ones...
 
Originally, I didn't see anything particularly 'gay' about a man having dreams about a late, dear friend. Now if AP had written that they had been having sex...

Thinking about what garyd and Lyle have written, and what you and I have touched upon earlier one's perceptions are altered by the reading of the SS; the loud voices of the ant-'gay cowboy' crowd that became prevalent after the story's publication. but  especially the feldercarb that washed up on shore preceding and during the run-up to the film's release (-which may be why I initially held off going to see the film for a while, or why some other non-gay folks, like my neighbor, still refuse to watch it).

It's not that the gay subtext of the film didn't appeal to me, it did, because my long M2M relationship had ended and I wanted to better  understand what I'd gone through and what I was feeling, and I could better relate to Ennis del Mar as another quasi-straight man like myself,  more 'doing gay' than being gay.+

Pls pardon the ramble.

-Stan

But this isn't a random dream - we're being given it as a set-up for the rest of the story.  (And we later find out that Ennis didn't dream about Jack until after he died).    Ennis was "suffused with pleasure" which suggests an erotic element, and it seems as if Jack Twist was hugely important to him.   In fact, when you get to the mountain part it's almost more of a surprise that nothing seems to happen between them for ages  (in my copy, they don't get it together until between the 7th and 8th pages of the account of the time on the mountain, and they come down from the mountain half-way through the next page). 

So the short story starts with Ennis being accepting of his relationship with Jack (and therefore, presumably, his own sexuality?), but as the story develops it gradually becomes clear that that acceptance came only after Jack's death.   The initial acceptance on Brokeback is really because Ennis didn't cotton on that they were attracted to each other.    He was repressed.

In the film, there isn't that acceptance and that working backwards.   But at the beginning, Ennis already looks conflicted, avoidant, socially awkward, etc.   I think that whereas in the short story, Ennis has managed to avoid questioning his sexuality, in the film Ennis has had the occasional seed of doubt sown, and is wrestling with it already (instead of after Brokeback).   

I don't think I felt a need to relate to Ennis or Jack, but I was definitely influenced by the short story, and in fact, after my first viewing of the film I thought I'd seen lines which were only in the short story. 

[Sandy]

The past few pages suggest to me that answering the (recent) question, "Was Ennis gay?", as well as the underlying question, What is gay?", has involved interpretations that are grounded in various individuals' personal experience. I think that can set up a number of misleading garden paths. It leads to equivocation over what "gay" means, physical acts, personal orientation and societal evaluation or various combinations of all three. It leads to a situation where even though one has same-sex physical encounters and even same-sex desires, one does not identify as gay because of the societal stigma it carries. So at the very least, we need to be aware of what our various definitions of gay are to have a reasonable discussion.

I noted threads and threads ago that Nabokov once said that in reading literature, one should never identify with the characters because, in essence, literature is not a virtual reality game or an emotional surrogate, but an art form. Adopting such an attitude might help us refrain from the more contentious aspects of the recent exchanges.

Might I suggest we re-phrase the question as, "Does the story of Brokeback Mountain make sense if Ennis and Jack are straight?" My own answer to the question is that it does not make sense, given the 20-year time frame, given the intense desires of the two main characters for each other. Without the assumption they are gay, the story doesn't make much sense, except as a sociological footnote.

[janjo]

It would seem more likely that Annie Proulx would write a short story about two men who fall in love with each other because they are gay, rather than the rarer scenario that two men who are essentially bisexual, but who are predominantly heterosexual would fall in love with each other.
That is not to say that is impossible, but it would be the exception rather than the rule, and therefore a more obscure subject for a short story, particularly when AP claims to have been inspired by watching an elderly cowboy watching the younger boys playing pool, with a look of hunger in his eyes.

[AZ.bbm]

We seem to be heading toward rank sexual bigotry, here, bigotry that refuses to acknowledge that two non-gay males can find each other and fall in love.

AFAIC, the bigotry is the thing that doesn't make sense.


We need to visit some studies of the permutations of bisexual relationships, which, I *think* you'll find, is far more preeminent than the friends here seem to think it is.

Regards.

-Az

[Desecra]

I'm not refusing to acknowledge it, I just don't think that going by what's in the story, that's what's happening here.   (I've had a same-sex relationship myself in my youth, so I'm not averse to the idea at all).    It's simply that we're shown that Ennis is attracted to Jack.  We're not shown that he's attracted to women and in fact, we're shown that he "pretends" it sex with a man and then eventually avoids it.      We're shown that Ennis had a childhood experience so traumatic that he couldn't accept homosexuality (which explains why he denies it in himself, and hates it in Jack).   

Then outside the book, we know it's set in a homophobic environment where gay men married, and the author has said that they were gay. 

I can see why some people think of them as bisexual, but I think there's only evidence for them being gay.    Ennis's denial of being gay happens in a certain context.  If he can't accept Jack being gay 16 years later, then it's clear he wasn't able to think rationally about it pertaining to himself.    I think he believes what he's saying, but we can't take his half-hearted "like" of doing it with women over what we see in the story - that he flips Alma over to recreate sex with Jack, then makes an excuse to avoid it altogether.

[Cally]

We seem to be heading toward rank sexual bigotry, here, bigotry that refuses to acknowledge that two non-gay males can find each other and fall in love.

AFAIC, the bigotry is the thing that doesn't make sense.


We need to visit some studies of the permutations of bisexual relationships, which, I *think* you'll find, is far more preeminent than the friends here seem to think it is.

Regards.

-Az

These are boys of nineteen who are sexually attracted to each other, have constant exhilarating sex over the summer, and fall in love, all of which is rekindled when they meet 4 years later, after what appears to be not very satisfying heterosexual relations, and which becomes the focal point of both their lives.  They have not been leading straight lives for many years and then  been suddenly attracted to a man.

Yes, I suppose they could both have elements of bisexuality in them - who knows? Film Ennis at least seems to be fairly content with his marriage in the early days, even though he is still fantasizing about Jack - but does it actually matter? That doesn't seem to me to be the point, and to force a 'bisexual story' reading of it goes against everything I feel about it.

Stan, if your reading is different from this, it's absolutely fine, but why not allow that other people feel strongly the other way and want to defend their views?  That's not bigotry: this is a discussion thread.

[janjo]

I resent being accused of sexual bigotry when it is plainly not the case. I am with Des here. I completely accept that bisexuality exists but it is just not what I see portrayed in Ennis and Jack.

[Sandy]

We seem to be heading toward rank sexual bigotry, here, bigotry that refuses to acknowledge that two non-gay males can find each other and fall in love.
Regards.
-Az

Again, I would suggest that as readers/viewers of the story, we not identify ourselves/our orientations with the characters of fiction. The problem is not of showing bigotry towards other members but of trying to make sense of a piece of fiction. I would further suggest that "two non-gay males who fall in love and who continue to have sex over a 20-year period" is a contradiction in terms. The alignment of same-sex their desires with their same-sex sexual expression strongly indicates that they are gay, whether or not they want to accept that designation (and they don't because of the social stigma). If there is any better instance of quibbling than saying, "I love Jack, I want to have sex with Jack and I do have sex with Jack as often as I can, but I'm not gay," I don't know of it.

[fofol]

We seem to be heading toward rank sexual bigotry, here, bigotry that refuses to acknowledge that two non-gay males can find each other and fall in love.

AFAIC, the bigotry is the thing that doesn't make sense.


We need to visit some studies of the permutations of bisexual relationships, which, I *think* you'll find, is far more preeminent than the friends here seem to think it is.

Regards.

-Az

There's bigotry and there's definitions, and there's people who get their backs up without understanding the difference.
Gay is not a scientific term.  Although "gay" is often used to describe homosexuals and homosexual activity, it does not does not define sexual orientation, even though MOST people understand it to mean 'not heterosexual with regard to the plumbing of the sexual partner.'  Two men who are in a sexual and emotional relationship with each other for twenty years are not heterosexual.  Anyone can THINK they may be bisexuals - although they were written as two guys whose love for one another could have been perfect if it weren't for homophobes - but the author (the author-ity) states differently, unless one thinks that married men who fuck each other are bisexual because they have wives and children to hide their homosexual activities.  I.E., sexual orientation is complex and the reasons, like yours, for not wanting to be called gay are astoundingly huge, and valid - if a label makes you uncomfortable, change it - BUT, and that is a big but, please stop trying to make this forum about the difference between 'gay' and 'bi' because sexuality - homo, hetero and bi - is such a complex enough topic that it deserves its own thread.  Brokeback is not about the labels of sexuality but about the destructive nature of societally endorsed homophobic punishment.  
Being a bisexual person is like being gay twice - straights think you're queer, and queers think you only an opportunist.  We understand that neither of these opinions is your truth, but that isn't enough to make Ennis and Jack bi.  It takes courage to be a man who admits to liking sex with men or a man and admit it.  Be proud of being who you are but please stop making this forum hostage to your beliefs.
That should be enough, but if it isn't

Stan, I've chosen to address this part of your issue because the last two times I responded to you about the story, you've ignored my point(s) and dragged my posts back into a conversation about whether two men who spend twenty years enjoying all of the safest opportunities to fuck one another as not being gay: well, Bud, they ain't straight.  If you're bisexual, great, more power to you, but not everybody who has sex (I mean, really, how complicated is the actual physical activity? - anyone can do it) with males and females  is not bisexual: it all comes from the heart, from the individual's motivation.  
Think Hugh Hefner's 'playmates' - does anyone think these women can't survive without bedding this man?  What about lesbians who have sex with men for money?  If you think they're bi when they tell you otherwise, I can understand why you'd be confused with the complexities presented in Brokeback.

[Sandy]

None of the three reasons you give has a bearing on the character of Ennis because none of them addresses how Ennis is presented in the story, or how he functions in the story. This is a piece of fiction, not a sociological case study.

If you want to pursue these lines of reasoning, please take them out of "Elements and Themes" and take them up in "The Gay Experience."

Comments in this thread should pertain to Elements and Themes of the short story and/or the movie.