Were they gay? (Jack & Ennis)

[adamblast]

From February's New York Review of Books...  An article that might seem a little academic to some, but is really amazingly *spot-on* about the very issue being debated in this thread.  It's also a great read.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18712

Here's the final paragraph for a teaser:
_________________________

The real achievement of Brokeback Mountain is not that it tells a universal love story that happens to have gay characters in it, but that it tells a distinctively gay story that happens to be so well told that any feeling person can be moved by it. If you insist, as so many have, that the story of Jack and Ennis is OK to watch and sympathize with because they're not really homosexual—that they're more like the heart of America than like "gay people"—you're pushing them back into the closet whose narrow and suffocating confines Ang Lee and his collaborators have so beautifully and harrowingly exposed.

(And thanks for the guidance, M.)

[garek]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18712

Wow...great article.

[lightsrays05]

The real achievement of Brokeback Mountain is not that it tells a universal love story that happens to have gay characters in it, but that it tells a distinctively gay story that happens to be so well told that any feeling person can be moved by it. If you insist, as so many have, that the story of Jack and Ennis is OK to watch and sympathize with because they're not really homosexual—that they're more like the heart of America than like "gay people"—you're pushing them back into the closet whose narrow and suffocating confines Ang Lee and his collaborators have so beautifully and harrowingly exposed.

And that's why it's a gay love story.

Whether Ennis and Jack were really gay or not does not matter.

The tragedy that they experience, only gay people experience.

Even blacks have support - at least - from their families.

Many, many gay people are shunned by theirs...

It's a tragic story that it is because of the gay component.

(Whether gay existed back then or not is irrelevant. The facts remain.)

[BillN]

And that's why it's a gay love story.
Whether Ennis and Jack were really gay or not does not matter.
The tragedy that they experience, only gay people experience.
Even blacks have support - at least - from their families.
Many, many gay people are shunned by theirs...
It's a tragic story that it is because of the gay component.
(Whether gay existed back then or not is irrelevant. The facts remain.)

Lights, I have to respectfully disagree in part. I think there have been analogous situations throughout human history. The example that comes to mind is inter-racial dating and marriage in the very recent past. Men were lynched for being involved with a women of a different race, and from what I have read, were ostrasized by their own families. BBM would have been a tragedy if you made the two characters a black man and a white women in 1930s Wyoming. IMO, one of the reasons the film is a triumph is that it takes one of the oldest story forms, starting with the Greeks, and uses gay characters, and convinces us that using gay characters is part of the heritage of this form of tragedy. As a gay man, I have an urge to think BBM is "mine", it is unique in describing what I and other gay men have gone through. Where BBM is such a wonderful piece of film making is that it shows that tragedies can include two gay characters, the tragedy is not limited to hetereosexuals.

[Dal]

From February's New York Review of Books...  An article that might seem a little academic to some, but is really amazingly *spot-on* about the very issue being debated in this thread.  It's also a great read.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18712

Oh, very nice.  Thanks for the link, adamblast.  Like you, I think Mendelsohn hit the nail on the head. 

Dal

[aevkc]

BillN, but as a straight white woman who dated a black man in college, I think there IS a difference between homosexual and inter-racial relationships.  I think the writer of that article hit it on the head.  My boyfriend and I got rude comments, his parents weren't exactly thrilled, etc.  but WE didn't have a problem with the relationship.  Neither one of us felt ashamed or confused by it at all.  And I think that's very different from the reality of a lot of homosexuals.  Many do feel ashamed or even, like Ennis, disgusted at some level by their own impulses and desires.  And that, to me, is what makes BBM so heartbreaking and specific to the characters involved. 

[hayek_uk]

From February's New York Review of Books...  An article that might seem a little academic to some, but is really amazingly *spot-on* about the very issue being debated in this thread.  It's also a great read.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18712

Here's the final paragraph for a teaser:
_________________________

The real achievement of Brokeback Mountain is not that it tells a universal love story that happens to have gay characters in it, but that it tells a distinctively gay story that happens to be so well told that any feeling person can be moved by it. If you insist, as so many have, that the story of Jack and Ennis is OK to watch and sympathize with because they're not really homosexual—that they're more like the heart of America than like "gay people"—you're pushing them back into the closet whose narrow and suffocating confines Ang Lee and his collaborators have so beautifully and harrowingly exposed.

(And thanks for the guidance, M.)

This must be the definitive review. Whatever comes after will have to engage with it, whatever the writer's opinion of it. The focus is, rightly, on Ennis, whose tragedy we feel represents the "story" of the film:

"Heath Ledger, who plays Ennis, has said of Ennis —"Fear was instilled in him at an early age, and so the way he loved disgusted him,"  -- and that is brilliantly conveyed by his deservedly acclaimed performance. On screen, Ennis's self-repression and self-loathing are given startling physical form... a man who is tormented simply by being in his own body—by being himself.

""It's because of you that I'm like this—nothing, nobody," the dirt-poor Ennis sobs as he collapses in the dust. What Ennis means is that he's "nothing" because loving Jack has forced him to be aware of real passion that has no outlet, aware of a sexual nature that he cannot ignore but which neither his background nor his circumstances have equipped him to make part of his life. Again and again over the years, he rebuffs Jack's offers to try living together and running "a little cow and calf operation" somewhere, hobbled by his inability even to imagine what a life of happiness might look like.

"The image of the two shirts hidden in the closet, preserved in an embrace which the men who wore them could never fully enjoy, stands as the poignant visual symbol of the story's tragedy. Made aware too late of how greatly he was loved, of the extent of his loss, Ennis stands in the tiny windowless space, caressing the shirts and weeping wordlessly."

 

[sunspot]

This must be the definitive review.

He gets a few of the details wrong, but yeah, for once we're seeing a review that nails the central theme of the film.  Most reviewers can't see over their own heap of baggage well enough to make out what's actually happening up on that screen.

[vertimus]

I'm with you, BillN. There is nothing inherently tragic about being homosexual in and of itself; it's not as if it comes with an extra couple severe, clinical depression genes. 

The story could, in  my eyes, like, I think, yours, be just as powerful with an interracial racial at its center, or merely an adulterous but passion relationship.

As far as trouble between interracial  partners related to their racial difference, the young lady who wrote may not have experienced that, but I'm sure many who have participated in such relationships have, as long as such relationships are frowned upon by American society, and others. Frowned upon, and far worse. 

[aevkc]

Vertimus, I'm not saying we didn't get major loads of grief for being an interracial couple.  I'm just saying that it wasn't internal, but external. And no, I'm not saying that all gay men are conflicted or disgusted by their orientation nor should they be.  I'm just saying that I don't think BBM would be as powerful or as heartbreaking with an interracial couple or a couple with different religious backgrounds, or whatever.  The sadness and power of the film is that Jack and Ennis are kept apart both by social causes and their own internal inability to imagine a life together.  I'm not trying to say all gay men have this issue. 

[vertimus]

aevkc, what makes you think that homosexual men''s troubles don't largely stem from outside social sources, i.e., 'external''? Sometimes, external problems cause internal problems too, but that is not necessarily the rule of thumb in homosexual relationships.

Of course we have the same amount of inner troubles as the average person, but not more, except those arising from bias and prejudice. Which I'm sure you faced then too.   

As I said earlier, in my 20s and 30s, I had many many friends from all [many, many] walks of life, both here in NYC as well as South Florida. I found that everyone was pretty much in the same boat, having the same amount of abusive partners, drug-addicted partners, wishy-washy lovers, betrayal, manipulation, infidelity, being 'used,' lied to, etc.

I had a good friend named Ida Kaplan who was in her seventies and a widow, and she was dating and also finding herself dealing with these same elements.

The 'good' in our all relationships was comparable too. 

So I have to continue to disagree with your thesis.

[lightsrays05]

BillN, but as a straight white woman who dated a black man in college, I think there IS a difference between homosexual and inter-racial relationships.  I think the writer of that article hit it on the head.  My boyfriend and I got rude comments, his parents weren't exactly thrilled, etc.  but WE didn't have a problem with the relationship.  Neither one of us felt ashamed or confused by it at all.  And I think that's very different from the reality of a lot of homosexuals.  Many do feel ashamed or even, like Ennis, disgusted at some level by their own impulses and desires.  And that, to me, is what makes BBM so heartbreaking and specific to the characters involved. 

You've said it all!

Thank you.

(for the record, I have not lived like Ennis or even Jack. I speak for others, not me.)

[lightsrays05]

Of course we have the same amount of inner troubles as the average person, but not more, except those arising from bias and prejudice. Which I'm sure you faced then too.   

 

But, again, blacks have also some internal doubts of their "value", but they *do* get support AT LEAST from their families.

How many gay people are shunned by their families?

How many people are shunned by their families like homosexuals are?

Not that many.

Throughout many, many, many societies homosexuals have been shunned by their families.

And that's the biggest tragedy of them all.

There are no comparisons!

Again I speak for others, my whole family loves me. Both sides of them. Well, I don't know if I am "loved", but shunned I am not. I am among the few. The majority of the homosexual experience is contempt, even hatred, to their very own beings!

[lightsrays05]

Lights, I have to respectfully disagree in part. I think there have been analogous situations throughout human history. The example that comes to mind is inter-racial dating and marriage in the very recent past. Men were lynched for being involved with a women of a different race, and from what I have read, were ostrasized by their own families. BBM would have been a tragedy if you made the two characters a black man and a white women in 1930s Wyoming. IMO, one of the reasons the film is a triumph is that it takes one of the oldest story forms, starting with the Greeks, and uses gay characters, and convinces us that using gay characters is part of the heritage of this form of tragedy. As a gay man, I have an urge to think BBM is "mine", it is unique in describing what I and other gay men have gone through. Where BBM is such a wonderful piece of film making is that it shows that tragedies can include two gay characters, the tragedy is not limited to hetereosexuals.

I don't think we need BBM to " show" what kind of tragedies we are "possible" of having.

I guess, maybe to the people who create such realities for us, yes, maybe it "shows".

But BBM has nothing to do with the MAKING of the tragedies themselves.

They always existed.

And people know.

They just don't give a fuck!

[aevkc]

Vertimus, I'm not trying to apply my "thesis" to every gay man or gay relationship.  I'm talking about BBM specifically and the struggles, both internal and external Ennis and Jack faced.  I'm not trying to make a statement about all homosexuals.