Character Analysis of Jack Twist

[adamblast]

...No, the reason Papa Arsehole hates Adorable Jake so much is surely the notion (obviously widespread since Ennis says it to Jack early on in the movie) that all rodeo riders are faggots. 

Heath's vocal approach to performing Ennis can make things difficult to hear...  but he says all rodeo stars are "fuckups," not "faggots"...

[lektronnorth]

Ooops, sorry guys. I'm sure you're right.
He's pretty sneery though, and obviously has Jack marked as a shirtlifter. When Jack gives the old bastard the full works in the Thanksgiving Scene, every time I've seen the film it gets one of the few genuine (i.e. not nervous) laughs from the majority of people.

[lektronnorth]

Oh and while I'm here (Goodnight from the UK.....sweet dreams), as for the "Jack as sexual predator" theory.

Yes, of course he was more experienced than Ennis
Yes, of course he fancied Ennis.
Yes, of course he tried to find out about his background and sympathise
Yes, of course he was charming, and caring.
Yes, of course he made Ennis fancy him. A half blind, half dead straight man who'd had a testostarone bypass operation would fancy Jack as played by "you know who" if he had a braincell in his body.


I'm going to pray to God every night that I'm lucky enough to meet someone as "predatory" as Jack is in this movie. And that I have the courage to ditch all my Ennis like qualities (and boy do I have lots of those) and embrace him, figuratively and literally.

Sleep tight - and keep spreading the word about this extraodinary movie. And thanks for all the postings - we have some incredibly brave people in our midst.....   

[helen_uk]

'Night lektronnorth! 

[cythera4]

I have a question about Jack's sexual character that I hope is appropriate here, and not too tactless. Do you think we're suppsoed to believe that Jack is essentially a bottom, that he wants more or less exclusively what Jack gives him in the first sex scene? Or is he simply wise enough to understand that this is the way Ennis has to do it to preserve a sense of his masculine role--that maybe later their exchanges got more fluid and negotiable? The way I real Proulx's story, they two characters are clealy segregated into tops and bottoms, but I'm not sure this is so clear-cut in the movie. (I have to say I love how Jack gives in to this act, and the close-ups of Jake's face as he's being penetrated by Ennis are among the most brave self-exposures by a straight actor in any movie ever--though I'm glad they cut Proulx's line Jack says at one point: "gun's going off").

[Charlie]

and while we're on this topic, could either of them have been physically harmed that first time?

[Guille]

I'm going to pray to God every night that I'm lucky enough to meet someone as "predatory" as Jack is in this movie. And that I have the courage to ditch all my Ennis like qualities (and boy do I have lots of those) and embrace him, figuratively and literally.

Sleep tight - and keep spreading the word about this extraodinary movie. And thanks for all the postings - we have some incredibly brave people in our midst.....   

Good Night lektronnorth. Here in Spain is late too but I wanted to say lets embrace the boy you love!
Guille

[Rockbern]

I came to this thread hoping to get a view(s) on 'Jack, the Sexual Predator' angle that I've heard expressed on other threads, but everyone here is in love with Jack [and Jake].  I can easily see how such a negative view can be established.  Any thoughts, anyone?  

..............

Please defend Jack's character from such slander as this.

WHO is saying these things? And why SPREAD the slander, hm?

cythera4    There are many.  The search engine may help you locate them.  I thought my post made it clear - I wanted to discuss this view of the Jack Twist character - afterall isn't this the title and purpose of this thread?  The 'slander' term was used tongue in cheek, which you may not have picked up on, since this story is actually a work of fiction.  Sorry if I've burst your bubble. 

[ImEnnisShesJack]

Do you think Lureen and Jack "had to" get married? Maybe that is why her father hated him so much?

Both Ennis and Jack get their partners pregnant really quickly. See how virile they are? (Sorry....off on one there.......)  No, the reason Papa Arsehole hates Adorable Jake so much is surely the notion (obviously widespread since Ennis says it to Jack early on in the movie) that all rodeo riders are faggots. 

Could have sworn he said f**k ups...

                                                ENNIS
     Hell, it's the most I've spoke in a year.
          (remembers)
     My dad now, he was a fine roper.  Didn't
     rodeo much, though.  Thought rodeo
     cowboys was all fuck-ups.

From Brokeback Mountain story to screenplay

[ImEnnisShesJack]

Hey there Rockbern -


As for taking advantage of Ennis' drunken state - remember they were both drunk. It does take one person to initiate any relatiionship. Is the man who asks a woman out on a first date a predator?!  Yeah, Jack is more worldly wise (if such a thing can be said of someone "inured to the hard life" and raised in deprivation) but no way do I see him as a predator - just a more forthright and aware person.

I've posted it before, and it's an old saying, but:

"You can't rape the willing."

[Rockbern]

Hey there Rockbern -


As for taking advantage of Ennis' drunken state - remember they were both drunk. It does take one person to initiate any relationship. Is the man who asks a woman out on a first date a predator?!  Yeah, Jack is more worldly wise (if such a thing can be said of someone "inured to the hard life" and raised in deprivation) but no way do I see him as a predator - just a more forthright and aware person.

I acknowledge this but my point is that no matter what Jack's state of inebriation, Ennis is the one whose inhibitions needed to be overcome.  Sober, he may have been more reluctant.  Jack's wider sexual experience, which is suggested by his on-screen behaviour, may have made him more aware of the part alcohol can play in lowering inhibitions and so allowed him to take advantage of the situation no matter who played the most significant part in Ennis's getting drunk in the first place. 

Deliberately getting a reluctant sexual target, of whatever sex, drunk after asking him or her out on a date could very well be one of the acts of a sexual predator.

At present I have a similar view of Jack's character to yours - but there are others that I would like to know more about - even if just to refute them.

[kumari]

Rockbern,
You are a provocateur, and I like that.
I did a little of that myself on the reunion scene thread where I labeled Alma as homophobic, and let people have at it.
Looking at a film or a charater at different angles gives the work new life, and, it's fun!
Jack is not perfect.
One of the reasons that we can spend hundreds of threads talking about one story is because nothing is really spelled out for us. Two people fall in love, and one of them dies, those are the facts, everything else is up for discussion.
Jack's integrity at the beginning of the story is well, questionable. He is also 19, and I remember being pretty questionable at that age. Some people seem to feel that if we talk about Jack "cruising" Ennis at the beginning of the movie, that it somehow detracts from the romance.
I disagree.
In fact, I think it increases the romantic tension.
Jack clearly has designs on Ennis, but he doesn't bank on falling in love with him. You can see him practically lick his lips when he watches Ennis ride a horse, but after Ennis starts to open up about his past and show interest in Jack by speaking in complete sentences, Jack is smitten, and his heart is spoken for.
I don't think there is anything wrong with seeing Jack as promiscuous and seductive.
He goes after what he wants, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Who hasn't used alcohol and their long eyelashes to score, I think we used to call that high school.

[kumari]

You know, what I'd like to hear people's views about is the brief period after the first tent scene and before the second. How do you read Jack's attitude as he comes out of his tent and says "see you for supper" to Ennis, or as he responds to Ennis's "one-time thing" and "you know I ain't queer"? I kind of read it like: maybe I pushed too hard too fast and lost a friend, but there's something here, I know it, I've got to nurture it, draw it out. Hence his marvellous, compassionate tenderness in the second tent scene--"It's alright," he says to Ennis, meaning: "let yourself feel this, it will transform you, I know," and also "society thinks it's wrong, but it's alright." I'd be interested in other views, though.

This is one of the places where I feel like the film and the story part ways. When I read the story, I felt like Jack was really affirming his masculinity and that he believed what he said to be true. But the way that Jake played it in the film made me feel differently. Jack, at times, doesn't seem to give a shit about queer or straight. He knows what he feels for Ennis, and he doesn't want Ennis to sleep with the sheep that night, or any other night, for that matter. He says what he has to in order to keep his lover calm and close by.

[brokebackLJ]

It's fine we discuss all viewpoints of Jack's character, but not everyone loves him or is going to love him.
However, as a 19 year old, I've often checked guys out the way Jack did when he first saw Ennis. Being somewhat stupid about it, which I think Jack might've been, as in a little obvious and copius in his look....brings Jack, and myself, to our respective post-high school beggining adult life. Nothing wrong with that.
I don't think Jack took advantage of Ennis, and if he did, it was purely innocent. Jack didn't seem as drunk as Ennis when they first 'made love', but he was very loving and sweet when saying "you'll free when that fire does down"...it wasn't out of desperation, lust, or any ill-will I think associated with Jack being a predator. If Jack and Ennis were similar, nothing would've happened. Jack acts on his feelings, which I think may be the cause of a lot of dissent here, acting on feelings and not thinking about repercussions.
I think if more of us acted on our gut feelings, like Jack did, we'd be happier people. Maybe those of us who look at Jack as a predator of sorts have trouble going after what they want, too. It's another big message of BBM, don't miss out on life.

[Rockbern]

I agree with what others have said about Jack being an outgoing, gregarious character, open and warm to others, and one who gets by on personal charm, but that's just one side to him.  What fascinates me about him is that, despite being an extrovert, he still remembers the happiest time of his life being totally isolated on BBM with Ennis, far away from the outside world with its pressures and complications.  The significance of the time on the mountain is not just in that it gave Ennis and Jack time with each other, but that it gave them both time AWAY from everyone and everything except each other.  Similarly, despite his comfortable life with Lureen, he is the one who is ready to throw it all away and cut himself off from the world with Ennis, whether by driving for 14 hours to Ennis's cabin in the middle of nowhere or by shutting himself off with Ennis in a ranch.  We can see easily why solitude would be important to Ennis, the repressed soul who seems always to be buffeted by events around him, but its importance to Jack gives away that, at heart, he too yearns to shut himself off from the outside world and live his life in a private bubble with Ennis.  Jack is a character who thrives on riding the rodeo of life, but deep down wants nothing more than to shut himself away.

Excellent post.  Very well expressed.  You made me realize that without their isolation the whole experience may never have happened, could never have happened.  I couldn't imagine how Jack and Ennis could possibly have started anything if they were, say, two cowhands working on a busy ranch with other people to interact with.  This could be the reason why Brokeback becomes such a magical place to them and isn't a concrete part of their furtive weeks away together - but always in the background.  Jack's "Brokeback is all we got" underlines their unwillingness to tarnish that memory by trying to repeat it.  They never could because of who they were then and are now - and they know it.

I read somewhere, I don't know how true it is, that during her research into the story's background, Annie Proulx, interviewed an old ranch foreman who said that he always took into consideration the fact that 19 year old boys like Jack and Ennis, with sex on their minds night and day, were expected to 'poke' each other during their long stay in such isolation and that this was the reason for having two shepherds.  Makes sense - a much more stable and cost effective workforce than three - or just a lonely shepherd.