The movie that should have won best picture comes out on DVD today.
Bitch Ph.D. has an excellent analysis of this movie (my wife immediately picked up on this same thing, which I didn't really think about when seeing the film):
Brokeback, like every other Western out there, is about the suppression of male emotion for the greater social need...
Ennis has a committment to honor. His personal feeling violates not only his promise (he's engaged) but also all established social norms. The scene where Alma finds out about his relationship with Jack is such a huge deal, arguably central to the film, b/c it shows the problem: it's not just about homophobia (or else Ennis would just be a pure victim), it's about this kind of masculine responsibility where his personal needs and feelings have to be suppressed because, damnit, he has responsibilities. That's why his reconciliation with Alma Jr. at the end is so vitally important.
more, plus poll after the break...
More from
Bitch:
I thought Brokeback was a great movie because it exposes the essentially tragic nature of the Western (which has always been there): the domestic space that the cowboy creates and protects is something he can never really belong to, because the very qualities that make him a creator/protector unfit him for domesticity. Short version: Western American masculinity defines masculine as that which excludes the feminine. Inasmuch as Brokeback is about gay men--who, obviously, exclude [sic] femininity in ways that straight men never can, but who are also defined, by those same straight guys, as essentially feminine--it absolutely captures the paradoxical nature of the Western, and hence, says something really profound and important about American culture and American men.
Remember (P)resident Bush's response to the question about the film? As reported by Rampway Online:
In a recent question/answer session with the President, a fellow Kansas State University student asked the President whether or not he had seen the film. The President sheepishly replied, "I'd be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen the movie, but I've heard about it."
Bush's response differed, according to who wrote about it. Here was another typical account, from The Brad Blog:
Question: You're a rancher. A lot of us here in Kansas are ranchers. I just wanted to get your opinion on Brokeback Mountain and if you had seen it yet... You would love it. You should check it out.
Bush: I hadn't seen it. I would be glad to talk about ranchin' but I haven't seen the movie... I've heard about it... I hope you go.. you know.. heh, heh.. I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm is what I was going to say... I hadn't seen it.
So, there's that to chew on.
My own personal issue right now goes like this: my wife and I are leaving town on Friday to go on a slightly-longer-than-a-week trip to the Florida Keys and, briefly, the Bahamas. That's right: the same Bahamas that banned the movie. In the short span between now and the time when we leave on our trip, I may be able to gather some copies of this movie for distribution down there, which I'm not sure I would know how to do, but it seems right. So I'm wondering about this. Maybe a Kossack is in the vicinity, and could help disperse a dozen copies if I brought them down? Surely, there are gay Bahamanians, or at least people who would love and appreciate the movie (otherwise, the government wouldn't have felt the bizarre need to ban it).
Come to think of it, the government of the Bahamas has actually done an interesting kind of "suppression of male emotion for the [supposed] greater social need". What do you think?