I wish I’d never written the story. It’s just been the cause of hassle and problems and irritation since the film came out. Before the film it was all right… In Wyoming they won’t read it. A large section of the population is still outraged. But that’s not where the problem was. I’m used to that response from people here, who generally do not like the way I write. But the problem has come since the film. So many people have completely misunderstood the story. I think it’s important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience, but unfortunately the audience that Brokeback reached most strongly have powerful fantasy lives. And one of the reasons we keep the gates locked here is that a lot of men have decided that the story should have had a happy ending. They can’t bear the way it ends — they just can’t stand it. So they rewrite the story, including all kinds of boyfriends and new lovers and so forth after Jack is killed. And it just drives me wild. They can’t understand that the story isn’t about Jack and Ennis. It’s about homophobia; it’s about a social situation; it’s about a place and a particular mindset and morality. They just don’t get it. I can’t tell you how many of these things have been sent to me as though they’re expecting me to say, ‘Oh great, if only I’d had the sense to write it that way.’ And they all begin the same way — I’m not gay, but?.?.?.?The implication is that because they’re men they understand much better than I how these people would have behaved. And maybe they do. But that’s not the story I wrote. Those are not their characters. The characters belong to me by law.”
— Author Annie Proulx explaining to Paris Review the negative response from some readers to the ending of her short story Brokeback Mountain that was adapted into the Academy Award-winning 2005 film
demented
I’m not surprised people want a happy ending. I mean, fans of “Titanic” did the exact same thing, and that was a hetero romance. People like happy endings.
Unbunch your panties, lady. People appreciate stories for their own reasons, not because of a very rigid small number of reasons that you think it’s “deep” and want to teach the world a lesson. They’re appreciating it purely as a love story, and it’s a good thing because it means they’re treating it no differently from other tragic love stories.
jwtraveler
Really? Would she like to give back all the money she got for the rights and royalties from the film? I think not.
Fidelio
It’s a testament to the powerful writing that people are emotional about the ending. I was wrecked after watching the film. But like Prouix says, it’s her story. There are no alternate endings, as in life. I’m more upset it didn’t win Best Picture.
jkb
The story is an authentic representation of a time and place. It was a film, not a movie with a saccharine ending. So be it.
YouGoGurl
Let these be the worst problems she has in her life . . .
enfilmigult
She has a point. Wanting there to be a happier ending is precisely what the story is supposed to make you feel; it’s about a system that cuts off that possibility, and if you feel frustrated and heartbroken to see it happen, that’s the idea. But if you ADD a happy ending in which Ennis moves on and finds love with someone new…then what was the story supposed to be about?
Bungy32
Oh no! People were so struck by your fiction they made a film of it (for which you were paid royalties). And then others responded to it by imagining or even writing their own fan fiction. It’s so hard for a straight woman trying to write about the homophobia closeted rural gay men face (now or several decades ago) to deal with people “stealing” her story. Mmm-hmmm.
I don’t care about the happy ending or lack thereof. I did care about why this story now (er, then). What is it saying? What does it want us to acknowledge. That there are queers everywhere? That it is (or was…but really is) hard to be queer in rural spaces?
Mostly I thought the film (and story) took homophobia as the the new operatic villain in the ever popular story of unrequited love. It would have been better (or at least more honest) if they had sung their parts. Oh and look…now, of course, they do! Maybe the buried headline here is that whe wishes she hadn’t written it as a novella but as a libretto, instead.
Milk
It’s the culture of celebrities worship that she should hate. Perhaps in the future she should say no to the entertainment industry. By association of this piece of story, I’m sure her profile as a writer was raised. It’s up to her if she can live with the fame and the fortune that comes with it.
brooklynbobby
@jwtraveler: Just FYI, if you didn’t read the short story that Ang Lee based the movie on it is almost a word for word or idea for idea rendering of the book it’s self. There were no changes made to make it more palpable for mass audience appeal. Both the story and the movie, in my opinion were quite beautiful. And like most love stories that we regard in such high esteem (pretty much any tragedy by Shakespeare) it does have a tragic ending. And to change that and give it a “happy” ending would simply demean the ideas and intent of the artist. In this case the artist being E Annie Proulx.
brooklynbobby
@Milk: @Milk: E Annie Proulx does not need to have her profile as a writer “raised” anywhere. If you knew anything about her as a writer you would know that she is a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1993 for THE SHIPPING NEWS. She also won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel, POSTCARDS. Both incredible books along with everything else she has written. If you had bothered to check her out on perhaps WIKIPEDIA you would see that she has also won 19 other awards for her writing, Two of those for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. She is a WRITER. And this is the book she wrote. I know that as a gay man we have waited for decades for “happy endings” but please, if every movie with a gay person in it always had a happy ending I, myself would be bored to tears! Try reading some of her work and then decide before making statements about things you don’t know anything about.
brooklynbobby
@enfilmigult: And who is to say that this is where Ennis’ story ends? We only see it up to THAT particular point. We have no idea where he goes or what he does after this.
brooklynbobby
@jwtraveler: That’s a mature and well thought out comment to make. So happy to see that people in the gay world haven’t lost their ability to come back with a snappy come back! You go girl!!!!!
ingyaom
@Bungy32: There was an opera:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokeback_Mountain_(opera)
jjose712
People have the right to write the fanfiction they want, but frankly i don’t see the reason of sending that kind of mails to her. If you think the end of the story was wrong you have all the right to think that, but expecting that the author (a Pulitzer for fiction winner) is going to agree that your happy ending is way better than her is a little delusional.
And i understand her being tired if people still do that. Get over it, it’s just a film (and i’m pretty sure the ones sending the correcting ending didn’t even read the original story)
Billy Budd
I read the book BEFORE watching the movie. She is right. It should leave you heartbroken. It is the whole purpose, the essence of the book. Missed opportunities. Wrong morals. Injustice.
SteveCampsOut
This is why we can’t have nice things! People need to stop being so selfish and just be grateful when we are represented so beautifully in media!
cflekken
This woman should be embracing the fact that so many have connected with the story she wrote. Granted, we don’t know exactly what her experiences are with regard to needing “keep the gates locked” at her ranch but to call people “idiots” as she does in the interview makes me lose much respect for her.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5901/the-art-of-fiction-no-199-annie-proulx
Jaxson
There’s nothing wrong with the ending. It happens in real life all the time. However, as a fic writer myself, I understand the desire to have everything wrapped up nice and neat.
Alton
I can understand straight people watching (or reading) Brokeback Mountain and thinking it’s a love story, but any gay person (particularly any gay man) who watched/read it and didn’t understand that it’s a story glaringly, obviously, about the closet is a stone-cold moron.
And gay people in this very comment section taking Proulx to task for being annoyed that people are threatening her because her story about internalized self-loathing didn’t have a happy ending…you’re the dumbest of them all.
martinbakman
@demented: The interview was given 5+ years ago. Maybe it is Queertie that needs to unbunch their panties and not dredge up old comments from long ago. She was clearly blowing off steam. I doubt she truly wished the story was never written.
martinbakman
@Alton: You are spot on!
Also, people ought to read the interview to get a flavor of the person, before basing comments on what this Website provided.
At the time of the interview she was busy writing the libretto for the opera Brokeback Mountain. That’s a clue she was still committed to the story? She was clearly very protective of her characters and did not want someone else taking them away from her. In the same way, she did not understand why fans bothered to fantasize about different endings for Ennis in their fanfiction or whay they bothered to send these to her, as if she should have them. Quite ridiculous! I don’t blame her for feeling uneasy about that sort of attention. I imagine some of the stories went places she did not want to read about.
Bauhaus
Take time to read the story. It’s wonderful in a different way from the film.
bearbandit
@Billy Budd: I regret not having read the book beforehand. To me, it was a story of love in a place where it just wasn’t tolerated. There’s no way it could have gone any other way. Ms Proulx simply imagined the unimaginable (for the setting) and presented us with the consequences. It might almost have been a documentary. And yes, I was heartbroken at the end, despite having read spoilers. Part of being out is recognising that all is not well in our community or the wider communities we live in. Why else have we been to so many funerals? Why do so many of us live in fear within our own community?
jason smeds
I do agree with Annie Proulx about how some people perceive Brokeback Mountain to be a love story. It really isn’t. It’s about homophobia and the reaction against any male-male interaction whatsoever. It’s also about a woman’s fear of male homosexual feelings in her husband.
NoCagada
@brooklynbobby: It would seem that neither one of you have any identification with a creative process from a creative mind. That’s fine, but why knock it. Some people do wonderfully working on an assembly line. That’s fine. Why knock it?
SCGayman
The ending nearly killed me. The thought of him looking out of that window at the barren landscape for hours and days and weeks and years pining for his lost love was so depressing I cried a river. The only way to deal with it was to think that he would meet someone else when the time was right. Thank God I have a good imagination. I got the homophobia part, but still.
scottladoux
@enfilmigult: @enfilmigult I think you make a salient point by explaining that if the story illustrated the traumatic and unjust romance these men had, but then rewarded the audience with a happy ending where the characters just moved on with their lives and happiness was in abundance while no stigma was overcome…. It would simply become a well written porn.
Zodinsbrother
Curse those people with their own imaginations. Why can’t they just let professional writers do all the imagining for them to make sure they imaging the right things.
I think, someone needs to get over themselves.
Milk
@brooklynbobby: Annie is that you?
Rainbough
I’m sure J.K. Rowling probably gets quite a lot more of this, with people who want her stories to end differently, but you don’t see her griping about people writing fan fictions about her characters.
If this author does not like people writing fan fictions of her characters, I have a simple solution for her, don’t read the letters. It’s really not that complicated.
And if she reached just one person with this film’s message what does it matter if others mistake it for just a love story? Just because EVERYONE doesn’t get the message she wants to scrap it?
This is really rather silly, but I still give her props for writing this amazing story.
TomMc
If Annie Proulx genuinely regrets writing it, then I regret reading it.
However I don’t regret seeing it…
Ang Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, and the late Heath Ledger (among many others) did a fantastic job of bringing that threadbare story to life.
(If you’d like to delight in a piece of real literature written by a French woman about gay men, read Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Alexis”.)
nandaric
What a total ungrateful bitch. Most authors would kill to have gotten the kind of attention she has gotten.
TrueWords
PLEASE READ THE ACTUAL SHORT STORY
http://www.taosmemory.com/oscar/BrokebackMountainNovle.pdf
DarkZephyr
@brooklynbobby: Wouldn’t you sat that the fact that Milk didn’t know about the stories and awards and accolades you mention (I didn’t either for that matter)that this is proof that this story and the film HAVE raised her profile at least a little bit?
“I know that as a gay man we have waited for decades for “happy endings” but please, if every movie with a gay person in it always had a happy ending I, myself would be bored to tears!”
I personally don’t find happiness all that boring. And to be honest I really am tired of all the sad endings and angst we always have to deal with in films that are aimed at us. Now I am not declaring that she should have written her story differently, not at all. But when I saw your comment that if every movie about gay people had a happy ending you would be bored to tears I couldn’t help but think that you were being a bit extreme there.
jockjack5
I’m relatively new to Queerty, and therefore I haven’t read or commented much to date, but I am struck by the high quality of the comments on this particular thread.
Fascinating and thought-provoking… glad I’m here boys.
Milk
@DarkZephyr: Thank you. Somehow my point was missed.
jwtraveler
@brooklynbobby: Yeah, so? Why are you telling me that? And by the way, I’m not a girl. Kind of a sexist/homophobic insult, isn’t it?
gauty
@brooklynbobby: Name me THREE mainstream movies with queer protagonists that have an unambiguous happy ending, you hypocritical pulsating chode knob.
Billy Budd
@gauty:
Maurice: If my recollection is correct, it has a Happy ending, but they have to leave england for Canada.
The Sum of Us: Totally happy ending, even though the father has a stroke.
Billy Elliot: Totally happy endding, even though billy does not have sex with anyone (he is still a little kid).
I could name other movies.
Billy Budd
I may have mixed up the stories of “Maurice” and “Lady Chatterley”. Sorry.
Billy Budd
Beautiful Thing: Totally happy ending, with the boys dancing together in front of the community. Beautiful thing indeed.
demented
@brooklynbobby: A lot don’t have happy endings, which is where the trope came from
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays
Ratronaut
Coincidentally I watched it for the first time two days ago. Then cried off and on for the next 24 hours. Starting to get over the trauma today. But it’s a sweet misery. A sweet misery that had to be written.
Maleko
The film is about the most fundamental issue all gay men have; will they come out of the closet and live a life that allows them to be who they are; or will they stay secured in the closet, never realizing their true selves, where they can lie to themselves rather than be what they might otherwise have been. It is a fantastic film, obviously should have won Best Picture; maybe a little homophobia in Hollywood. Because neither of them had the courage to be themselves, no matter how overwhelming the emotions for each other were, both lived what I would call miserable lives, given that one of them died sooner than the other. The tragedy is that they did this to themselves; they never had the courage to live their true lives. And it was hell for both of them. Hell they both had the power to end whenever they wanted to but they never recognized that they had a choice to make and they failed miserably for their choice and live was hell…of their own making.
jimmycurry01
This is a quote from years ago, why is this just now a story on queerty? Is it just too slow of a news week?
DuchessOfMilton
@demented: Hey dumbass, it’s her story, not yours. She’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. You’re nobody. Don’t tell her to “unbunch her panties.” Her panties aren’t in a bunch, yours are—because an author expressed dismay at a lot of brainless queens just like you trying to rewrite her material.
TimJonesYelvington
@demented: No it means they’re treating it as SENTIMENTAL, ie morally, ethically and philosophically bankrupt. Kind of like the completely gratuitous sexism of yr “panties” comment.
inbama
Technically, it’s not incorrect to call Brokeback “the Academy Award-winning 2005 film” as its director, screenwriter and composer did win, but when it came time for Best Pic, it was given the shaft.
Ridpathos
Honestly, the story was boring as heck. The movie was a yawn-fest and I didn’t feel sympathetic to any of the characters.
martinbakman
@Zodinsbrother: Maybe Proulx just doesn’t want to read a story you might want to write about the places Ennis stuck his penis after Jack died. She’s an award winning, quirky, old broad that doesn’t understand this modern world the way you do.
jantheman4903
@nandaric: well she is not most authors. she has major awards,major successes. she hates n rarely does interviews,compared to others. she didn’t need a film made.. she is pretty interesting herself,actually.
Billy Budd
@Ridpathos: Boring? WTF. The story was brilliant, understated, allegorical (the bloody shirts in the closet!), ultimately devastating, moving, beautiful, heart-wrenching, and universal for gay guys and anyone who has had trouble with conventions of morality.
dmanhart
50 year old gay man here. The story was set even before my coming of age.. A happy love story between 2 bisexual men at that time period? How about a happy love story between a white woman and a black man in the 1950s? You should not whitewash history….
Bauhaus
@Billy Budd:
Shelter. Feel good movie, happy ending.
jjose712
@gauty: It’s true the sad ending was a total cliche in a lot of queer movies, but not anymore.
From the teen movies of the 90’s like Beautiful thing or Get real (yes get real didn’t have the happy paired ending, but it was a good ending anyway), to Maurice. Even the novel has that happy ending, E M Forster decided from the begining of the writing proccess that the novel should get a happy ending.
The problem with happy endings is that they must fit in the story, they should be perfect for what you are telling, if not spoil the whole story.
Brokeback Mountain in the best scenario could take an open ending, but given how the characters were the happy ending just didn’t make sense
stanhope
@jwtraveler: she should just STFU. She got paid. If she is so disturbed, write a sequel. Jackie Collins has made an industry of it and gotten paid over and over. Sheesh.
JPDonahue
So much anger and hate aimed towards Annie Proulx in the comments above. I guess it doesn’t Get Better for some/many. If you wrote something nasty/mean… don’t get all upset when some random person on the street says something shitty to/about you. It’s the exact same thing.
I wonder how many people have read her story or have just seen the movie?
kelbell13
There are deaths in Disney movies. The whole point of the point was to show what hate and stupidity combined drives people to do sometimes. It was not a love story but closer to a prejudice and hate story.
Milk
Just like many movies, many reflects the reality of the time. Brokeback Mountain reflects the period and also the time where happiness are rarely seen. Hence the tragic ending. Just like powerful woman roles are rarely seen on screen. Many still play the role of damsels in distress. However, the time is changing and we get to see more uplifting gay movies.
enfilmigult
@brooklynbobby: It’s where THIS story ends. It’s not Ennis’ life story.
Chris
This reminds me of the people who are sorry they had children: it’s sort of late for that, isn’t it?
And a novel is sort of like a child. Once you let go of it, it’s no longer yours. And everyone feels free to admire or to criticize your child-rearing based on the child’s life and impacts on the world around him/herself.
1EqualityUSA
The story was powerful. The author seems to be uneasy about the effect her work has had on people. Hopefully, she’ll embrace the variations on her tale and the conversations her work generated. Look at all of the fun things done to the image of the Mona Lisa. If she can hang with it, so will Pr…how the Hell do you spell her name…Proulx. Don’t be bitter. Be happy.
blondeboyz
Sounds like she has issues to deal with, NOT the readers. And her last line was a doozy. “The characters belong to me by law.” I suggest she check the law again. Parodies and other stories using “her characters” is perfectly legal. There are tons of other stories written about Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter characters, just to name a few.
Billy Budd
Some actors have a diametrically opposed attitude towards fanfiction. Michael Fassbender and James MacAvoy love the gay fanfiction available about them as X-men. They even commented about some of the pictures and titles, in interviews.
Maude
At least he didn’t commit suicide…..or did he?!!
“rough-trade” has always been dangerous.
justsomebookishguy
The movie was amazing and tragic and tender and rough, it was all those things to me. I loved it, still do. I wish people who haven’t visited the short story it’s based upon would do so. I think Proulx wrote a beautiful story and the movie was fantastic. I wish my fellow gays would take a pill and leave her alone, ffs. Life is not a Full House episode where everyone’s fee fees get soothed. Shit happens.
danemichael
It ended perfectly. It was never a feel good movie. The struggle of two gay men during a time and in a place that could never accept it. Two men trapped in a life that could never be happy. Amazing movie.
jayj150
@danemichael: I agree, except the movie was not about two gay men, it was about 2 bisexual men. We share some of the same struggles, but we’re not the same thing.
jayj150
I enjoyed the movie, it was indeed a moving, sad, powerful story, and I think the ending was perfect. But I don’t understand why so many posters are claiming every gay man should relate to the main characters. Ennis and Jack were 2 closeted, unfaithful, BISEXUAL men in HETEROSEXUAL marriages. And in the case of Ennis, you might even argue he was even a bit of a psycologically abusive husband. I am not any of those things. This is not saying I dislike them, I love flawed characters in movies, but don’t confuse the struggles of closeted bisexual men(themselves very prone to internalized homophobia) with those of gay men.
drivendervish
@jwtraveler: That’s exactly the first thought I had while reading the story!
Larry
Either she did not express herself correctly or she is just plain wrong. She says the story isnt about Jack and Ennis, its about homophobia. How does anyone write a book or produce a movie about any topic without characters? She may not like that the personalities have taken a life of their own, but that just proves the public relates to the story she was trying to say. If she didn’t want characters to take control of the message, she should have just produced a document with facts and figures about homophobia. No one would have seen it, however.
J T Eilers
If Ms Proulx really wrote or said that comment, I am surprised that she would only just become aware that a great mass of citizens are self-righteously certain that they have the right opinion, and all those opinions differ. Why listen to sounds from a mob about a story that the “happy few” recognize as a well-wrought urn. Let it stand like Wallace Steven’s “Jar on a Hill in Tennessee.” I hope Ms. Proulx writes for those who can truly see and hear, and won’t forget her hidden cohort of intelligent people, distracted by the reactions she mentions. Perhaps she will need to stray from her favorite subjects — people such as Joseph Conrad said of sailors, who live out their “glorious and obscure fate — and take a moment to write about the cacophony that accompanies her increased fame over one particular story. Ang Lee and the actors did a great job — but Ms. Proulx is aware that no movie could duplicate the ongoing, separate wonder of the story she wrote. Funny how most people who read it seemed to think: This would be a great movie, except that no movie can possibly capture the subtlety of its impact. Best to see the story and the movie as two separate and great works of art. Ms. Proulx: Refer people who want to comment on the film to its director, Ang Lee, and proceed in peace. I must say, however, how grateful I am that you created a great impression of the suffering and painful confusion caused by the repression of homosexuality. Don’t number those of us who have suffered similar environments among those whose comments annoy you.
Queertyreader2
Funny I totally got that is was about homophobia in the American West…I think she ended it exactly the way it would have happened…Does everyone forget what happened to Matthew Sheppard…The book was short, poignant and timely…KUDOS
Billy Budd
Tire Iron!
Ruger
To say “I wish I never” to something that changed the course of history is not only disrespectful to ones self its a disrespect to to everyone it enlightened. Even though the story is sad in the end it helped a great many who might have been going through something similar. So sorry your beautiful story has been such an inconvenience Annie. Very selfish indeed.
Alton
@jayj150: What on Earth gave you the impression that either of those men were bisexual?
SteveDenver
It sounds like Proulx is complaining about becoming more prominent and selling multiple printings of the short story. Fame is so inconvenient, although the wealth ain’t bad.
uhyep
Dear Ms. Proulx,
From the very bottom of my heart, I cannot thank you enough for writing the story.
Words cannot convey the positive impact your story has had on countless lives.
Your story is one of humanity’s treasures.
Ratronaut
They married women because that’s what men did and they had no frame of reference for their feelings for each other. So they never thought to define that part of themselves. They clearly did not have the intensity of love for their women that they had for their man. They were not bisexual; they were gay.
Captain Obvious
How nice for this self-entitled bitch to decide that gay men who are tired of unhappy endings choose to write one for a story they otherwise enjoyed ON SCREEN. Most of these people never even read her damned book or care about it.
Many gay men want to be inspired to find happiness, not focus on the bleak. It’s cute that she wants to talk about homophobia that she doesn’t have to face and ignore the fact that focusing on negativity is the major reason why many commit suicide.
I’m so sick of people who are outside of groups dealing with situations they’ll never understand telling those who do have to deal with those problems how to feel about it.
You don’t like fan-fic? Then stop reading it, idiot.
wholelotanothin
It was story about love. A love that couldn’t happen for many, many reasons. It was about loneliness and homophobia at it’s best and worst. The internal struggle that soooo many of us has felt and endured.
wholelotanothin
And Captain Obvious, I’m tired of bitchy twinks like yourself who at 19 think they have all the answers. If you didn’t feel inspired after watching Brokeback Mountain than that’s all on you! And for the record, I’m sure many, many gay men read the short story. If not before hand, afterwards. This book is about real life. You want to write a book with a happy ending then why don’t you live your life and create one to write?
Sad, Annie has to be attacked by angry, self loathing gay guys like yourself. You’re the reason she now wishes she hadn’t written the story.
wholelotanothin
well stated uhyep!
jayj150
@Alton: Do you even know what the words ‘bisexual’ and ‘homosexual’ means?. Those 2 were closeted, bisexual men. They had willing, consensual sex with both men and women. There’s such a thing as bisexual people, your denying it is not going to change it.
Cam
I have never heard an interview with this woman where she wasn’t bitching about something.
Cam
@jayj150: said… “Do you even know what the words ‘bisexual’ and ‘homosexual’ means?. Those 2 were closeted, bisexual men.”
__________________________
Nice try, if they were ACTUALLY bisexual they would have happily enjoyed sex with their wives and not stopped sleeping with them, or only had sex with them from behind etc…
This was a case of two closeted gay men hiding because of homophobia.
When you make obviously false claims about bisexuality it doesn’t do your cause any good. Of course bisexuals exist, but claiming that these two guys were enjoying a fling from their wives whom they liked having sex with removes the actual pathos of the story. Don’t be so desperate to prove your point that you go around searching for something that isn’t there.
scotshot
@jayj150: I know many gay men who married, had children, and appeared to live the
straight life. The fact of the matter is that it was practically suicide to come out 50 years ago. People lost family, jobs,friends, were beaten or murdered which was no big deal because they were queers – of course this also happens today to many gay people, you just may not have noticed it.
Consider doing a little reading on the subject, or better yet talk to someone who lived in that era.
tdx3fan
I am highly offended that people believe that is a gay movie. There is nothing gay in it at all. This is a movie about two straight guys that wanted to get their rocks off any way possible. There is no love involved. If anything there is a lack of love abundant in the amount of deceit and lies in the actual relationships (with women) in the movie. Its a horrible, horrible example of very warped male on male sex. It in no way represents gay culture or gay ideals AT ALL.
scotshot
@tdx3fan: it’s refreshing to see someone who has no clue at all…..to anything.
Are you the arbiter of what represents gay culture or gay ideals (wtf are “gay ideals, anyway”)?
thanks for the little bit of humor you’ve added to the board.
tdx3fan
@jason smeds: Dude… you should just change your name to “I Hate Women Because They Hate Gays.” It must be boring to have such a shallow world view.
tdx3fan
@Cam: Well honey, if you had your boyfriend leave you for some woman he met on a camping trip and your only success in life was to write a story about that… you would bitch all the time too.
Cam
@tdx3fan: LOL!!!!! Well there is that.
enlightenone
…”It’s about homophobia; it’s about a social situation; it’s about a place and a particular mindset and morality.”
Intelligent man wouldn’t expect anything less especially when it comes to this exceptional piece of literature!
THANK YOU Annie for writing THIS STORY. It impacted my life on many levels and it so insightful about a place and time and what REAL love looks like and the pain men experience especially with one of them is “closeted” and have suffered childhood trauma and poor parenting.
enlightenone
@tdx3fan: Idiot!
Captain Obvious
@wholelotanothin: You’re an idiot, like the author. It’s fan-fic. You’re crying because someone wrote fan-fic.
Self-hatred? You have absolutely no reading comprehension. Go rub one out, virgin.
vive
Rather full of herself, isn’t she? I read the short story; it was really nothing to write home about, lends itself to multiple interpretations, and would have been completely forgotten by now if not for the movie.
She isn’t even gay and yet arrogates to herself the privilege of telling people what being gay is REALLY like. Or bi. Whatever.
How about, if you are so pissed at being misinterpreted, next time you WRITE WHAT YOU MEAN.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
I have always thought Brokeback was a piece of cinematic trash………….
I was hoping for an uplifting, inspiring, tale that showed mainstream audiences that Gays can be “normal” and have satisfying happy lives………….
Everyone was marveling about the “first mainstream Gay film”…..And what did it show? Two miserable closet cases who lived miserable lives. One dies in the end other remains miserable…..
OhHellNo
I was impressed to see major gay characters and their stories in a major Hollywood film…until I saw the movie. To me it was typical right-wing propaganda-bullshit in its message: if you’re gay, kids, your life and the lives of all your loved ones will be miserably ruined, and you will live and die lonely, and/or die brutally because, well, you deserve it, all for a few minutes of lust now and then. I was surprised to find out it wasn’t written by the late Jerry Falwell. Let me know when Hollywood tackles gays with real, varied, even (gasp) happy lives, because in my experience enough of those exist to fill a hundred Brokeback Mountains.
enlightenone
@OhHellNo: “To me it was typical right-wing propaganda-bullshit in its message: if you’re gay, kids, your life and the lives of all your loved ones will be miserably ruined, and you will live and die lonely, and/or die brutally because, well, you deserve it, all for a few minutes of lust now and then.”
Rather jaded point-of-view and perspective, but it’s yours!