Brokeback Mountain
Concepts in Brokeback Mountain and how it relates to Our Sexuality
Human Sexuality
Spring 2011
The concept of homosexuality has been explored by society for many years and is not a new concept. Gay roles portraying homosexuals as people with the same drives and desires as heterosexual people have only begun to surface in the last few decades. Roles showing lesbian women and transgender seem to have been more widely accepted especially when they are used as humor. The role of the gay man in film and in society seems to be widely accepted when those roles are opposed or when the stereotype of a gay man is needed to inject some humor. Homosexuals are only now receiving the same attention that other controversial roles have received without the extreme criticism in the past.
The social acceptance of homosexuality, especially with regard to long term relationships, has slowly grown, so more films are breaking through the stereotypes to form a more complete picture of gay relationships not just gay sex. In Chapter 7 of Our Sexuality, it states that men are more likely to separate sex from love but that gay men, especially, make this separation. (Crooks, & Baur, 2011 p. 197) It’s not that gay men do not value love but that they value sex as a means to an end. I believe this is the way Jack and Ennis’s relationship began. Neither character has any doubt about his masculine gender but proximity, as chapter 7 also discusses, plays an important role in their relationship as the two men become emotionally bonded to one another and their “means to an end” becomes love. (Crooks, & Baur, 2011 p. 188)
Jack seems more accepting of his homoeroticism whereas Ennis is drawn against his will to submit to his own desires and to Jack. Brokeback Mountain is clearly portrayed during a time when discrimination is an even bigger issue than it is now. In Chapter 9 of Our Sexuality, it tells us that society, in the early to mid 1900’s, attitudes towards homosexuality
Human Sexuality
Spring 2011
The concept of homosexuality has been explored by society for many years and is not a new concept. Gay roles portraying homosexuals as people with the same drives and desires as heterosexual people have only begun to surface in the last few decades. Roles showing lesbian women and transgender seem to have been more widely accepted especially when they are used as humor. The role of the gay man in film and in society seems to be widely accepted when those roles are opposed or when the stereotype of a gay man is needed to inject some humor. Homosexuals are only now receiving the same attention that other controversial roles have received without the extreme criticism in the past.
The social acceptance of homosexuality, especially with regard to long term relationships, has slowly grown, so more films are breaking through the stereotypes to form a more complete picture of gay relationships not just gay sex. In Chapter 7 of Our Sexuality, it states that men are more likely to separate sex from love but that gay men, especially, make this separation. (Crooks, & Baur, 2011 p. 197) It’s not that gay men do not value love but that they value sex as a means to an end. I believe this is the way Jack and Ennis’s relationship began. Neither character has any doubt about his masculine gender but proximity, as chapter 7 also discusses, plays an important role in their relationship as the two men become emotionally bonded to one another and their “means to an end” becomes love. (Crooks, & Baur, 2011 p. 188)
Jack seems more accepting of his homoeroticism whereas Ennis is drawn against his will to submit to his own desires and to Jack. Brokeback Mountain is clearly portrayed during a time when discrimination is an even bigger issue than it is now. In Chapter 9 of Our Sexuality, it tells us that society, in the early to mid 1900’s, attitudes towards homosexuality
References: Crooks, R., & Baur, K. (2011). Our sexuality. Belmont: Wadsworth. Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2010). Choices in relationships an introduction to marriage and the family. Belmont: Wadsworth.