Traditional Masculinity In Henry Benshoff's Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain premiered in 2005 when it shocked many audiences, sparked controversies, and brought in substantial box office revenues. The fuss that Brokeback Mountain provoked came from the movie being labeled a “gay cowboy movie”. Henry Benshoff argues that this is not an accurate way to label Brokeback Mountain, but instead the movie could be analyzed for a variety of audiences. Henry Benshoff’s purpose in this essay is to get people to understand the role that Brokeback Mountain played in exposing viewers to the culture of homosexuality. I will analyze how Benshoff argues that Brokeback Mountain challenged traditional masculinity through his examples of Christian discrimination, straight-male anxiety, and homophobic responses. For
Many viewers with traditional Christian values could not look past the homosexual intimacy portrayed in Brokeback Mountain. Movie manager of Lone Star 4 refused to screen the film reiterating the idea that, “small towns do not have queers (let alone people interested in queer cowboys), and that being Christian invariably means being hostile to homosexuality” (4). Benshoff uses this example of a small town movie theater to prove his point that in a community made up of a majority of Christians no one is going to be willing to advocate for a homosexual film as it would go against the majority of beliefs. In addition, if this movie were to play in a small town movie theater like Lone Star 4 then everyone would be
In retaliation to the movie many felt it was appropriate to simply break the movie down into a joke about homosexuality. Benshoff contends that, “Humpback Mountain was but one of many homophobic puns-including Buttback Mountain, Bareback Mountain, Brokebutt Mountain, and Backdoor Mounting-that circulated during and after the film’s release” (6). By listing these specific movie titles for Brokeback Mountain Benshoff is showing that the movie could not be seen for its plot, but instead people chose to focus on anal sexuality to turn the film into a comedy. Many responded to this movie with witticisms of anal sex in order to prove their masculinity and disgust for homosexuals, being that anal sex is typically associated with queers. Benshoff’s focus on the puns made about Brokeback Mountain shows viewers who couldn’t see the masculinity of a rugged cowboy, but instead saw gay lovers. Benshoff writes that audiences became fixated on anal sexuality, proving that Brokeback Mountain sparked uneasiness with audiences who had never seen a cowboy characterized as gay. Prior to Brokeback Mountain cowboys were considered to be “manly men”, Benhsoff discusses how audiences turned “manly men” into a homophonic pun as a reaction to the homosexuality in the