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Popular Culture Review
family, responsibility.” It is not that they don’t want what heterosexual couples
take for granted; instead, they are forced to validate a way of life others seek to
deny to them.
The film doesn’t ridicule heterosexual privilege by juxtaposing sounds of
crying children and unkempt houses with the freedom of the wilderness, but the
conflicting images force members of a primarily heterosexual audience to
consider the fulfillment implicit in being able to live in a way consistent with
who they are and whom they love. While it is true that the images of
heterosexual life in Brokeback Mountain are “impoverished, constrained,
dysfuctional” and that, too often, “family life, home life, breeder life” serve “as
a gestalt of impoverishment and stark, comfortless angularity,” as Hunter
argues, it is heterosexual life that is considered normal. And it is heterosexuals
who often deny to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people the rights they
covet, passing state laws that prevent some of their family members, neighbors,
co-workers, and others from marrying legally, from adopting children, and from
enjoying a relationship sanctioned by law. Jack and Ennis are prevented by both
their own decisions and by societal constraints from realizing the full promise of
their love for one another. They seek the wilderness because it allows them to
express their passion; what they leave behind temporarily are the vestiges of
unhappy heterosexual family life.
The Cultural Legacy of the Film
If homophobia and a lack of understanding of marginalized people help to
explain adverse reaction to Brokeback Mountain and help to prevent Ennis and
Jack from pursuing a life together, it is reasonable to argue that the more often
sympathetic portrayals exist in popular culture and elsewhere, the more likely
that prevailing attitudes about human sexuality will change. “In three-time Oscar
winner Brokeback Mountain, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist fall in love in the
wide open spaces of Wyoming,” reads the introduction to “The Director’s Cut,”
an interview with Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense and
Sensibility) published in Equality: News about GLBT America. “Their quiet,
simple story moved audiences in theaters everywhere and soon exploded into
one big cultural conversation” (6).
Part of the reason for the “big cultural conversation” is the talent of the
director; the ability of writers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana; and the
understated but intense performance by Ledger (10 Things l Hate About You,
The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, Lords o f Dogtown, and Monster's Ball), a
performance lauded by critics such as Belinda Luscombe in the November 28,
2005, Time magazine review entitled “Heath Turns It Around.” Gyllenhaal and
Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek) also received accolades for their roles.
Although Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for “Best Picture” on Oscar
night, Brokeback Mountain won “Best Director,” “Best Adapted Screenplay,”
and “Best Original Score.” (Other winners that night were Reese Witherspoon
[“Best Actress,” Walk the Line]; Philip Seymour Hoffman [“Best Actor,”
Capote); George Clooney [“Best Supporting Actor,” Syriana]; and Rachel