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Cowboys in Love

By Lakshmi Chaudhry, In These Times. Posted December 16, 2005.


The film 'Brokeback Mountain' is a cinematic example of a fast-dying phenomenon: love stories of tragic proportions.

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"All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," writes Leo Tolstoy in the opening line of his saga of thwarted passion, Anna Karenina. All great love stories too are unhappy, but each in their own way.

Brokeback Mountainis a tragic love story of epic proportions. The passion shared by Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), grabs hold of the young men on a lonely mountain-side one summer and never lets go, marking them for a lifetime of sorrow and yearning that is the inevitable reward of true love. This is the stuff of Anna Karenina, Romeo and Juliet, Abelard and Heloise.

Brokeback Mountainis just the latest iteration of a narrative of tragic love that has gripped the Western imagination ever since troubadours in medieval France began to sing the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In one of the definitive books on the history of romance, Love in the Western World, Swiss philosopher Denis de Rougemont wrote:

Love and death, a fatal love -- in these phrases is summed up … whatever is universally moving in European literature, alike as regards the oldest legends and sweetest songs. Happy love has no history. Romance only comes into existence where love is fatal, frowned upon and doomed by life itself.
A love affair between two hard-bitten cowboys set in Wyoming back in 1963 (or for that matter, today) meets all three criteria. Like star-crossed lovers through history, Jack and Ennis pursue a love forbidden by Church and Law, consummating their fevered desire in isolated mountain meadows, seedy motel rooms, with the knowledge that it may literally kill them. As it did Earl, the old cowboy a nine-year old Ennis sees lying dead in an irrigation ditch: "They'd took a tire iron to him. Spurred him up, drug him around by his dick until it pulled off, just bloody pulp."

This is love as affliction, a madness that defies human reason and self-control -- "There's no reins on this one," says Ennis -- wreaking havoc and misery in their own lives and those closest to them. It is as great a tragedy for their bewildered wives, who too followed their hearts only to find themselves tied to unhappy, distant strangers unable or unwilling to love them. "I wish I knew how to quit you," says an older Jack, saddened by a passion that in twenty years has given him little more than fleeting moments of happiness over a near-lifetime of solitary yearning.

Epic love stories have always been the stuff of great Hollywood movies, and the movie's PR machine is selling Brokeback Mountainas just that, doing its best to play down the fact that this particular version involves two penises. Ledger told Time magazine, "I don't think Ennis could be labeled as gay. Without Jack Twist, I don't know that he ever would have come out. I think the whole point was that it was two souls that fell in love with each other." His co-star Gyllenhaal also did his bit (though with far less eloquence) in an interview with ABC Australia: "Like, these aren't, in my belief, these aren't two, like gay guys. These are two people who fall in love."

"This is not a gay cowboy movie," he asserted again while walking the red carpet at the movie's premiere.

But herein lies the irony: only a "gay cowboy movie" can meet the literary requirements of grand passion in 21st century America. As Rougement explains, love is only as immense as the barriers that prevent its fulfillment: Unless the course of love is being hindered there is no 'romance;' and it is romance that we revel in -- that is to say, the self-consciousness, intensity, variations, and delays of passion -- not its sudden flaring. Passionate love at once shared and fought against, anxious for a happiness it rejects, and magnified in its own disaster -- unhappy mutual love.

For straight folks, those barriers have long been eroded in the name of progress. The 20th century democratized marriage, tossing aside considerations of class, race, family affiliations. It also tore down the centuries-old separation of love and marriage, making wedlock the natural and desired objective of heterosexual passion. As old Blue Eyes summed it up, "Love and marriage/Go together like a horse and carriage/This I tell you brother/You can't have one without the other." The same custodians of social order who once tore asunder young men and women in love now nag them to "find someone and settle down."

Wrapped in the chains of domesticity, Eros has over the course of decades slowly lost much of his perilous lure; the appeal of passionate love eroded by the ever-present prospect of being led down the aisle into the tedium of marital life. Today, even adultery -- the last, remaining haven for illicit heterosexual passion -- has been rendered mundane. A present-day Anna would either head straight to a marriage counselor or the divorce court, not the railway tracks.

The risks entailed in modern love are personal and individual, and so are its impediments. Where lovers once battled against social norms, they now wrestle with each other's inner demons, which seem to be just as effective in keeping us apart. Love seemingly can conquer all, except our own fears of intimacy.

Our risk-averse generation enters into "relationships," and "takes things slowly" to "the next stage," as we work our way toward a "commitment." As the risks of love have diminished so has our appetite for unreasoning passion. Eros and his brand of mad love has instead been relegated to the category of "sexual obsession," the kind that turns us into creepy stalkers a la Fatal Attraction.

As the recent string of date flicks reveal -- pick any Ashton Kutcher movie -- Hollywood too has embraced the diminished scale of modern relationships. Great love stories on the silver screen can now only be found in period pieces like Pride and Prejudice, Titanic or The English Patient. That Brokeback Mountaintoo is set in the dangerously homophobic environs of the American West (as opposed to San Francisco or New York) and pre-dates the queer movement, is an indication of the fate that awaits homosexual tales of romance.

As calls for gay marriage gain support, and homosexual love enters the realm of social respectability, the gods of passion will once again succumb to dictates of mortal life. Progress suggests that the gay love stories of the future will look a lot like that other Hollywood staple: the romantic comedy. Coming soon: When Harry Met Harry.

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Lakshmi Chaudhry is the former senior editor of AlterNet.

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View:
Eros and his brand of mad love
Posted by: eastcoker on Dec 16, 2005 7:27 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Dear Alternet
Wow, what a powerful review! Thank you. I saw the preview for this movie with all people, my soon to be ex husband, when we went to see The Constant Gardener. I could tell he felt uncomfortable with the content of the movie, but I sure want to go see it, especially after reading this review!

I like this part
"marking them for a lifetime of sorrow and yearning that is the inevitable reward of true love."
My friend told me true love is a gift and also rarely reciprocated. What tricks God plays on us. Why is my question...True love is no joy.
"Our risk-averse generation enters into "relationships," and "takes things slowly" to "the next stage," as we work our way toward a "commitment." As the risks of love have diminished so has our appetite for unreasoning passion. Eros and his brand of mad love has instead been relegated to the category of "sexual obsession," the kind that turns us into creepy stalkers a la Fatal Attraction."

How true. What ever happened to the ancient Greek understanding of Eros? American culture is *so* shallow. If you really want to understand Eros, read Phaedrus by Plato. It is about homoerotic love.

This whole article spoke the truth. What a mess. I guess it is our loves that make us human, show us our vulnerability and our weakness. At least in this movie it is two souls that fell in love with each other. That is better than falling in love with someone who is not in love with you. That is the *worst* form of true love. Horrid.

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No Author Reference
Posted by: David F. Albert on Dec 16, 2005 9:54 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Usually I enjoy reading the commentary of Lakshmi Chaudhry, sassy little witch that she is. But this time she has stepped more than a little out of line by writing on and on about this new film "Brokenback Mountain" without the politeness to even once mention the source of inspiration for this film. Lakshmi, like she is my buddy, does name at least 5 or 10 other authors and players but not the actual author of the short story from which this film was taken. Weird! Maybe Ms. Chaudhry does not like the author for some personal reason or other but you would think she would at least have the courtesy to at least once mention the authors name and maybe even the title of the work where it can be found just in case someone might be interested it getting ahold of the book and reading the stories. Guess Lakshmi belives we all have so much stuff to read through at AlterNet we probaly would not have enough time to read a real book much less have the time to go out and try to find one and actually buy it. So the only thing left to do now is go out and see the film and wait till the end where we should be able to find the authours name in the credits. If they are not flying by at break neck speed or the film so bad you will have to leave before it is over. Anyway Take Care and pick up any of the authors books, they are all great. Peace and Love, David F. Albert

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» RE: No Author Reference Posted by: blackkatanas
» RE: No Author Reference Posted by: Lakshmi Chaudhry
» RE: No Author Reference Posted by: Xynyx
Hannity and Colmes
Posted by: kooz on Dec 16, 2005 11:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
They are the inspiration for the sequel. Call is Bareback Mountain Boys.

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Author Annie Proulx wrote accurately
Posted by: ewe on Dec 16, 2005 2:39 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Annie Proulx first wrote the short story Brokeback Mtn. in the '90s. She accurately reflects a part of Wyoming, and Western life, and captures the roughness and pain that can permeate ranching life. I've experienced some of that ranching lifestyle and am proud to say my brother-in-law received credit from Annie for his assistance with her story. You can read an excellent interview with her at http://www.planetjh.com/testa_2005_12_07_proulx.html
when the movie received a special screening in Jackson Hole WY. last week.
It is a very thoughtful interview and enlightening on many levels.
And remember too, it was only a year after her story
first appeared that Mathew Sheppard was murdered in Laramie WY. (and his body left on our ranch fence). It is past time that the Christian Coalition types are forced to accept realities of the human spirit and stop spreading hateful opinions and exclusive "norms". All individuals have the right to love each other and society must accept loving couples and diverse loving families. Ms. Proulx speaks truthfully when she says her story has brought her many heartbreaking letters from those who truly understand. Unfortunately, those who really need to see the movie are the ones who will boycott it.

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Read The Short Story Here
Posted by: thirdmg on Dec 16, 2005 3:43 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree that Lakshmi's review is excellent.

Annie Proulx's short story was published by The New Yorker in 1997. Until a few days ago, the story was available at the site, but it doesn't seem to be now.

However, the following PDF file link appears to contain the identical text with the exception of an additional two lead-in paragraphs (printed in italics) which didn't appear anywhere in The New Yorker version and possibly weren't written by Annie Proulx:

Brokeback Mountain

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Great art and human misery
Posted by: CrystalD on Dec 16, 2005 6:26 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Perhaps it's a bad thing for the arts and literature that the great, tragic love affair is a thing of the past; but I think it's better for humanity that we are growing towards being able to love whom we choose.

Sure, some people made great art out of their suffering, but others...just suffered, and made sure their families suffered along with them.

I'm willing to sacrifice something in the way of artistic achievement if it means that gay cowboys and whoever else can live in peace. I, for one, would rather be free to marry the one I love than suffer in the name of Aaaaahhht.

I do not believe in romanticizing misery for art's sake or some kind of wrongheaded romanticism. I don't think this is what Lakshmi was getting at in her article; but I could see some people reading it that way. There's a tradeoff; perhaps less great creativity but more justice and compassion.

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Dikaiosyne
Posted by: dikaiosyne on Dec 17, 2005 7:31 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Perhaps we sould call it "Rump Riders of the Range".....Ya' think? The best article I've read on this morally reprehensible movie is from one Les Kinsolving which can be found on World Net Daily. He brings up a pretty good point in asking What's Next? Do we get to see Hollywood make a movie about a sexual relationship between a man and his horse? Of course the horse would have to give consent. I can see it now. A new updated version of "My Friend Flicka" rated "O" for objectionable. You heard it here first. I want royalties for the movie.

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» RE: Dikaiosyne Posted by: betterfuture
» RE: Dikaiosyne Posted by: dikaiosyne
» RE: Dikaiosyne Posted by: SDres11
» RE: Dikaiosyne Posted by: geoman
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