Below, six queer creatives reflect on Brokeback Mountain’s enduring, complex legacy and its indisputable impact on queer media and American audiences.įrom Our Sponsors Benjamin Lindsay (he/him), managing editor at Backstage and writer based in New York City Many queer people have a bittersweet, critical, or conflicted relationship with the film alternatively, other queer folks have myriad reasons why they like it and why it’s meaningful to them. Fifteen years later, queer viewers have a range of opinions about Brokeback Mountain that don’t necessarily lie neatly in pro- and anti- Brokeback camps. Finally, Brokeback was snubbed at the Oscars when Crash won Best Picture in 2006, an upset many perceived as the Academy playing it “safe” (i.e. The late Heath Ledger, who took playing the role of Ennis to heart, openly criticized such reception and bristled during the many cringeworthy press tour interviews, where hosts only wanted to hear about the sex scenes. Perhaps the most widespread homophobia directed toward the film was the sheer amount of casual mockery and derision it faced both online and off. One exceptionally baffling review by Steven Greydanus for the Christian site Decent Films openly admitted to Brokeback’s artistic value (3.5/4 stars) while giving it a failing moral grade (F) for being “post-Christian and post-human.” Critics from mainstream outlets like the Houston Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times sidestepped the film’s queerness by claiming Brokeback was nebulously “about love.” Certain conservatives and religious-particularly Catholic-groups saw the story as an attempt to glorify homosexuality, which they perceived as a sin and threat to the nuclear heterosexual family unit. From the beginning, the film was circled by both the intrigue and the stigma of being “that gay cowboy movie,” mired in both homophobic backlash and critical aversion to addressing gayness. It took eight years to make it to screen the script was widely admired, but no one seemed brave enough to touch it. The details of his death are left up to interpretation in both story and film: hate crime or accident?Īdapted from Annie Proulx’s 1997 sparse and haunting short story of the same name, Brokeback Mountain was a passion project of screenwriters Diana Ossana and Larry McMurty. Ennis’s fear and inability to believe in-or try for-a future together, and Jack’s relentless pursuit of it, drives a wedge between them. Jack schemes for a way for them to build a life together, away from society, while Ennis doesn’t believe such a thing is possible. The men intermittently meet for clandestine “fishing trips” and motel rendezvous. As years pass, both marry: Ennis to sweet, doleful Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) and Jack to outgoing, ambitious Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). The men meet and fall in love during a summer herding sheep in the pristine isolation of Wyoming’s (fictional) Brokeback Mountain. Starring, at the time, up-and-coming heartthrob actors Ledger and Gyllenhaal, the film caused a frenzy for its undaunted depiction of sex, desire, and love between two men. Ruby Rich, Brokeback introduces the melancholic tale of the troubled relationship between two “cowboys” over the course of two decades. Widely considered a watershed moment for “ New Queer Cinema,” a term coined in 1992 by scholar B. theaters for the first time on Decemto a storm of controversy and excitement. Director Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain premiered in U.S. It has been 15 years since Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) went off to herd those sheep. Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar, left, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain (Photo credit: Focus Features)
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