Frontier Ideology 

Westerns seem a world away from LGBT themed films, such as Philadelphia, Boys Don’t Cry, or Monster—each of which claimed Oscar gold for their harrowing, brave portrayals of characters outside of the American mainstream. Westerns are gritty, aggressive, and expansive. They are stories set against the natural landscapes of yesteryear, where real men handled the real problems of the frontier.

Directed by Ang Lee and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain is about two rough and tumble cowboys. The spin: They are in love. In that sense, the movie could be viewed as the reluctant embodiment of the contemporary Western genre, exploring one of the last great American frontiers: gender.

To see what I mean, imagine the scene as it would have played out in the movie Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Sitting quietly amidst of a whirl of bullets and dust, Butch Cassidy leans over and kisses The Sundance Kid, gently whispering to him, “I wish I knew how to quit you, Butch.” The two men lean in toward one another and embrace for the very last time before running out, guns ablaze into the arms of the law. Caryn James of the New York Times—who recently wrote about the trend of straight actors playing LGBT characters to critical acclaim—might suggest that Redford and Newman prepare their acceptance speeches at Oscar night. I’d have doubts, though. Middle America expects a gay man to have AIDS (such as Tom Hanks in Philadelphia) or a lesbian to be a man hating killer (such as Charlize Theron in Monster). But two all-American cowboys sharing intimate moments? As we all know, playing gay isn’t the same as playing butch.

Though some purists might cringe at the description of Brokeback Mountain as a reluctant Western, the movie does tackle the common themes of the genre, which include conquest of the land; law and order versus anarchy; man versus man; the past versus the future, all told with the awe inspiring images of the West. The film centers around the turbulent, yet enduring relationship between Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Ledger). In a trial of man versus man, the two must survive against the backdrop of good ol’ boy homophobia. The story is both reluctant and contrary, compelling moviegoers to reconsider their conceptions of the West.

Brokeback Mountain does not rework the cultural space that was carved out for queer gender fetish in Midnight Cowboy or even the cowboy from the Village People. Instead, it tastefully depicts a theme which has much more historical salience in the Western genre—masculinity.

Ennis and Jack are two masculine cowboys. They share feelings for each other and have sex, but the scenes, which will probably be referenced as proof of these young actors “harrowing bravery,” ultimately act as more of a means to an end, rather than a focal point of the story. What’s new in this film, and indeed in modern conceptions of masculinity, isn’t sex between men, but rather the type of men who are having it.

Cowboy masculinity has always been very specific. It is solid, tough, independent yet moral, with a keen sense of right and wrong. Surely, such traits might easily be grounded in modern concepts of male masculinity. Westerns reinforce the idea by performing masculinity; men defend their families and their communities from outside forces, securing their place at the apex of social hierarchy, much like the characters played by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Gay men are just as exposed to these images, which reinstate heterosexual behavior in the larger context of American entertainment.

On the other hand, there’s a pink elephant in the room, and it looks something like Carson Kressley of Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Television and movies tend to portray gay men as queens. They’re not supposed to herd sheep, hunt buffalo, or start fights in bars with truck drivers. When gay men start acting solid, tough, independent yet moral, with a keen sense of right and wrong, people tend to ask questions, raise eyebrows, and sink into their seats.

Take, for example, Making Love (1982), a film which had nationwide audiences up in arms over the same-sex, make out scene between the two male leads, played by Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean. Combine the portrayal of physical acts with two men who look like they could have been your high school baseball coach and you’ve got pandemonium. Film history suggests that while being gay is okay so long as it’s solely portrayed with flamboyancy, its physical acts must be kept far away from the visual landscape of cinema.

Things may have changed somewhat since the 1980s in terms of acceptance of LGBT folks, but like Making Love, Brokeback Mountain could suffer the same stigma, not because of its depiction of same sex attraction but because of its depiction of same sex attraction between two masculine studs. Many American moviegoers find it difficult to understand onscreen romances when they can’t see the normal heterosexual dyad. When the gender binary is upset, they must work to make sense of the story —possibly in ways that may not be appealing, or may even be upsetting.

Does any of this make Brokeback Mountain an unintelligible movie? On the contrary, it lives up its own hype of being an epic American love story. Brokeback Mountain challenges audiences to question the genders of gayness. Moviegoers see that two men who fall in love might not be a flamboyant interior decorator and his boi toy party pal. They might be an aggressively shy cattle hand and his rodeo buddy. The audience might also come to understand that neither possibility is better or worse, and that in life, men have the potential to love each other, regardless of their gender expression.

Brokeback Mountain might not change modern conceptions of gender for gay men overnight. As Ennis Del Mar says, “If you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it.”

Brokeback Mountain openned December 9, 2005 around the country.

James Rouse Iñiguez is a second year M.A. candidate in human sexuality studies at San Francisco State University, and a graduate of the university’s undergraduate cinema program. His master’s thesis looks at daytime talk shows, masculinity, and compulsory heterosexuality. Mr. Rouse also worked at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, where he studied effects of media on adolescent sexuality. For the past three years he was the Film Education Coordinator for the Summer Institute.