Discuss Brokeback Mountain as a Revisionist Western

Revising the Western by importing the homosexual aversion: a study of Ang Lee`s Brokeback Mountain
The film Brokeback Mountain released on 2005, directed by Ang Lee and starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal is a story about two a ranch man and a rodeo cowboy who met in work in the highlands of Wyoming and unexpectedly formed a special bond that they both carried with them in the remaining years of their lives. At the date of its production, it was surrounded by much hype purportedly primarily caused by its controversial homosexual content involving the two lead characters, Ennis Delmar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal). The movie features a few love scenes, including a kissing scene between Ledger and Gyllenhaal which unsurprisingly caught the attention, if not the criticism, of many people. The viewers, from renowned film critics to ordinary citizens all over the world were inevitable caught between the two poles of reactions that can be made from the somewhat direct tackling of a mainstream movie on the phenomenon of homosexuality. Most of the reviews the film receives center its attention on the film`s "frank depiction of homosexuality" but not all, in fact actually only a number of reviews gave an obvious judgment on the film`s content itself, and not yet on the way this topic has been delivered. Although some of the film reviews made up for this safeguarding against giving overt opinions about the film`s subject matter by manifesting whatever their leaning on the film`s content is through their assessment of the film`s formal elements. In the end, basing from the mainstream criteria by which we can measure the weight and merit of the film, its seven Oscars nominations seem to be quite a proof of the more dominantly positive feedback it earned from established critics. More so, its conceivably favorable turnout in the box-office seems to indicate the likewise positive feedback from the general public.[Marcy Dermansky. Brokeback Mountain. (http://worldfilm.about.com/od/independentfilm/fr/brokeback.htm). Date retrieved: December 11, 2011.]
While the movie draws a lot more attention from its homosexual content, it contains so much more than that and it would be unfair to limit one`s manner of understanding and trying to analyze the film by just focusing on its more "controversial" aspect. The film also touches the issues of marriage, living in the hard times, gender stereotypes and norms and the clichéd-as-ever love and compassion. The seemingly tepid but actually rich in detail social background and setting by which this film was situated provides as opportunities to see several other key images and motifs that do not exactly point to, but is related in one way or another to the homosexual issue. We will examine these elements vis-à-vis the underlying premise that Brokeback Mountain, as a contemporary film, also serves as a documentary and reflection of existing cultures, mentalities and sets of values not just of the American people but of the Western population in general. From there, by virtue of comparison with earlier films, we will try to see the worth of this film in its attempt to portray the (new) western and circulate cardinal adjustments in this icon.
Laying down the framework: Laura Mulvey`s psychoanalytic gaze and the post-structuralist text
For the discussion of the film Brokeback Mountain, I will use two theories and concepts as my main framework. The first is the poststructuralist idea of "text" and second is Laura Mulvey`s Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.
The poststructuralist idea of "text" is arguably one of the key conceptualizations in critical theory in the recent times. Coming from the structuralist wave of thought of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes among others who sought to analyze the existing predictable patterns or structures that govern our daily lives, most important of which is language, post-structuralism advances the theory by playing around the arbitrariness of meaning propounded by its predecessors. With Saussure enouncing the definiteness of the existence of the sign which is composed of the signifier and the signified - the former the actual, material thing (graphological or otherwise) and the latter, the conceptual one, that which "exists" in our minds, -- and denying the fixed relation between the two (the signifier and the signified), post-structuralist thinkers developed this by stating that the encryption of meaning in the process of signification is open-ended. Hence, a singular image, icon or event can be interpreted in various ways, owing to the variety of contexts, situations, and intentions and schemata of the interpreters. More importantly, most of the post-structuralists avow that in these mixtures of perspectives and interpretations, the one that wins out or gets the stoutest amount of reverence and credibility among the people will be decided primarily by virtue of the amount of power vested in these ideas.
Squared with the postmodern idea of Jean Baudrillard of the explosion of images and Guy Debords "society of spectacle," nearly every material artifact or phenomenon, from clothing and architecture, to toilet bowls and eating habits, can be interpreted, read as a "text." Expectedly, films are one of these material things which post-structuralism treat as text, and as such, they attempt to scrutinize and give meaning to. As a text, films convey a score of meanings and the one that will rule out the others will be greatly determined by power factor which seeks to disseminate and legitimize the meaning that will be accepted by the most number of people. However, there is always the potential of contention and the constant impinging of less accepted but not necessarily less valid meanings on the most accepted one. This is still in line with the endless play of discourses enlivened by the post-structuralist wave of thinking that purports to thrive on multiplicity and open-endedness.[Dani Cavallaro, Critical and Cultural Theory: Thematic Variations. (London: Athlone Press, 2001), 124.] [Imre Szeman and Timothy Kaposy, eds, Cultural Theory: An Anthology. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 5.]
Another theory which I will use is the one forwarded by Laura Mulvey in her groundbreaking work entitled "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." In this essay published in 1975, Mulvey sought to make us more self-reflexive when it comes to viewing films by revealing the "way the unconscious of patriarchy has structured film form." In making this statement, Mulvey is generating awareness on our part on the existence of a phenomenon called patriarchy and more so, implies that this phenomenon has been conditioning, actively or otherwise, what we seen in films and how do we respond to them. By transporting both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis particularly their discussions on desire vis-à-vis the formation of identity in her analyses of films, Mulvey has come to show how the images we encounter in the wide screen are used against the woman by turning her as the "bearer of meaning," the object of desire, subjected into the male gaze.[Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction, 2d ed (Boston: Mc-Graw Hill, 2003), 334.] [Ibid, 336.]
Mulvey complicates these simple statements by implicating the audience in the gaze shared by the camera and the other diegetic characters in the film. She said that we develop a sense of identification with the characters in the film who are the ones actually with the objects of desire in the film. In general, she described the film-viewing process as one that is scopophilic - that is, we are able to obtain pleasure from the act of looking at, or peeping through a private world. Mulvey qualifies this by stating that the movie theater from where we view the film is usually dark, rendering us hardly visible to our fellow moviegoers and making us feel like we are really alone in watching the film. Also, the film itself induces a sense of separation between itself and the film viewers with its creation of a highly unique environment with distinct characters undergoing a variety of special experiences.[Ibid.]
In the discussion of the film`s recasting of the western image, I will treat the elements of the film as part of a coherent text that seeks to drive out a message to the audience.
Reconfiguring the western: novel tropes and motifs in the Brokeback Mountain
As a film produced in 2005 but covers a story which occurred in the 1960s and 20 years on, it is first and foremost significant to interrogate the temporal identity of the movie if we can successfully analyze it in its reconfiguration of particular motifs and elements of the western.
Although the time frame wherein the plot of the movie unraveled was set at an earlier time, around forty years to be more specific, its release in 2005 still indicates that this film was an attempt to represent certain icons which have come to be dominant in western countries in the past decades. More interestingly, this could be seen as a rereading of practices and ways of thinking which have been existing in the past but have not been successful in infiltrating mainstream discourses because of an array of factors. In a psychoanalytic reading, this might imply that Ang Lee`s Brokeback Mountain sought to unleash from the unconscious of the audience their previously repressed thoughts and desires which they have vaguely kept to accord with the expectations of the society. Some of the key icons that were given new lights of representation include the American cowboy, the homosexual and the homosexual relationship and the American society in general. The succeeding parts are devoted to the discussion of these reconfigurations in the Western realm.
Taming the homosexual taboo:
The film is usually remembered for its strong homosexual content, one of the most notable taboos and issues problematized by humankind in its long history. The plot of the film focuses on the story of two cowboys who have developed a special kind of bond while they were away from town and working in the mountainous north Wyoming. This bond is special in the sense that it morphed into one that involves physical intimacy and proved to be enduring as there was no evidence of it vanishing away even years after the first time they met. The relationship that developed between Ennis and Jack has reached a certain degree that imperiled their subsequent martial relationships. Ennis eventually underwent divorce with his wife, Alma and while Jack was able to maintain a bit more stable relationship with his wife Laureen, his constant longing for Ennis tacitly caused a rift in his relation with his wife.
Although Ennis and Jack did not end up together in the movie, owing primarily to the fact that Jack died in the film, the homosexual content is still very evident. In some of the more heartfelt scenes in the movie involving Jack and Ennis, both of them seems to submit to the pressures and expectations of their surroundings which do not give a nod to the kind of relationship they are having and would like to pursue. In one of the climactic scenes of the film during one of their fishing ventures, when Ennis told Jack about being away until the month of November and hence being unable to meet up with him during those times, the two had a slight tussle that only fizzled as perhaps they both realized that both of them were just victims of a normative society and helpless in the face of this seemingly daunting system. Ennis pointed out that he had to work and that ever since his marriage with Laureen, Jack "forgot about being broke all the time." Jack would dodge away Ennis` statements and assert that he wished he knew how to quit Ennis. In this scene, we can make the claim that what is, and has been going on between the two was not something petty.
In another significant scene earlier which allude to the difficulty of experience of Jack and Ennis as two males with special affection for each other, while in one of their several getaways together, Jack said that "it could be something like this always." But Ennis easily refuted him, saying that "It ain`t gonna be that way." He then retold his experience as a child when his father made him see two men who were killed because of being together. From here, we can argue that this early traumatic experience has greatly shaped Ennis` manner of looking at the homosexual situation and might have been preventing him from persistently pursuing the bond he and Jack possesses.
This scene, particularly Ennis` statement of submission and their eventual failure to live together reflects the social condition where both of them are situated. It is still one that is highly intolerant to homosexual activities and relationships. Set at 1963, it is quite easy to accede to the fact that this condition refers more accurately to the temporal setting of the film; that is, on 1960s. Meanwhile, Ang Lee`s 2005 film, by the mere act of telling the story of a homosexual affair is already attempting to recast that conception of the homosexual in general. I am proceeding here in the employment of the term "homosexual" with reference to both Ennis and Jack as this is one argument presented in the film - that despite having sexual relationship with females, as attested by their having of wives and families, they also have a strong attraction and desire to be with each other. We can argue that this is not a case of homosexuality but of bisexuality and if that is so, then so be it. In any case, both did not use to earn much approval from the standards of the soc...