Brokeback Mountain is starting to spread out (it went into 69 theatres on Friday), and that means that sooner or later those gay cowboy jokes on "Late Night with David Letterman" and in Aaron McGruder's "Boondocks" comic strip will be coming to an end.
The more people see Brokeback, the greater the likelihood that a certain percentage will begin to understand that gay cowboys and high-altitude pokin' in the pup tent ain't the point. It's a way into the film's real subject, which is the terrible price of letting a good thing go.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain
I mean the tragedy of a person feeling love or passion for something (a relationship, a career ambition, a creative dream) and not doing anything about it. If this movie sinks in like it's meant to, it'll hit you on the way home that turning away from a good and spiritually nourishing pursuit in whatever form is the saddest ride in the world.
The most tragic of Brokeback's frustrated cowboy lovers is Heath Ledger's Ennis del Mar because he's the most heavily invested in denial and pushin' it all down. I've known a lot of people in a lot of cities and towns, and there are tens of thousands of Ennis del Mars out there...guys holdin' down jobs, mindin' the kids, pluggin' along and not diggin' into that special place.
And doin' some heavy deep-down witherin'. Everyone has a secret unfulfilled dream but how many step up and try to really grab it? Damn few.
I would submit, in fact, that Ennis del Mar-ism is the hurtin'-est American tragedy of all. As spiritual killers go, it's worse than poverty or bad luck or divorce or depression or whatever substance addiction you can name.
Getting stuck in one of these issues needn't be more than a temporary sidetrack thing...waist-deep quicksand...but failing to embrace that One Big Thing in your life is terrible permanent rain.
I've been there myself. I was almost Ennis del Mar before I got going in journalism in the late '70s. Every now and then I feel like him in an emotional sense... shut down, doin' the work, keepin' it together so I can wake up the next day and do the same thing.
I've known lots of late-30ish and 40ish guys in smallish towns in Connecticut, Massachucetts, New Jersey and northern California who fit the Ennis mode more fully than myself....way.
A guy I know says he doesn't relate to del Mar-ism because he doesn't feel put-upon by life. He futher believes that most of the Academy members are the same.
To get into the Motion Picture Academy you have to be a go-getter, and these people won't relate to the sadness of a uneducated loser who lacks the gumption to stand up and try to cure what's ailing him. I don't think Academy people are anywhere near that shallow, but he could be right.
It might also be that straight American males everywhere along with their wives will blow off Brokeback Mountain and never even consider that it's much more about them more than a couple of cowpoke queers. It would be a shame if that happened, but it might.