Topic: was ennis gay ?

[erica loves jack]

(I wrote a long, nice meaningful post and went to post it and what do ya know.... my session had timed out so I lost allllllllll of what I just wrote. AHHHH! I hate that. but I tried to rewrite it the best I could within my limited patients level.)

Erica, when that happens again, do the following:

When you get the message about the timeout, click your browser's BACK button. It will take you back to what you wrote.

Highlight everything in the write window, right click and then click COPY.  That will save what you wrote to your Windows Clipboard.

Then click on your BACK button once more. Then click on your browser's RELOAD or REFRESH button.

Then click again on reply or quote as if you were replying for the first time. If you copied ALL that was in the write window, delete everything that is in the write window now.

Then PASTE what you copied into the write window.

That works for me every time.

ok thanks! 

[tpe]

(I wrote a long, nice meaningful post and went to post it and what do ya know.... my session had timed out so I lost allllllllll of what I just wrote. AHHHH! I hate that. but I tried to rewrite it the best I could within my limited patients level.)

Erica, when that happens again, do the following:

When you get the message about the timeout, click your browser's BACK button. It will take you back to what you wrote.

Highlight everything in the write window, right click and then click COPY.  That will save what you wrote to your Windows Clipboard.

Then click on your BACK button once more. Then click on your browser's RELOAD or REFRESH button.

Then click again on reply or quote as if you were replying for the first time. If you copied ALL that was in the write window, delete everything that is in the write window now.

Then PASTE what you copied into the write window.

That works for me every time.

ok thanks! 

Thank you for giving those tips Patriot1.

Erica, I hope you would be able to reconstruct some of your thoughts lost in that aborted post. 

 

[welshwitch]

Ennis is complikcate? What about all that tecchie stuff above? Human character is eaier than anything to do with computers, IMO.

Ennis's problem, if it is one, is that he's not self-analytical - probably because he's afraid to be. Jack isn't either - he just accepts what he is and gets on with it. Ennis is never at ease with himself because he never confronts what he is, or not until after finding the shiirts anyway.

[erica loves jack]

(I wrote a long, nice meaningful post and went to post it and what do ya know.... my session had timed out so I lost allllllllll of what I just wrote. AHHHH! I hate that. but I tried to rewrite it the best I could within my limited patients level.)

Erica, when that happens again, do the following:

When you get the message about the timeout, click your browser's BACK button. It will take you back to what you wrote.

Highlight everything in the write window, right click and then click COPY.  That will save what you wrote to your Windows Clipboard.

Then click on your BACK button once more. Then click on your browser's RELOAD or REFRESH button.

Then click again on reply or quote as if you were replying for the first time. If you copied ALL that was in the write window, delete everything that is in the write window now.

Then PASTE what you copied into the write window.

That works for me every time.

ok thanks! 

Thank you for giving those tips Patriot1.

Erica, I hope you would be able to reconstruct some of your thoughts lost in that aborted post. 

 

Yes, I somehow managed.....but I gladly put my new knowledge to work when it happened again later in the night. I felt so savvy.

But forget about me.... onto Ennis....

[ksxks]

And in light of what we have shared and discussed, it is poigniant to realize that Jack was Ennis's great and tragic flaw.  More pointedly, it was through Jack that Ennis came to know (and to struggle with) what was deep inside of himself.

Yes, yes, how fascinating.  If Jack had never come into his life, Ennis would never have known those deepest parts of himself.  Or, better the way you said it, Tom:  that Jack was Ennis's flaw.  Without Jack that flaw might never have surfaced at all.  That would be an even more tragic story.

kathy

[tpe]

Yes, yes, how fascinating.  If Jack had never come into his life, Ennis would never have known those deepest parts of himself.  Or, better the way you said it, Tom:  that Jack was Ennis's flaw.  Without Jack that flaw might never have surfaced at all.   That would be an even more tragic story.

kathy

This is what I think Patriot1 referred to in a previous post when he said that Ennis would have stayed married and would have remained sad.  Sometimes, it is easier not to find the key to a locked door...

 

[ksxks]

Jack would have been ready and eager to move out of there with Ennis.... but like he said, Ennis didn't want it. He was in denial, scared, not wanting change..... I don't know for sure. Something like that.

Ennis was in denial about what? that is was gay? or at the very least bisexual?  How can a guy who is having sex with another guy deny he is gay or bi?  What does he do during the coupling, say to himself, "I am not gay. I am not gay. WOW this is great!!!  I am not gay. I am not gay."   

Yes! That is exactly what he did! Ennis was in total denial.

Ennis was scared. Sure he was scared. He didn't want to end up like Earl. What better reason to get the heck out of Wyoming and move to a place more gay friendly?  And when I say gay friendly I don't mean it in the way it is meant today. There was no such place back then. But there were places where he and Jack could have lived and could have been left alone. Many people did it back then.

Ennis was not wanting to change. Now there is the key as far as I am concerned. What was there to change? In Ennis' mind he and Jack were two straight guys with families who would enjoy each other's companionship and sex 2 or 3 times a year. That is all. Nothing to change. Nothing that is until Ennis found the shirts and realized that Jack was in love with him and that he was also in love with Jack. Now, however, it is too late to change anything. Jack is dead and the man he loved will live alone the rest of his life with only the memories of his love for Jack and how it might have been if he just tried to fix it.

LOL, the bolded above!!  This is so true, P1 -- it really would have been simple, if they'd left and moved somewhere else.  I know as you know that there weren't exactly "gay" places then, except maybe in NYC.  They could have gone anywhere, to the woods in West Virginia or Alaska or someplace, or even to Texas as Jack said, if not the big city.  Sure, Ennis might have been looking over his shoulder, but that was necessary.  Okay, so, as you said, Ennis didn't feel the need to change as much as Jack did, though what he was holding onto there toward the end is pretty debatable -- having the girls once a month or something.

It really is too bad that Jack didn't push harder for moving someplace else, didn't force the issue with Ennis, divorce Lureen, get Ennis out of there to someplace disconnected from his childhood memories, where at least he might have the illusion that he and Jack living together might be safe.  But Jack didn't push it enough at the time that it might have happened, only got angry with Ennis at the end of years of frustration.

You know what I always used to feel, and was surprised at with this story and the movie:  I had the idea that it was perfectly okay for two men to set up an operation together, because one man can't do it alone.  I would have thought that in a place like the wide open West, that would have been more common, just how life was done.  Did absolutely every single man have to have a woman and children?  Isn't there a time-honored tradition of the bachelor?  I thought it would be more common and that out there, people didn't butt into other people's business.  But I see that is not the case.  Why is it that the plains states should be so conservative, anyway? What happened to the tradition of going out west to be free?  Certainly in earlier decades in our country, in the west, it wouldn't have been a big deal for Rich and Earl to be together, would it have?  Did the church get too intrusive already by the mid-century and start butting in and paying attention to what people were doing in their homes, or what?  Or was it just some nasty ornery old coot for ignorant reasons of his own who did Earl in, and so Ennis got the idea that two men living together was absolutely a no-way thing?  I'm getting OT.  Not that there wasn't homophobia, but Ennis was just super-paranoid about it.  Probably the most gay are the most paranoid to be seen as straight.  Like the Willie Nelson queer cowboys song

kathy

[ksxks]

Uhhhh. It's so sad to realize how much Ennis needed Jack to tell him how he was feeling was ok. No one else in Ennis' life would assure him... they were all against it. Just knowing that the one person you knew was there for you through it all... was dead, knowing you would never be able to hear him assuring you again, never be able to feel him, love him.... that's gotta be the toughest thing. I'm sure if he told his girls they would be understanding (at least in a matter of time) and stand by him, because they loved him. And even if he did find another man to love, it would never be the same as Jack's love. He would compare and always remember the way it was with Jack... so pure, real, true. Their 'force of nature' kind of love. It's depressing just typing it out.

(I wrote a long, nice meaningful post and went to post it and what do ya know.... my session had timed out so I lost allllllllll of what I just wrote. AHHHH! I hate that. but I tried to rewrite it the best I could within my limited patients level.)

I hate when that happens!!  That has happened to me more than a few times.  So now, just as a good habit, when I feel like I've been on for a while and might get logged off, and I'm writing something long (what else is new?) I SAVE it before I click Post, then if I get logged off, just go back and post it again.

But we both might say more than necessary anyway, and having to rewrite it might get the point across without saying much!

Anyway, I almost cried reading your post also...

kathy

[greenfrog]

Great posts Kathy. 

[welshwitch]

In the West when it was opening up there was a shortage of men, so bad that there were times when ships left Liverpool loaded with spinsters who were destined to be school-teachers or something respectable like that but when they arrived were earmarked as wives - men needed wives to do all the doestic stuff while they wer off clesring the land and farmingit, shooting predators and Indians, or whatever. From everything I've read there was an assumption that every man wanted to marry less than he needed to do so - these were the days of men doing their thing and women theirs and the things were entirely different. I don;t know why, but I asssume that because the West was seen as wild, once it became settled there was more pressure to be "respectable" and " normal" to show that this wasn't a place full of savages; it soon acquired a reputation for lawlessness which took a long time to disappear.And of course religion played apart - lots of people who moved out to settle were the kind of believers who wanted everyone else to believe the same as they did - you could " light out for the territories" like Huck Finn, but once the school-teachers and preachers and so on arrived so did suburban respectability and the pressure to conform.

There must be an opening for a history of gays in the West and of attitudes to them - one can see why big cities were more tolerant in general (I'm thinking of NYC, SF and so on) but less obvious why some weren't. It's relatively easy, also, to see that the rural areas of newer states might be conservative in their attitudes; I suppose that the same is true of such areas in older states is again a result of religious belief.

[monicita]

Thanks for the enlightening post, WW! I have also read that there were many more female, black and Asian cowboys than is commonly assumed. So why shouldn't there have been a lot of gay ones as well? The whole theme of the Wild West attracted gay men (THE major writer about the American West in Germany was Karl May and his "Winnetou", he was as gay as can be...). I think the istory of the west was simply rewritten, as was the bible and may histories. Rewritten, so as to look more respectable, less anarchic. Ennis probably only ever heard or read the "bowdlerized" version.

monicita

[tpe]

Thanks for the enlightening post, WW! I have also read that there were many more female, black and Asian cowboys than is commonly assumed. So why shouldn't there have been a lot of gay ones as well? The whole theme of the Wild West attracted gay men (THE major writer about the American West in Germany was Karl May and his "Winnetou", he was as gay as can be...). I think the istory of the west was simply rewritten, as was the bible and may histories. Rewritten, so as to look more respectable, less anarchic. Ennis probably only ever heard or read the "bowdlerized" version.

monicita

Perhaps a bit OOT: I don't know if a history of homosexuality in the American West has ever been written.  Does anybody know?  I should do a quick bibliographic check on this...

[welshwitch]

It's certainly true that there were many black cowboys, some of them southerners displaced by the civil War/War between the States. There were also Mexicans - a good place to start reading about the other side of Americn history is howard Zinn's " A People'sHistory of the United Staes" = Longman's - 1980 - there are probably more recnt things but this is a sort of classic as it was an early venture into this field.

[ksxks]

Great discussion, what might actually have been going on out West as far as "respectability" and who defined it.  Of course, it was different in every area, different in every community really, different in everyone's perception; and then we don't know the truth of history anyway, as monicita said.  And then factor in all those others:  blacks, Asians, Mexicans, others, with their own cultural values -- who knows??  And we really do have to separate different eras, too -- things do change so much so fast.

Then, WW, I'm chuckling at the Englishwoman telling us about American history.    Thank you, righto.  And you're so right about women coming out West or being sent over here from elsewhere in order to be the domestics for the men out West.  I forgot about that.  I forgot that those men did not do their own cooking and laundry and all that!  And that someone to have kids to grow up to be more workers was desireable, too.  I still bet there were respectable "straight" bachelors around who wouldn't be persecuted.

(What about in Lake Wobegon?  The "Norweigan bachelor farmers" he talks about   They weren't gay, they were just bachelors.  Hmmm...Ennis and Jack in Lake Wobegon?)

But back to Ennis, it was an interesting period -- he and Jack were just short of being baby boomers -- pretty funny, that.  Though born in 1944, presumably, they were still of the post-war generation like some of us, and things were jumping over here during that time.  But things jumped differently out in rural west...and it all comes down to his own perceptions anyway.

It occurs to me that a big thing that was happening during that time, post-war, was that the men came home and pushed the women out of the workforce where they'd had independence, stuck them back in the kitchen and to have babies (us).  It's too complex, how that factors into social mores of the times, but certainly the "nuclear family" was supposedly the ideal in Ennis and Jack's parents' time, so any variant wasn't going to fit in.

As to if he was actually homosexually inclined from birth or not, I don't really see strong evidence in the movie or story of him being any more gay than the next boy.  I would think most boys messed around with other boys a little (like the girls I knew of, with the girls), and then a bit older, thought about it at the least...and I can't imagine any other young man similar to Ennis being in that situation with Jack and not acting on it.  I think the men here might answer this better, could know how it feels to be a young boy, not quickened by adolescence even yet, and starting to feel gay...

But I keep forgetting -- I am really not a good judge of this.  I forget that really religious people were different, and sometimes it was so strong that even the rebelliousness of youth couldn't break through the religious conditioning.  I grew up in the city, experimented with different religions or none, including Eastern thought and such that my dad had books about, dad the jazz piano player, etc., etc.  So I just can't say what life was like for my peers who didn't live in big cities in comfortable enough conditions that allowed for some amount of freedom.

Anyway, I like talking about this subject (teacher don't like me -- I talk too much) but I don't require an answer for myself.  I'm just glad Ennis found this kind of love for himself even considering the outcome...

kathy

[greenfrog]

Great post Kathy.

[tpe]

As to if he was actually homosexually inclined from birth or not, I don't really see strong evidence in the movie or story of him being any more gay than the next boy.  I would think most boys messed around with other boys a little (like the girls I knew of, with the girls), and then a bit older, thought about it at the least...and I can't imagine any other young man similar to Ennis being in that situation with Jack and not acting on it.  I think the men here might answer this better, could know how it feels to be a young boy, not quickened by adolescence even yet, and starting to feel gay...

But I keep forgetting -- I am really not a good judge of this.  I forget that really religious people were different, and sometimes it was so strong that even the rebelliousness of youth couldn't break through the religious conditioning.  I grew up in the city, experimented with different religions or none, including Eastern thought and such that my dad had books about, dad the jazz piano player, etc., etc.  So I just can't say what life was like for my peers who didn't live in big cities in comfortable enough conditions that allowed for some amount of freedom.

Anyway, I like talking about this subject (teacher don't like me -- I talk too much) but I don't require an answer for myself.  I'm just glad Ennis found this kind of love for himself even considering the outcome...

kathy

Interesting thoughts, kathy.   I agree about the aspect of religious conditioning, and how it can retard innate feelings and sexual identity. 

As to Ennis not being able to act in any other way in such a situation, I am a bit less sure.  As I mentioned in another thread, love and even sex may not happen between two such people (gay or straight), although the possibility that sex might occur is certainly higher.  Of course, a lot of straight men may have had homosexual relationships when younger, even if these did not have an effect on their overall sexual orientation.  Not surprisingly, the same can be said with many homosexual men who have had heterosexual relationships in thier younger days: these experiences in no way affected their innate sexual preferences.

It is certainly not straightforward...

[ksxks]

Interesting thoughts, kathy.   I agree about the aspect of religious conditioning, and how it can retard innate feelings and sexual identity. 

As to Ennis not being able to act in any other way in such a situation, I am a bit less sure.  As I mentioned in another thread, love and even sex may not happen between two such people (gay or straight), although the possibility that sex might occur is certainly higher.  Of course, a lot of straight men may have had homosexual relationships when younger, even if these did not have an effect on their overall sexual orientation.  Not surprisingly, the same can be said with many homosexual men who have had heterosexual relationships in thier younger days: these experiences in no way affected their innate sexual preferences.

It is certainly not straightforward...

It most certainly is not straightforward, so to speak.    I guess that's what keeps us discussing all of this.  The whole thing -- our inner selves, our outer selves, our feelings, BBM, our feelings about BBM -- is so rich.

I didn't really mean that Ennis would not be able to act in any other way in such a situation.  I just meant that it seems likely the same thing might have happened to any other young man somewhat similar to Ennis, up there for the summer with Jack or a young man similar to Jack.  Seems to me.  Maybe not, though -- maybe the two men up there could be really fixed in their heterosexuality.  Jack and Ennis were more flexible.  And anyway, it's about more than sex between them in any event.  Or this is going around in circles, just like you said -- not straightforward!

kathy

[tpe]

It most certainly is not straightforward, so to speak.    I guess that's what keeps us discussing all of this.  The whole thing -- our inner selves, our outer selves, our feelings, BBM, our feelings about BBM -- is so rich.

I didn't really mean that Ennis would not be able to act in any other way in such a situation.  I just meant that it seems likely the same thing might have happened to any other young man somewhat similar to Ennis, up there for the summer with Jack or a young man similar to Jack.  Seems to me.  Maybe not, though -- maybe the two men up there could be really fixed in their heterosexuality.  Jack and Ennis were more flexible.  And anyway, it's about more than sex between them in any event.  Or this is going around in circles, just like you said -- not straightforward!

kathy

Loneliness is such a strange thing, no?  Given the right circumstances, deep affections can indeed develop between people, no matter what their genders and sexual orientations are.    Some of them certainly develop sexually.  Others not.  Who knows how things develop?  Human nature is as predictable as the human heart.

[welshwitch]

Yes, and into this equation you can alsio add isolation - what happens on Brokeback is evidently going to remain a secret, and as long as you're in no dannger of exposure you might be more inclined to do things you would, in other circumstances, not even consider.

[tpe]

Yes, and into this equation you can alsio add isolation - what happens on Brokeback is evidently going to remain a secret, and as long as you're in no dannger of exposure you might be more inclined to do things you would, in other circumstances, not even consider.

Ennis's was a double isolation.   He did try to isolate and try to forget his stay on BBM during the early years of his marriage to Alma.  To some extent, it remained a secret to a part of himself that never wanted to know how he felt for Jack.

[FulOfSadness]

Annie Proulx says he's gay, not bisexual. He's gay

[greenfrog]

Annie Proulx says he's gay, not bisexual. He's gay

Interesting 

I would have thought that she would leave it open for people to question (like we're doing now).

Thanks 

[jeffjoe]

I've saw it the movie one time after another and i really think he was gay from the beginning, just look his face when meet jack the way he look him

[greenfrog]

I've saw it the movie one time after another and i really think he was gay from the beginning, just look his face when meet jack the way he look him

Sexual Tension !!!!

[monicita]

I agree, there definitely is sexual tension from the very beginning. But why would that have to mean that he is gay, as opposed to his being bisexual? It might even be that he feels this kind of sexual tension only with one person: Jack. So one could argue (and some have), that he is neither gay, nor bisexual but a one man's man. I still think, that to be gay, you need to indentify with the concept in one way or another. You need to know what that means. Ennis knows what it is to be "qeer",  something he doesn't want to be associated with. But the positive connotations of being gay, as something people might want to embrace joyfully are probably totally unknown to him. Therefore I think that he was not gay in the sense I use the word.

monicita

[welshwitch]

In any case, I don't think Ennis is self-aware enough to look into himself and analyze what he is, specially when he lives in a time and place where the concept of gay as we use it is unfamiliar/unknown.

[jesseanne21]

In any case, I don't think Ennis is self-aware enough to look into himself and analyze what he is, specially when he lives in a time and place where the concept of gay as we use it is unfamiliar/unknown.

I agree with you Welshwitch, Ennis' idea of gay (queer) is very limited.  He tells Jack in the motel scene in the short story, "I don't want to be like those guys you see around sometimes."  Ennis' view of gay is "a joke" or "dead by tire iron."

[hpv]

Here is a related question: if Ennis is gay, does it -- in a way -- make him less or more interesting to you?
For me, it is certainly more interesting if Ennis is indeed gay.  His conflicting tendencies are cast into sharper focus.

TPE, for me, if iEnnis is gay, is also a more interesting story.  I cannot imagine the degree of inner pain and struggle he must have endured (BBM shows some).
My heart aches for Ennis  :'(

Yes, I agree.  The conflict is at the heart of the story.

I think that you all have a good point here, but in my opinion, I think that at the beginning Ennis was very lonely ,then he just fell completely in love with Jack,
 the only human being that gave him the warmth he so desperately seeked.

[aintfoolin]

I have to admit i have avoided posting on this thread because I have no f##cking idea if Ennis is really truly gay I do seem to think that Jack was trippin Ennis out with his little pose against the truck when they first met. I believe he maybe had some deepseated "dormant" feelins for men at the point he met Jack. Probably never met anyone as open and freespirited as Jack though. A slow process brought those feelings to the surface with Jack's help. Oh hell I just don't know. There nothing in the movie that gives any clue to his true sexual indenty.

[welshwitch]

I think you're both right - Ennis is lonely, no-one has had much time for him and Jack immediately shows an interest. Jack is outgoing where he's not, more experienced, more talkative - in every way the sort ofperson someone like Ennis would be attracted to anyway. Throw in the isolation on the mountain, and the fact that Ennis is more competent than Jack and can show it, and Jack is happy to respond, and you have a pair who go together. Ennis is attracted to what Jack is in character - thathe's a man may be almost incidental at first - afterwards, when he realizes what's happened, Ennis can;t quite get his head around the notion that he's "queer" and never really does.

In any case, how can we "know" what Ennis is when half the time we don't even know what we are ourselves.