Brokeback Mountain (I like original titles)

Brokeback Mountain is controversial not just because it has two men in love with each other but also because they can almost in certain respects epitomize what it is to be a man. The fact that their relationship extends beyond the time during which they have just each other up on Brokeback Mountain and that it is therefore not just a release of pent up sexual energy that America seems to have accepted in its prisons greatly increases the movie’s controversy. Both Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar get married but this does not seem to at all diminish their desire for each other. Since these men are not your stereotypical gay men and can be identified with the group of men that tends to distance itself the most from anything that can be seen as gay, their love brings up questions about the sexuality of the viewer. These men smoke, drink, rough it in the wild, and even declare to each other after their first night sleeping together that they are not queer (I thought about throwing fishing onto that list but decided against it). This movie forces heterosexual men to ponder the following: if these two men, who were self declared heterosexuals, found love in each other without expecting it then perhaps I could also find my self loving another man. By doing this the movie causes controversy not just with those who oppose homosexuality at every turn but also with every man who has a vested interest in protecting his sexual orientation from being questioned by himself or others.