Fightback Mountain Club: A glimpse into the lives of men who fight on a mountain, who are also gay.

The female characters in both Fight Club and Brokeback Mountain aren't exactly what I'd call one-dimensional. I think it would be much closer to the truth to say that we only see these women in relation to the men, rather than characters in their own right. They could have thoughts and feelings that aren't expressed out in the open, but since we don't have their perspectives, we assume that they are just objects.

The wives in Brokeback Mountain only seem like bad people because they're getting in the way of true love. Marla seems like a sex-crazed, drug-addled pessimist, but only in relation to the narrator. It all comes down to perspective. If we could see into the minds of these fictional characters, maybe we'd get a glimpse of something more.

And I understand the fact that they don't seem like real characters; these two books are very character-driven, and they can't be allowed to take the focus off of the main characters, who are in this case, men. But that doesn't mean that the writers are treating women any differently; when writing a story about men, they need women who fit their purpose. And I think the women in these two books are shining examples of that.