More BBM
This grew out of a discussion of BBM among some
"Queer as Folk" fans, as well as a few general slash
fans.
In monitoring a lot of discussion on various boards and
LJs, I was thinking about how BBM is in many ways the
quintessential "slash" story, and in that it's 180 degrees
from a show like QAF.
In traditional slash the two guys are never, ever "gay."
They are just two "normal" guys who happen to fall
in love. That they are two guys is always problematic.
They almost always hide it. Or fight it. But the "urge"
is stronger than their ability to fight it. This is
totally the story of BBM, but it's also Kirk/Spock and
all the other big slash pairings.
That makes this something that will always be more
"acceptable" to the mainstream than QAF -- which,
no matter how much CowLip fucked up their narrative
or message, is openly and unapologetically queer.
BBM is not. David Leavitt wrote about it and says it's
NOT a "gay" film. It's a "male romance" and that's
something very different. See Leslie Fiedler's famous
article on "Huck Finn" ("Come On Back to The Raft, Huck
Honey") and male romance as a long tradition in American
literature and culture, starting with "The Leatherstocking
Tales." Fiedler reads ALL "cowboy" films/stories as "male
romance" (see "The Virginian" in all its incarnations for
a great example, or films like "Red River"), and would
probably also see all cop/buddy stories as the same,
as well as much sci-fi and fantasy (hello LOTR!).
Also what many people are forgetting is that the film
begins in 1963 and ends 20 years later, in the early
1980's. These issues were NOT under discussion at
that time. Circa 1970 Phil Donoghue almost had his talk
show (in Dayton, Ohio at that time) canceled because
he had a "practicing homosexual" on to talk about his
life -- and Donoghue did not attack or condemn the man,
as would have been expected. I don't think Annie Proulx
set the story in this era just "because" -- she was making
a point about a male sensibility that, in that era, had
no other option. A hundred years earlier, it would have
okay. And forty years in the future, it would have been
possible. But not then. That is the tragedy of Ennis and
Jack. They are prisoners of their time and their inability
to conceive of another way of life. Brokeback Mountain
the place is that spot outside of civilization and outside
of time where that love is possible. But only there.
It is understandable that both men, but especially Ennis,
are virtually mute in the story. The language does not
exist to describe what they are doing -- or what they are
feeling. Tab Hunter, in his book about being in the closet
in Hollywood, makes the point that no one called himself
"gay" in the Fifties. The concept was foreign even to actors
in a place as "sophisticated" as Los Angeles, in a business
as full of homosexuals as the movie industry. How much
more so in rural Wyoming?
But the fact is that man-on-man sex was not unknown in
the West. In fact, in the early days on the Frontier it was
probably quite common. It was a world of men and there
were very few white women who weren't whores. Larry
McMurtry knows that -- he writes it as an undertone in
"Lonesome Dove." But the "settling" of the West was also the
domestication -- and heterosexualization -- of the West.
Men were expected to settle down and marry. But many men
still longed for the free life, which became the Cowboy ideal
and the Cowboy romance -- an always homoeroticized world
where there were no women, no judgments, and the highest
version of love was the bond between "partners" -- "friends"
who were everything to each other, to the exclusion of everything
else. It's no coincidence that Ennis and Jack call each other
"Friend." That is their only frame of reference. That is what
their culture celebrates -- as long as it doesn't cross "the
line." Because to cross the line means destruction -- the
destruction by men who also hold the same values and
fear them. Because at its center slash is about a kind
of fear as much as it is about a kind of love. And that
makes it very different from the kind of love in QAF,
which is about being open, in-your-face, unapologetic,
and queer. BBM is never queer, even in its "gayest"
moments.
"Queer as Folk" fans, as well as a few general slash
fans.
In monitoring a lot of discussion on various boards and
LJs, I was thinking about how BBM is in many ways the
quintessential "slash" story, and in that it's 180 degrees
from a show like QAF.
In traditional slash the two guys are never, ever "gay."
They are just two "normal" guys who happen to fall
in love. That they are two guys is always problematic.
They almost always hide it. Or fight it. But the "urge"
is stronger than their ability to fight it. This is
totally the story of BBM, but it's also Kirk/Spock and
all the other big slash pairings.
That makes this something that will always be more
"acceptable" to the mainstream than QAF -- which,
no matter how much CowLip fucked up their narrative
or message, is openly and unapologetically queer.
BBM is not. David Leavitt wrote about it and says it's
NOT a "gay" film. It's a "male romance" and that's
something very different. See Leslie Fiedler's famous
article on "Huck Finn" ("Come On Back to The Raft, Huck
Honey") and male romance as a long tradition in American
literature and culture, starting with "The Leatherstocking
Tales." Fiedler reads ALL "cowboy" films/stories as "male
romance" (see "The Virginian" in all its incarnations for
a great example, or films like "Red River"), and would
probably also see all cop/buddy stories as the same,
as well as much sci-fi and fantasy (hello LOTR!).
Also what many people are forgetting is that the film
begins in 1963 and ends 20 years later, in the early
1980's. These issues were NOT under discussion at
that time. Circa 1970 Phil Donoghue almost had his talk
show (in Dayton, Ohio at that time) canceled because
he had a "practicing homosexual" on to talk about his
life -- and Donoghue did not attack or condemn the man,
as would have been expected. I don't think Annie Proulx
set the story in this era just "because" -- she was making
a point about a male sensibility that, in that era, had
no other option. A hundred years earlier, it would have
okay. And forty years in the future, it would have been
possible. But not then. That is the tragedy of Ennis and
Jack. They are prisoners of their time and their inability
to conceive of another way of life. Brokeback Mountain
the place is that spot outside of civilization and outside
of time where that love is possible. But only there.
It is understandable that both men, but especially Ennis,
are virtually mute in the story. The language does not
exist to describe what they are doing -- or what they are
feeling. Tab Hunter, in his book about being in the closet
in Hollywood, makes the point that no one called himself
"gay" in the Fifties. The concept was foreign even to actors
in a place as "sophisticated" as Los Angeles, in a business
as full of homosexuals as the movie industry. How much
more so in rural Wyoming?
But the fact is that man-on-man sex was not unknown in
the West. In fact, in the early days on the Frontier it was
probably quite common. It was a world of men and there
were very few white women who weren't whores. Larry
McMurtry knows that -- he writes it as an undertone in
"Lonesome Dove." But the "settling" of the West was also the
domestication -- and heterosexualization -- of the West.
Men were expected to settle down and marry. But many men
still longed for the free life, which became the Cowboy ideal
and the Cowboy romance -- an always homoeroticized world
where there were no women, no judgments, and the highest
version of love was the bond between "partners" -- "friends"
who were everything to each other, to the exclusion of everything
else. It's no coincidence that Ennis and Jack call each other
"Friend." That is their only frame of reference. That is what
their culture celebrates -- as long as it doesn't cross "the
line." Because to cross the line means destruction -- the
destruction by men who also hold the same values and
fear them. Because at its center slash is about a kind
of fear as much as it is about a kind of love. And that
makes it very different from the kind of love in QAF,
which is about being open, in-your-face, unapologetic,
and queer. BBM is never queer, even in its "gayest"
moments.