Homosexuality In Brokeback Mountain

“Brokeback Mountain” displays the difficulty two men have living double-sided lives as they hide their sexuality because of their profession, and because of the time period in which they lived. “Brokeback Mountain” is set back in the early 1960’s before it was socially acceptable to present yourself as lesbian or gay in public. It shows the struggles and challenges they face as they hide their secret relationship from friends, and family; the struggles Jack and Ennis face as they try to keep up the image of their profession. The way they are forced to live their lives is an unbelievable difference compared to today’s views on this topic. As a society we have without a doubt moved at a sluggish pace to get to where we are, but nonetheless have
If they were to publically start a relationship, that image because of the time period, would be tarnished by the fact that they were gay. This story really shows the sad truths that used to be very apparent for homosexual people who wanted to commit to a relationship during this time period and many decades later as well. It is truly a sad realization that Jack and Ennis couldn’t profess their love for each other because of the biased views people had for no apparent reason at this time. At the point of this quote in the story, they are roughly 30-35 years into their relationship, and jack says, “We got a fuckin situation here. Got a figure out what to do” (Proulx, 530). Unfortunately Ennis realizes the sad truth that there truly is no chance for them to ever be together; they love each other, but they can’t stay together on the slight chance that they might be able to hook-up once every couple
Their story personifies the struggles homosexual’s had as they tried to live happy lives, and were time and time again shot down because of their own sexual being. The tone of this quote and the story as a whole do a good job of justifying the anger that these ideas caused. The quote showed that Jack and Ennis really did live in sad, false, unwanted lives because of how they defined their selves sexually. On the other hand it also shows the magnificent change we have endured as a society when it comes to rights for homosexuals and the thoughts we have on the homosexual community as a whole. These ways may have been slow in coming but we should look at society as a whole today and see that we have made huge steps towards equality for all genders, and races alike. “Brokeback Mountain” is a perfect account in which to show people the struggles gay men had in the 1960’s and beyond. It puts everything in perspective when you relate those times to what we as a society think today; by those means I think it is fair to say that we have come a long