Brokeback Blog Post

The beginning of this story is much like the beginning of the movie "Brokeback Mountain." It starts with two kids under the age of twenty, Ennis and Jack Twist. They were scruffy ranch foke who had less then a high school education and to support themselves one summer they herded sheep up on Brokeback Mountain. They were two men who saw the world differently, but respected the opinions of one another. On the mountain they found comfort in one another and never were able to shake that feeling even after they got married and had kids. Over the years Jack would go see Ennis, but in the first trip Alma (Ennis's wife) discovered what kind of friend Jack really was to Ennis and eventually divorced him.
What are the differences found between the movie and story? I was pretty amazed how much dialogue came from this story to make this movie. But some of the stories were elaborated on and some were recreated almost exactly to the content of the story. Something i really enjoyed was the description given to each of the characters in the beginning when they were young boys, and again later in life as they filled out into men.
In one part of the story; Ennis says that Jack is not a restaurant man to Alma when Alma wanted to take him out to dinner for the first visit with Jack. But he doesn't know that, he doesn't know what kind of man Jack really is outside the mountain. I understand why they keep going back to the mountain, to look back in times that were lost and the best summer of their lives, but they are not living in reality. They are stuck in the past and Ennis is convinced they have no future together, because of demons from his past. Even though it was said that Jack died from a tire, Ennis still believed the demons striked again. What was it between them that made their bond so strong, a love that lasted decades with little personal interaction? Did Jack leave Ennis, did Ennis leave Jack, or if Jack would not have died would he have written again?

Reflecting on the first three weeks of our course

As we complete the first third of our course, I'd be curious to read your reflections on how the course is going for you. Looking back at everything we've read thus far, what reading or issue has engaged you most fully? What has surprised or even frustrated you in our reading? Have you discovered something already that has enlarged or shifted your sense of the history of sexuality, queerness, or the North American West? If so, what was it? If not, what would you like to see us focus on to promote your own growth as a scholar of gender, race, and sexuality?

I'd also be curious to hear what you think about our class discussions. Is there anything you need from me or the rest of class to enhance the community we're building together? What are you most interested in focusing on in the next phase of our class?

For me, I've been delighted by the quality of our discussions and the thoughtfulness the rest of you have brought to the material. Out of all the readings, I was most struck by Will Roscoe's essay. Even though I've read it before and have valued his work, for some reason his argument about the inter-relatedness of Native American sex/gender systems and the evolution of modern sexual identities in Europe and Anglo-America resonated with me more strongly than it had before. I think scholars of sexuality can sometimes focus too much on distinct traditions (for good reason) and lose sight of how different cultures have shaped each other's notions of sex and gender. This may seem like an obvious point, but I thought his article reminded me of something very important. As I look ahead, I'm eager to shift the focus of our analysis from history to literature and see how the stories of Bret Harte and a film/short story like "Brokeback Mountain" relates to the material we've just studied. I hope you all enjoy this material, too.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to reading your responses.

Reflecting on Roscoe & Johnson

Please get into pairs (and one group of three), and discuss these two questions:

How does Will Roscoe characterize the relationships between European/Anglo-American and Native American cultures in terms of sexuality/gender as they came into contact over the past 500 years?

Using Roscoe’s terms, which framework works best to describe the encounters between Tim Osborn and Native Americans during the Gold Rush that Susan Johnson describes?

Individually, write a few sentences that summarize your response to the second question.

Compare your response to your partner’s. What do you notice about each other’s response? Pick one that best captures your collective thinking on the issue. Revise it as needed. Post your final response to our blog.

What did you learn by completing this exercise?

Rudd Response

Originally I had planned to talk about Rupp’s third chapter, “Worlds of Men Worlds of Women.” But after having discussed it in such detail I’d rather discuss the fourth chapter of her book, “Definitions and Deviance.” In reading this chapter I found myself somewhat confused by her examples. After the sexologists studied and created the idea of homosexuality and deviance many found themselves unable to continue their romantic friendships for fear of being labeled. Others continued on, not caring, or identifying themselves in the sexologist’s terms. After discussing what started to happen in female boarding schools and colleges, and how their peers would humiliate those girls that were in romantic friendships she posed the examples of Jane Addams, Anne Shaw, and M. Carey Thomas. Though she said that these women were unselfconscious about their actions she attributes their lack of being labeled deviants to their respectability and ability to fit within society’s view of gender roles. Thus I ask you what constitutes respectability, was it the age of these women? How did they avoid Walt Whitman’s fate and the fate of the men in Long Beach, was it by working within female-only institutions? What makes a person respectable to society, while still being true to his or her own personal sexuality and idea of gender?

These issues also tie into our nation’s idea of religion and morality. In looking at the navy’s actions what I can’t quite fathom is why they were so interested in the morality of their soldiers. How can a government expect a person forced from their home and taught to kill another without question be expected to also follow the normative views of morality as well?

Summarizing arguments, analyzing evidence

To start class today, I would like you to write a bit about Leila Rupp's history of same-sex sexuality in the United States. First, summarize the argument you think she makes in either Chapter Three ("Worlds of Men, Worlds of Women") or Chapter Four ("Definitions and Deviance"). Do your best to capture the chapter's entire argument and not just one of its sub-arguments.

Then, identify one key example that she draws on to support her claim about sexuality's history. What is the example and how does it relate to her main argument? What is striking or significant about this example? What are its limitations as evidence about sexuality?

Generating today's class discussion

To start class today, I would like you to reflect on the issues or questions that you think are the most significant from today’s reading. That is, what do you think we should talk about? Take a few minutes and describe what you found most interesting from our reading and pose a few questions to the rest of class that you think would generate a meaningful discussion. Post your reflection and your questions here as a comment.

First Response Questions!

After completing, the readings for this first week of class the one that intrigued me the most was Turner’s “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”. The most fascinating idea that he brought up was this idea that the frontier created specific “American” intellectual traits that allowed us to separate our identities from Europe. These intellectual traits over time have evolved and been intertwined with the hegemonic masculine doctrine, for example the urge to be able to do your own plumbing and the notion that men should not ask for directions seems to stem from these intellectual traits that Turner is discussing. I wonder how these intellectual traits, on which we rely to differentiate ourselves from Europe, harm our current social constructions, and how they become so intertwined in how the United States defines masculinity. My first question for everyone is do you think that these intellectual traits have proven to be more valuable or harmful to the US society?

The second thing that really threw me off was when Turner was talking about composite nationality. He seems to claim that due to the frontier the current category of white or Caucasian to define all people of European decent would have never been possible. I feel like I would have to agree with Turner because to my knowledge the majority of the frontier was built on the backs of people of color. It may have been white men who owned the land and had the idea to build cities, but it was people of color who actually built the railroads and farmed the fields in the early parts of this nation’s history. Without people of color to do all this work white men could not have united under one racial banner. So my second question to the class is whether you believe that this idea of composite nationality exists or does not exist and why?