reading some recent things about broke back mountain

this comes from esquire this week
...the movie, for all its candor and pignacy, isnt fundamentally abut a gay realtionship ; its about teh absence of one ....Ledger and Gyellenhall cowpokes wind up deeply closeted, married with children, loenly and miserable, meeting only every few years for "fishing experditions" Their love affair remians tragically unfufillied..." M ike D' Angelo

From ABC Australia
"Like, these aren't, in my belief, these aren't two, like gay guys. These are two people who fall in love. And, you know, from the environment that they're in, which is incredibly lonely, and, you know, they find each other." Jake

From Details, next month:
"My character could have been played by a woman and it would have made just as much sense," he says), but I'm astonished when he says that he doesn't believe Ennis and Jack are gay. "I approached the story believing that these are actually straight guys who fall in love," he says. "That's how I related to the material. These are two straight guys who develop this love, this bond. Love binds you, and you see these guys pulling and pulling and tugging and trying to figure out what they want, and what they will allow themselves to have." Both via Andy Towel

from Andy himself
I think he's probably not articulating his point very well in either interview, that this is a universal love story. For anyone who has read the book or seen the film can tell you, it's unabashedly gay whether that was the way they chose to define it back then or not.

From Commentator Lieland
Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ! Snap out of it! You pathetic Marys, willing to overlook any stupid ass thing a pretty boy says. It doesn't matter what the CHARACTERS thought it was in terms of labels. We're talking about what JG said about them and it's a crock of shit to say they're not at least bisexual. Millions of straight men over the ages have been stuck temporarily in lonely circumstances and they didn't even touch each other let alone kiss, suck, fuck, or whatever else we're to imagine these two did. It's not like they're in prison for life or trapped together on a desert island with no pussy in site. I'll withdraw "sad" and submit PATHETIC. Pathetic that a young, politically liberal actor in 2005 is obviously so worried about catching something from a FICTIONAL character that he was PAID to PRETEND to be--despite the crap about being flattered that some think he's bi--BI!! He can't even say "think I'm gay"--which we all know is the rumor/fantasy. Mother of God, who gossips about somebody being "bi" except sorority girls from low rent colleges? Applaud him for doing the role, but don't excuse him for effectively trying to rewrite it post facto--the linguistic equivalent of "Boy, was I drunk last night!"

From Me:
There are three eqautions here: Jake and Ennis, Jake and His Wife, Ennis and his wife. They both have children. They both have desires, for each other, for their wives, for their children. The film and the story are about negotioing and navagating what happens in realtionships. They are not deteremined, they are not fufilled, we learn to settle for what we have,, instead of what we want--and the sexuaility in the movies are all about that, are all about what happens in those negitions, the power, the struggles and the desires. It is about how marriages work, and adultery work, and how sex between men works, and its about at the heart what we do to those with whom we love.

Jake Gyllenhall is right here--and i am not making it universal, because men fucking each other will always be queer (except in the movie, and in the book, there is the line b/w them:i dont want you to think im queer or nothing") What is strong about it is that we dont live with the labels, we live in the or nothing and not the queer.

Like Mr and Mrs Smith, the movie is about the anxiety of the heterosexual man, about negoting ever limiting and califcing masculitny, about finding gender and sex roles that work, as opposed to what is perscribed--and it isnt about Jakes personal life--though he does suggest that he is as ambigous as his charachter, which is nice.