Masculinity In Brokeback Mountain

Introduction In the Western world, majority of the movies are normally preoccupied with the notion of masculinity that depict men as being the dominant gender with roles requiring them to exhibit male behavior, such as providing for family and fighting, while the women the inferior gender with roles requiring them to exhibit female behavior, such as supporting the husband despite his shortcomings. Anne Lee in his modern Western movie Brokeback Mountain (IMDb, 2015) represents masculinity in different relationships: masculinity as depicted by men who want to be in a relationship with women and masculinity as depicted by men who want to be in the same-sex relationship. In this movie opinions divide significantly concerning masculinity especially when looking at Ennis and Jack who are two gay cowboys trying to be in a secret homosexual relationship. In what follows, we will examine the representation of relationships of traditional Western masculinity in the movie

Since Ennis by definition was “a real man” he wanted to continue to exhibit Western man behavior like being a breadwinner to his family and violent, while at the same time indulge in his secret fantasies of being in a relationship with Jack. In addition, Ennis had a strong hand when it came to fighting, which is a manhood character, and another assertion “in Ennis 's mind” that he was a real man. This is can be seen when in the movie he threw a hard punch on Jack 's jaw bruising him on the last day. This masculine Western man behavior is supported by Warshow (1999) in his book analyzing Movie Chronicle: The Westerner (Warshow,1999) that describes a Western man as being violent through using guns to assert dominance over other people without regard and wishes of other