Intertexts

You Know IAin’t Queer”: Brokeback Mountmn as the Not-Gay Cowboy Movie CC K a t h l e e n C h a m b e r l a i n E M O R Y & H E N R Y C O L L E G E Victoria Somogyi N E W Y O R K C I T Y “Yes, it’s the gay cowboy movie. Get over it,” wrote Ty Burr in his Boston Globe review of Brokeback Mountain (par. 1). Intending to rebuke any view¬ er who would resist the movie because of its “gay” content. Burr ends up constructing aresponse that has the effect of simultaneously defining and denying such content. At the same time that the statement declaratively assignsthefilmaveryparticularsame-sexidentity—“gaycowboymovie” it denies the significance of that identity through an imperative erasure (“get over it”). Structurally, Burr’s comment replicates the cultural effect of the filmasawhole:attheverypointthatBrokebackMountainwasbeingpraised by manyAmerican critics and commentators as abrave and daring affirma¬ tionofsame-sexlove^andwasbeinghailedbysomeasadefiningmomentin the United States’ “national conversation” about sexual identity,^ both the filmandmanycriticalresponsestoitweredeconstructingtheverytermsof suchaconversationbydismandingthewholenotionofsexualidentity(as opposedtomerelysexualbehavior).Indoingso,theywerenotcomplicat- “ o r “ b i s e x u a l . ” ing or questioning current identity categories such as “gay Rather, they were simply erasing these identities by returning male same-sex desire and practice to aposition of marginality and invisibility of the sort that predates any cultural notions of sexual identity at all, even pathological ones such as those constructed by the late nineteenth-century sexologists. In discussing Brokeback Mountain^ columnist Godfrey Cheshire might argue that “‘gay,’ perhaps more than any other word in the language, signi¬ fies the argument over cultural values that America has been having with itself in recent years” (par. 5), but if so, the film and itsAmerican commenta¬ tors do not contribute to or even recognize that argument. Instead, by more or less eliminating identity categories, they eliminate the debate altogether. Far from “challeng[ing] people’s ideas about the value and validity of samesex relationships,” as Newsweek writer Sean Smith claims (68), Brokeback Mountain and many of its cultural respondents simply reassure straight audi¬ ences that such relationships do not even meaningfully exist. Thus, like Terry Castle’s “apparitional lesbian,”^ the gay male of Brokeback Mountain, cowboy or not, is ultimately no more than aghost. It is this spectral status, rather than any progressive message about accepting alternative sexualities, that is largely responsible for the film’s success with U.S. audiences. Intertexts, Vol. 10, No. 22006 ©Texas Tcdi University Press 1 3 0 I N T E R T E X T S This erasure of identity is ironic, given the ubiquity of the phrase “gay cowboy movie” as acultural tag for the film. Almost as soon as Brokebadt was released, that term became acontested site representative of the film’s cultural positioning, particularly as discussed by American film critics. Bun wasn’t the only one to call attention to the popular phrase. For most com¬ mentators, the label was no compliment. Paul Clinton of CNN.com found it “odious” (par. 1). Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News objected to the film’sbeing“reducedto[a]catchphrase”(par.2)whenthemaincharacters’ “feelings transcend anything as mundane as sexual orientation” (par. 13). Some people found the term unfairly limiting. Diana Ossana, one of the film’s Oscar-winning writers, noted that “people come in with this precon¬ ceived notion that this is agay cowboy movie. But it’s more than that” (qtd. in Villarreal, “AWinning Team” par. 14). In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune^ ColinCovertwrote,“IthasbecomeshorthandtocallBrokebackMountain the gay cowboy movie,’ but it is much more than that glib description implies.Thisisahumanstory”(8F).RogerEbert,too,believedthattocall brokebackMountaina“gaycowboymovie (par. 3). cruel simplification w a s a The critics are right—Brokeback Mountain should not be labeled a“gay cowboy movie.” But we should eschew the term not because it is reductive orsimplistic(whywouldithavetobe?),orbecauseBrokebackMountainis more” than a“gay cowboy movie” (to the extent that the film erases the category of “gay,” it’s actually /wrthan a“gay cowboy movie”), or because camgthemovie“gay”mightcauseaudiencestomisswhatthefilmisreally about(namelythe“universal”andthe“human”).BrokebackMountain sould not be called agay cowboy movie because...