brokeback addendum
I failed to mention one thing that seriously did bother me about the film, and that was the absolutely shitty treatment of all women involved. The women, Ennis and Jack’s wives, helped pay of the price of their husbands’ officially denied relationship, as unsuspecting straight women married to undercover gay men.
As this NYT editorial points out, an ongoing, current-day Christian effort to de-gay gay men still involves marrying them off to non-gay women. If healthy and happy sex can be considered essential to a happy marriage, then this seems like a pretty short road to misery. Not that reminding the Christian Right will do any good, since it has not particularly been noted for its compassion towards women in the first place, but I can’t believe my thoughts didn’t come round to this conclusion earlier.
So; envy, for a relationship I can never know. Anger, at the selfishness of men.
And, alas, bitterness at the unforgivable stupidity of the women who buy into it, of which group I cannot claim never to be a member.
Speaking of films where women’s voices are not heard, I note Gertrude Bell, desert scholar and advisor to T.E. Lawrence when he was Lawrence of Arabia, and a member of the British Women’s Anti-Suffrage League (yeah, you heard me). From wikipedia Gertrude Bell;
Her reason for being against giving women the vote was her view that while women felt that the kitchen and the bedroom were their domain and that they were not worthy of being included in political debate, they were unfit to take part in deciding how the nation should be ruled.
Apparently possessing no small amount of bitterness herself, she wanted women to prove themselves interested in freedom before granting it to them.
I’m not quite to the point of revoking the voting rights of people who don’t know what they’ve got, but…or wait, am I?
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Wait wait wait - you dated a closet case? Is it the obvious person I’m thinking of, or someone else?
No…well I don’t think so anyway but now that you mention it…
No, I just meant buying into the grand-scheme patriarchal religious/social systems, designed to keep both men and women, but mostly women, in their place.
Instead of, you know, building communes where women can go have their periods together once a month at moon-dark, and where the massive door can always be barred against destroyers of the sisterhood.
Oh. That’s much less gossipy.
Yeah, sorry to disappoint.
Hi Ximena,
Cheers for the link. I’ve been keeping up with all your news and love your writing. Are you still heading home soon?
Denise
Heck yeah, five months baby!