Brokeback Mountain — The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

Brokeback Mountain is a story that honors the west - a region of inspiring natural beauty and yet at the same time a region with a terribly depressing history of bloodshed. Usually we hear stories of “cowboys” and “Indians”, or settlers and marauders, lawlessness and the civil war. However, in this movie we are going to hear a different story. We are going to experience the greatest love story ever told — the story of two men falling in love at Brokeback mountain.

This story has all the elements of the America that enchants a global and local audience: American men wrestling with the elements, stunning landscapes with lush green hills, roaring crystal clear rivers and steep imposing mountains terrifyingly dark in one instant and then gloriously bright in the next.

Within this rustic, western garden of Eden two men tend to a flock of sheep, vulnerable to violence and very profitable to the man who hired them for their protection. These two men are undeniably silent with their attraction for each other. Each moment is tense for the audience wondering: who will act first?

After a night of great conversation and drink, one of them decides to go to bed, Jack Twist (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), and the other, Ennis Del Mar (played by Heath Ledger), insists on sleeping outside. Jack implores with Ennis to spend the night in his tent, but Ennis pretends he doesn’t want to and sleeps outside.

The cold is too much for Ennis, and he moves into the tent. In the warmth of this tent, Jack playfully draws Ennis’s arm over him. What commences from there is an intense love scene. A love scene so intense that it mesmerizes the audience just as much as it mesmerizes Jack and Ennis.

What I love about Brokeback mountain is how their sexuality did not define either of the characters. As a society we tend to only think about one thing: what is your sexuality? And does your sexuality meet our expectations?

Far too much in our culture whenever we have a gay man, we make his sexuality the first thing that someone notices and nearly every single thing about this character reflects back on the fact that he is gay. I personally am so sick and tired of corporate America, and god awful story telling falling prey to these stereotypes of gay men. In fact these men by all appearances seem “straight” — cowboys carrying a “devil may care” attitude towards life, herding cattle, hunting and sleeping in the elements. These two men inhabit all those qualities and expectations of men and of cowboys. However, there is just one thing that may separate them apart from common expectations — they have passionate desire and love for each other.

Broke mountain subverts the expectations of audiences of what it means to portray a gay character and gay love — and the film does this in a positive light, improving our American society for the better. The film delights its audience in telling a beautiful and compelling story of love.

What these two men do is incredibly brave in general but especially considering that the movie starts out in the 1960s and expands into the 1980s. Remember those sheep and how vulnerable they are to violence? These two men not only love each other but also valiantly pursue their love for each other in spite of the fact that they face the very real possibility of horrific death — death by blunt trauma and torture.

Just like the sheep, these two men were lost before they met each other. After their work in the wilderness of the west, their lives will never be the same. Jack and Ennis attend to their love to each other just like they tended to those sheep, which they protected on Brokeback mountain.

Pro Tip — Brokeback Mountain pairs excellently with [Carbonara](https://www.notanothercookingshow.tv/post/how-to-make-authentic-carbonara-sauce).