"Brokeback Mountain"

Paper Summary:

This paper attempts to define the genre category of the movie "Brokeback Mountain". It looks at how it can be categorized as a "gay western" although there are other elements that could also define it as a love story or drama. In particular, the paper looks at the film's controversy over its representation of cowboys. The paper explains that, in the film, instead of representing the traditional western cowboy as a sort of lone wolf that resorts to violence when necessary, he is represented as the kind of guy that hugs, embraces and kisses another cowboy.

From the Paper:

"But there is another genre category available - drama, love-story . And here again, the film corresponds to the characteristics of this very genre. We do have two people in love with each other, finding extremely difficult to live out their love, i.e. meeting with obstacles on their way to happiness, and we do get a dramatic ending, where one of the protagonists dies and the audience is left with a bad feeling for the remaining character. From the audiovisual perspective, the close-ups, connoting intimacy, are not rare. Interestingly enough, this categorization, which was also used by the media, was especially put forward by the crew and cast of the film. If you look closely at interviews of the lead actors, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and the director Ang Lee, it will strike you in the face how hard they try to get rid of the 'gay stuff' of the questions concerning the 'sex parts' of the movie, as though they wanted to erect their work as something universal."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Branston, Gill and Stafford, Roy, The Media Student's Book. London: Routledge, 2005. (third edition)
• Hill, John and Church Gibson, Pamela (eds.), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Leutrat, J.-L., Liandrat-Guigues, S., les Cartes de l'Ouest. Un genre cinematographique : le western. Armand Colin, 1990.
• Storey, John, An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. (second edition)
• http://artslivres.com/ShowArticle.php?Id=864

More papers on "Brokeback Mountain":

• Term Paper # 92399 : "Brokeback Mountain" and Lives of Homosexuals"
• Comparison Essay # 107799 : "Brokeback Mountain" and "Match Point"
• Film Review # 117145 : "Film: "Brokeback Mountain"

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