Brokeback Mountain (Mario Henao)

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Nature against Society
Mario Henao
The world of Brokeback Mountain reproduces an array of basic oppositions. The
beginning of the movie shows the entrance of two manly men in a natural environment
where they will prove their capacity to face the wilderness. Nevertheless, this situation
does not put them against nature. On the contrary, it seems that this environment offers
them a place to find some harmony and connection between their inner core and the
outside. In this sense, the movie seems to recall the pastoral genre's experience, which
describes characters that are adequate to the environment.
So, it is possible to think that the movie proposes not opposition but unity.
However, this first part of the film exposes an ideal moment that allows the experience
that marks one of the poles of the significant opposition that the plot deploys. The film's
beginning shows nature as the perfect place where desire can be fulfilled; nature is linked
to happiness and satisfaction. I opposition to that place is the urban and social
environment, where these two men have to adapt themselves to the impositions of
society and its institutions: marriage, family, job, social mobility, and so on. In this social
life, nor Ennis, neither Jack can be happy; there, they have to accomplish structure
requirements. They suffer and fight for achieving that goal.
They are only free from that pressure when they are among nature. It seems
impossible to create a bridge that connects that feeling of happiness that they experience
in nature to their homes' daily lives. This situation is replicating the fundamental binary
structure which organizes almost all the relations in the humankind. The movie expresses
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the idea that it is impossible to belong to two different positions: for example, it is
impossible to have a homosexual drive and, at the same time, to have a family. In this
way, it is clear that there are two different spaces where different actions and life patterns
could be experienced. On the one hand, there is the natural world where sexual freedom
is possible, but sociality does not exist. On the other, there is the social world where
desire has to be repressed in order to reach the sociality, which means being able to
belong to a community.
This kind of interpretation strengthens the traditional dichotomy between nature
and culture (society) and prevents questioning the identity. Being happy is only possible in
the middle of nature because, apparently, in that place, identity is not necessary. If Ennis
and Jack decided to live as a couple in social life, they would be attached to an identity
image and, therefore, they will be in danger. Also, none of both wants to be identified as a
queer person. So, it seems that they are condemned to this impossibility.
One of the possible interpretations of this situation is that homosexual life is
natural but unsocial, which means only outside the boundaries of humanity is possible to
experience this kind of sexuality. According to that, it is possible to have homosexual
sexual practices in nature because these practices are not human, but it is impossible to
be gay if we think gay as an identity only possible in the social life. In this sense, nature
becomes a way to argue that gay men (the movie is only showing men homosexuality)
cannot exist as a person.

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Besides, the movie seems to link this queer desire to the wilderness. At the
beginning of the film, just after Ennis and Jack's first sexual encounter, Ennis finds a dead
sheep, murdered by a wild animal. I think that this disposition of the episodes (the
homosexual sex and the dead sheep) create a relation to the wild environment as if the
movie said that sex among men is rough as that place where they are. Therefore, in order
to be part of humanity and take a distance from the wilderness, we need to control our
drives and desire, otherwise we would live in a natural world where anyone could
assassinate everyone. This perspective does not allow the possibility to connect the
human to nature; we need to overcome nature in order to survive as a society.

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1

Nature against Society

The world of Brokeback Mountain reproduces an array of basic oppositions. The

describes characters that are adequate to the environment.

requirements. They suffer and fight for achieving that goal.

This kind of interpretation strengthens the traditional dichotomy between nature

One of the possible interpretations of this situation is that homosexual life is

experience this kind of sexuality. According to that, it is possible to have homosexual

cannot exist as a person.

human to nature; we need to overcome nature in order to survive as a society.

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