The Brokeback Book

by Handley, William R.

• ISBN13: 9780803226647
• ISBN10: 0803226640
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-01
• Publisher: Bison Books

Summary

An American Western made by a Taiwanese director and filmed in Canada,Brokeback Mountainwas a global cultural phenomenon even before it became the highest grossing gay-themed drama in film history. Few films have inspired as much passion and debate, or produced as many contradictory responses, from online homage to late-night parody. In this wide-ranging and incisive collection, writers, journalists, scholars, and ordinary viewers explore the film and Annie Proulx's original story as well as its ongoing cultural and political significance. The contributors situateBrokeback Mountainin relation to gay civil rights, the cinematic and literary Western, the Chinese value of forbearance, male melodrama, and urban and rural working lives across generations and genders. The Brokeback Bookbuilds on earlier debates by novelist David Leavitt, critic Daniel Mendelsohn, producer James Schamus, and film reviewer Kenneth Turan with new and noteworthy interpretations of the Brokeback phenomenon, the film, and its legacy. Also appearing in print for the first time is Michael Silverblatt's interview with Annie Proulx about the story she wrote and the film it became.

Author Biography

William R. Handley is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Marriage, Violence, and Nation in the American Literary West and the coeditor, with Nathaniel Lewis, of True West: Authenticity and the American West, available in a Bison Books edition.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. x
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: The Pasts and Futures of a Story and a Film	p. 1
Gay or Universal Story? Initial Debates and Cultural Contexts
Men in Love: Is Brokeback Mountain a Gay Film	p. 27
An Affair to Remember	p. 31
Response to ôAn Affair to Rememberö	p. 39
The Magic Mountain	p. 42
Backs Unbroken: Ang Lee, Forbearance, and the Closet	p. 52
Miles to Go and Promises to Keep: Homophobic Culture and Gay Civil Rights
Back to the Ranch Ag'in: Brokeback Mountain and Gay Civil Rights	p. 81
Breaking No Ground: Why Crash Won, Why Brokeback Lost, and How the Academy Chose to Play It Safe	p. 101
ôJack, I Swearö: Some Promises to Gay Culture from Mainstream Hollywood	p. 103
ôBetter Two Than Oneö: The Shirts from Brokeback Mountain	p. 118
American Eden: Nature, Homophobic Violence, and the Social Imaginary	p. 123
West of the Closet, Fear on the Range	p. 137
Adapting ôBrokeback Mountain,ö Queering the Western
Interview between Michael Silverblatt and Annie Proulx	p. 153
In the Shadow of the Tire Iron	p. 163
Adapting Annie Proulx's Story to the Mainstream Multiplex	p. 179
Not So Lonesome Cowboys: The Queer Western	p. 190
Public Responses and Cultural Appropriations
ôOne Dies, the Other Doesn'tö: Brokeback and the Blogosphere	p. 205
Making Sense of the Brokeback Paraphenomenon	p. 229
Alberta, Authenticity, and Queer Erasure	p. 249
Scenes of Work and Experience in the Rural West
Real Gay Cowboys and Brokeback Mountain	p. 267
Marx on the Mountain: Pleasure and the Laboring Body	p. 283
Personal Borders	p. 299
Sympathy, Melodrama, and Passion
Mother Twist: Brokeback Mountain and Male Melodrama	p. 309
Passion and Sympathy in Brokeback Mountain	p. 321
Selected Brokeback Bibliography	p. 351
Works Cited	p. 353
Contributors	p. 371
Index	p. 377
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