Dean Durber

27 May 2009

Brokeback Mountain is a movie about a lot of things. It is concerned with a vast range of intimate relationships: between men, husbands and wives, parents and children. It exposes the rapid social and cultural changes in America from the late 1960s through to the 1980s. It is also a story of loss, for the men involved and for the wives who must grieve death and desertion. But this is not a gay movie. The rush to rejoice in or to condemn Brokeback Mountain for its gayness misses the point: that people—men, in this case—are able to experience moments of intimacy without having to be gay or straight.