Queer Theory and Brokeback Mountain

Film Theory in Practice

by Matthew Tinkcom

Queer Theory and Brokeback Mountain examines queer theory as it has emerged in the past three decades and discusses how Brokeback Mountain can be understood through the terms of this field of scholarship and activism. Organized into two parts, in the first half the author discusses key canonical texts within queer theory, including the work of writers as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. He provides an historical account of the questions these scholars have posed to our understanding of sexualities-both normative and non-normative-in the historical past and in contemporary life, as well as a discussion of the theories of sexuality and gender offered by these scholars as these phenomena shape the experiences of men and women in the genital, bodily, erotic, discursive, and cultural dimensions.

The second part examines Ang Lee's 2005 feature film, Brokeback Mountain, in order to understand the claims and insights of queer theory. Tracing the film's adaptation by screenwriter Larry McMurtry of Annie Proulx's 1997 short story of the same title, this portion of the book examines the film's narrative about two working-class men in the rural mid-20th-century U.S. and the meanings of the sexual and emotional bond between the pair that develops over the course of two decades.

Genres: Queer, Film

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 2017

About the author

Matthew Tinkcom is Associate Professor of Communication, Culture and Technology and Affiliate Faculty of English at Georgetown University, USA. He is the author of Working Like a Homosexual: Camp: Capital, Cinema and Grey Gardens, co-editor of Key Frames: Popular Cinema and Cultural Studies as well as articles that have appeared in Cinema Journal, South Atlantic Quarterly and collections from Duke University Press and the British Film Institute. He has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and Director of the Program in American Studies.

Reviews

[kafkasurlerivage888 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t bad, I was pleased to discover little things that I hadn’t noticed before in the film itself. However it was a hard read since it becomes so repetitive and most of the book was just a simple idea that was said in big, elevating words. 2.5 ⭐️

[gabby bellantoni · Rating 4 out of 5]

i just read this in an hour for a paper and it was very insightful!! i love the film even more after reading this which i didn’t think was possible.

[Dallas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly cursory introduction to queer theory, and not much analysis of what the methodologies of the field can offer students interested in film criticism. That being said, the exploration of Brokeback's relationship to its idyllic locales and the historical role of the dual hermetic/erotic charge of the cinematic Western landscape more broadly was thought provoking. I also appreciated the foregrounding of class-based analysis and the repeated insistence on the character's race and rural status as crucial elements of their experience of both gender and sexuality, which is often strangely omitted from other pieces on this film. But on the whole, somewhat meandering and not entirely convinced of its own thesis enough to effectively argue it

[scriptedknight · Rating 4 out of 5]

rating: 4/5