I Wish I Could Quit You

So last light in residence, some friends and I had a movie night. We all brought our favourite movies and we picked from a bag to decide which one to watch. To my pleasure, Brokeback Mountain was chosen.

Now I love this movie. Yes, this sounds especially stereotypical for a gay boy to love a gay movie, but in regards to media, I believe that this movie started a cultural revolution. I also believe that our movie night was able to teach me a valuable lesson about media interpretation.

I watched this movie with 3 of my friends, 2 of which were straight girls, and the other being a gay male. Throughout the film, one of the girls made many comments regarding her take on the events in the film. Near the end of the movie, she had formed an opinion about what the movie was trying to portray.

In the film, a story is being told of two cowboys who worked together for a summer on Brokeback Mountain. They fell in love while they were on the mountain and soon had to depart back to their daily lives. After they were back home, they both married women and had children. The time came when the two cowboys met again and started a continual habit of meeting in the years to come.

My friend’s opinion seemed to be appalled by the actions the two cowboys were performing. She was immediately sympathetic towards to wives in the movie; even going as far as saying “Boys are stupid.” All she saw was that the two cowboys secretly committed adultery with each other.

I do agree with my friend that it was heartbreaking for the women in the movie and is a bad relationship lesson, but I saw the opposite. I saw people’s love being oppressed because of fear and discrimination.

Now I understand that people are allowed to have different opinions and that no one’s opinions are wrong, but it astounds me how different and complex a message can be when viewed/received by different audiences. This difference in opinions re-enforces my faith in the idea that everything in media is there for a reason. This makes me think of how much work is put into everything in the media and how much work is put into reaching the largest possible audience.

Out reactions to this movie were quite opposite, and I do not know if this was intentionally planned by the movie’s producers or not, but it has just made me think a little bit more about the media and how important interpretation can be.