The way time was structured in Brokeback Mountain was both rushed and savored, where long periods of time could pass by in a paragraph, but moments could last pages. Time seemed to structure itself around the things that were important to Jack and Ennis, skipping over their married lives but reveling in their moments of intimacy. Halberstam in In a Queer Time and Place writes, “Queer uses of time and space develop, at least in part, in opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction,” (1). In the beginning, when Proulx sets the scene of the mountain and the sheep and their daily tasks, it reminded me of queer time, of a place that existed outside regular societal time constraints. Perhaps they didn’t intend to carve out queer time for themselves, were ready to subscribe to marriage, normativity, and had no such fascinations with men. Either way, they ended up separated from everything but nature and each other, acting on base instincts—eating, sleeping, and roaming– which is how they came to discover their desire or one another. They found their own queer time on the mountain. Proulx writes, “There were only the two of them on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air, looking down on the hawk’s back and the crawling lights of vehicles on the plain below, suspended above ordinary affairs and distant from tame ranch dogs barking in the dark hours,” (15). The emphasis is on their isolation, on their actions that are nobody else’s business, on an existence outside of expectations and prejudice, where all that mattered was their desire and care for each other.
Queer time seems to manifest a lot in nature, in isolation. I found Jack and Ennis’ relationship interesting in this respect, where they had such little hesitation about their couplings, as if operating on base instincts. The first time they had sex, Proulx writes, “nothing he’d [Ennis] done before but no instruction manual needed,” (14). This implies a certain naturalness to queerness, like what we discussed regarding queer ecology. Very relevant to Brokeback Mountain, Sandilands writes, “ Gide’s Corydon…pursued the idea that the homosexual activities of boy-shepherds represented a more authentic and innocent sexuality than the heterosexual conventions they needed to learn in order to enter into adult relations of heterosexuality,” (169). Whether we need scientific precedence to validate queerness or not, letting people be people in the mountains certainly seems to imply that being gay is not in fact something unnatural at all. I had never thought before about the relationship between queerness and nature, but now I see there seems to be an almost inseparable connection, where queerness is a return to base instincts, to nature, to something that can exist peacefully outside the restraints of a chronobiologically organized life. I feel certain that they would never have experienced this kind of love without the space and time Brokeback Mountain offered them, and I wonder what kind of lives people could lead on their own mountains, away from tire irons and loveless marriages.
I can relate to your comment about the relation of queerness and nature, how you had not really thought about it before but now it seems almost inseparable for you. It never came to my mind either before taking this class, but it is one of the aspects I will definitely take from this class, how queer time, opposed to the heteronormative time we are all being inducted with from day one, can bring a freedom with itself. I agree how this freedom can especially manifest itself in nature, far away from society and societal norms and expectations. One other point that struck me in Brokeback Mountain regarding queer time was on page 39, when Jack and Ennis were talking about their wives and children. The paragraph ended with “One thing never changed: the brilliant charge of their infrequent couplings was darkened by a sense of time flying, never enough time, never enough”. I think this shows how they struggle with the switch from queer time on the mountains back to the heteronormative, “normal” time with their families in their old lives, and how hard these two are to combine/ how hard it is if you’re not able to “run on queer time” but are stuck in a life and in norms that run on heteronormative time. It seems as if there is never enough time, because the time system you’re living in was not made for you and does not take you into consideration.
I really like the connections you drew between queerness and naturalness/ecology. The relationship between Jack and Ennis was kept separate from their married lives and children because that was something they had to have, it was expected of them. Having a life together was not something that crossed Ennis’s mind because he could not wrap his head around him and Jack building a similar “family” lifestyle together. Having a family was not something he wanted, that was just how it happened because it was so ingrained into society.
What a perfect connection between queer time and the form of Brokeback Mountain!! This particular example really shows that time and the way we choose to use/ fill it is inherently connected to the things, ideas, and people we value most. But your idea about natural instinct really makes me think about more subtle personal values that are not always “on display” for others to see (much like how Jack and Ennis’ relationship is hidden, but certainly not unimportant to their story – In fact, their relationship IS the story)
I think the use of Halberstam’s queer time and nature to analyze and critique is definitely evident within Brokeback Mountain. Kind of jumping off of Lucifer’s point — Jack was absolutely leaning towards the future though Ennis did not. I think something that Prouix also sets up: Jack putting up with Ennis essentially in following a version of queer time that no longer fit for him. Time is this commodity, especially with activists who held time more temporal versus more futurist. These conflicting ideas also are somewhat foiled within this storyline and I think it is interesting to see how in a way there are several timelines moving within this book. Some that stop and start, and some that seem to remain constant throughout the journey.