Shrinkage and Brokeback Mountain

January 22, 2006 · Filed Under Uncategorized

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain last night. I bawled my eyes out. My boyfriend pretended to be bored, and my girlfriend and I enjoyed gaping at Heath Ledger.

I thought it was a profoundly moving and sad story. Mostly I came away thanking the Lord for my exposure to psychotherapy. And not just my exposure (although granted my exposure was more intense than others, being from a Jewish upper-middle class divorced family in NJ).

Everyone in our culture is exposed to the learnings and effects of psychotherapy. Oprah magazine, Oprah’s show, Dr. Phil…all have allowed every American to actively seek to be in touch with his/her feelings.

Ennis’ torture, his inability to love or choose what he needs for a modicum of a happy exisitence: all is directly connected not only to the strictures and homophobia of the time he lived, but of the pre-insight era. I would imagine in the 60’s and 70’s, an examined life was restricted to those who had the education and means to seek it.

Perhaps I am being naive, but I don’t believe Dr. Phil or Oprah would let Ennis and Jack Twist be apart today.

I thought of another, similarly moving film about the love that dare not speak its name, and this love’s ability to ruin lives…A Man of No Importance, with Albert Finney. Netfilix it.

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