Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain tells the tragic story of two Sheep herders who fall in love but spend their lives trapped in heterosexual relationships. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who play the lovers, are heterosexual men playing homosexual lovers, but as well-known actors, they play the part convincingly. Regardless of your sexual orientation, most male spectators would look to Gyllenhaal's character Jack in admiration, because his heart tells him to fight till the end, as he didn't give up hope that he and Ledger's character, Ennis, would be together. However, homosexual men are more likely to align with the characters than heterosexual men because of the struggles that homosexual men face, are present in the film.
Judith Butler's theory suggests that culture and media has shaped our minds psychologically. In other words, this means that you're taught how to be a man or woman. Brokeback Mountain shows two men struggling with their hyper masculine roles as Cowboys, who also have to provide for their families at home. Both characters are sexually supressed, for example, when Ennis reenacts the sexual intercourse he has with Jack, with his wife. Brokeback Mountain simultaneously aligns heterosexual and homosexual men with Ennis and Jack. Heterosexual men are more likely to align with Ennis because he suppressed his urges to play the masculine straight man. Whereas, homosexual men, who develop more feminine traits, will align with Jack who is more comfortable with his sexuality. This is heightened when he is with his wife, as she is more masculine than him. This means that their roles are reversed and that the binary opposition of male versus female isn't fixed.
Derek Rucus says that a homosexual spectator has to adopt the position of a woman in a film to get any pleasure from it. If you apply this to Brokeback Mountain then voyeuristic scenes such as when Jack and Ennis are wrestling, the homosexual audience would have to place themselves with Jack, who is the more feminine character, and exhibits loudness, playfulness and more emotion than ever before. Homosexual characters would aspire to be like Jack at this point or compare themselves to Jack, as these are positive traits that make Ennis happy. Whereas, Ennis is the more masculine character, which means he is quieter, more detached, and aggressive - especially when he confronts his ex-wife and lashes out when angered by grabbing her throat, then again when another man calls him an 'asshole' from his car, he attempts to drag him out of his car and beat him up, but gets beat up instead. This highlights Ennis's struggle to fit in within the heterosexual community. He would rather be alone and suppressed than surrounded by people he's lying to.
