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angst, angst, and more angst
Jan. 5th, 2006 04:13 pmI'm addicted. It's shameful. I'm seriously addicted. I've seen Brokeback Mountain five times now. I'm worse than all those Star Wars fans who waited 24 hours to see the last installment. I CAN NOT STOP. I love Brokeback Mountain. Why? It's the ANGST.
Oh, the angst! I knew as soon as I saw the previews for it back in September or August or whenever it was, I knew it was going to be an angsty, relationship-barriered angsty m/m story, I could tell from the tiny excerpts in the trailer, and I waited with bated breath. And now I just can't stop, damn it. At least I've gone to see it mostly at matinees (yeah -- in Chicago, that saves you a whole $2; instead of being $9.50, it's "only" $7.50). But then there is paying for parking (if you see it in Chicago).
Shamefully I've seen it in 4 different theaters the 5 times I've seen Brokeback Mountain. I could write an essay on the difference between seeing it in a totally gay neighborhood on the north side of Chicago versus seeing it with the suburban mallrat contingent in a suburb that's so far from Chicago it used to be considered a suburb of Naperville, not Chicago (I have to take I-290 to I-88 and drive 80 miles an hour for almost half an hour to get there, so you know it's FAR). But I won't write that essay...
I'll just say that when Jack (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Ledger) finally come together sexually -- and almost all the times after that when they get together -- it's as angsty as I could ever want it to be, and I say that having a major fetish for angsty slash.
Angsty slash is my favorite kind of slash. I like when one guy is so driven by emotion and desire that he overcomes his own ambivalence; when the desire and arousal peak just a bit higher than the angst holding him back -- it's practically aphrodisiacal. (If that's a word). Hell, that's my favorite kind of slash to write, let alone read or see.
Which does not, by any means, mean that Brokeback is purely that and nothing else. As I wax rhapsodic I must also acknowledge that there is no happy ending for these two. It is tragic. And I respond to that sort of thing (even though I myself like to write, at least some of the time, happy endings) because... well, for a number of reasons I won't explore at this juncture but which probably almost all boil down to the fact that I'm a depressive.
But where Brokeback really gets to me (not erotically, but emotionally) is the desperate longing these two have for each other. The scenes of intimacy are breathtaking, yes, but there are confrontational scenes that really grab me because I understand Jack's sad pursuit of a lover who can't fully give himself. It's all about the longing and the not having.
( Read more... )
Oh, the angst! I knew as soon as I saw the previews for it back in September or August or whenever it was, I knew it was going to be an angsty, relationship-barriered angsty m/m story, I could tell from the tiny excerpts in the trailer, and I waited with bated breath. And now I just can't stop, damn it. At least I've gone to see it mostly at matinees (yeah -- in Chicago, that saves you a whole $2; instead of being $9.50, it's "only" $7.50). But then there is paying for parking (if you see it in Chicago).
Shamefully I've seen it in 4 different theaters the 5 times I've seen Brokeback Mountain. I could write an essay on the difference between seeing it in a totally gay neighborhood on the north side of Chicago versus seeing it with the suburban mallrat contingent in a suburb that's so far from Chicago it used to be considered a suburb of Naperville, not Chicago (I have to take I-290 to I-88 and drive 80 miles an hour for almost half an hour to get there, so you know it's FAR). But I won't write that essay...
I'll just say that when Jack (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Ledger) finally come together sexually -- and almost all the times after that when they get together -- it's as angsty as I could ever want it to be, and I say that having a major fetish for angsty slash.
Angsty slash is my favorite kind of slash. I like when one guy is so driven by emotion and desire that he overcomes his own ambivalence; when the desire and arousal peak just a bit higher than the angst holding him back -- it's practically aphrodisiacal. (If that's a word). Hell, that's my favorite kind of slash to write, let alone read or see.
Which does not, by any means, mean that Brokeback is purely that and nothing else. As I wax rhapsodic I must also acknowledge that there is no happy ending for these two. It is tragic. And I respond to that sort of thing (even though I myself like to write, at least some of the time, happy endings) because... well, for a number of reasons I won't explore at this juncture but which probably almost all boil down to the fact that I'm a depressive.
But where Brokeback really gets to me (not erotically, but emotionally) is the desperate longing these two have for each other. The scenes of intimacy are breathtaking, yes, but there are confrontational scenes that really grab me because I understand Jack's sad pursuit of a lover who can't fully give himself. It's all about the longing and the not having.
( Read more... )