I saw Brokeback
Mountain a short walk from my home in downtown Missoula,
at the historic Wilma Theatre. Built in 1921 by producers of a Wild
West show, it’s a place where Will Rogers once performed his
cowboy satire. Between the old sound system and my bad ears
(courtesy of the Marine Corps}, I had difficulty hearing what
sparse dialog there was. But I could pretty much guess what the two
sheepherders were mumbling, having read Annie Proulx’s short
story twice.
The first time I read it, I was still
closeted and married, fighting, denying and suppressing my
attraction to men; often leading a secret, shameful double life.
The story hit hard, and I felt doomed to a life of deceit. I read
it again last year, when hype about the upcoming movie first hit
the press.
By then I was out, best friends with my former
wife of 14 years, and living truer to myself. It made me grateful I
had found the courage to change my story to a happier ending.
But what surprised me most about the movie was the elk
hunt. Jack and Ennis lose their supplies when a black bear, played
by a sadly tame, fat, Hollywood bear, spooks their horses. They
sneak up on a bull elk and shoot it. We see the bull stumble and
begin to drop, followed instantly by a scene where Jack and Ennis
are sitting around a fire, cheerfully gorging on wild elk with
strips of meat drying on a makeshift rack behind them. It might be
the best elk-hunting scene since Jeremiah
Johnson.
Like my long struggle to come to terms
with my homosexuality, I also struggle with my identity as a
hunter. I am sort of an anti-hunter who hunts. Many of the hunters
I know seem caught up in an endless quest to kill the biggest
possible bull or buck with the least possible effort. They tear up
the land with off-road vehicles, spend fortunes on gadgets,
routinely take shots at distances that show no respect for either
themselves or their quarry, and curse the wolves for eating all
“their” elk and deer.
I love wild meat, bloody rare, and
I have also come to cherish wildlife and the wild places it needs
to roam. I have worked or volunteered most of my life for
nonprofits that strive to protect what little wildness remains. I
spend a lot of time alone in elk country, hunting, fishing,
backpacking, snowshoeing and backcountry skiing. There is always
the rare chance a mountain lion or grizzly might judge me a decent
feast, but no wild animal seems to care who I choose to sleep with.
I occasionally surf a chat room, where fellow bowhunters
often post rants against liberals, wolves, grizzlies and
tree-huggers. For fun, I posted a new thread: Brokeback
Mountain: Best elk-hunting movie? Since folks on this
site often and justly complain of poor Hollywood depictions of
hunting, I mentioned that here was a good, positive portrayal.
The response didn’t really surprise me. People with
screen names like Terminator, Sewer Rat, Bearman and ElkSlayer
wrote that “No queers could really hunt elk,” “Elk are too majestic
an animal to be killed by faggots,” “Imagine a gay elk camp: guys
would worry that camouflage made them look fat.” Bible-thumpers
chimed in, quoting all the anti-gay gospel they could muster; one
claiming that “No good, God-fearing Wyoming cowboy would engage in
homosexual behavior.”
I finally asked if anybody had seen
the movie. Most said they would never watch it. Since I had seen
it, one guy said he sure did wonder about me. Another called the
movie Hollywood propaganda to promote a liberal, homosexual
lifestyle.
If that’s the case, someone in Hollywood
failed. The movie, like the book, is a heartbreaking depiction of
being gay. It goes to the heart of the fear and prejudice that lead
to so many desperate, unfulfilling lives.
Brokeback may change some minds, but I hold no
illusions that my fellow bowhunters or most rural Westerners will
ever accept me — a gay, wolf-loving, tree-hugging former
Marine, even if I do like to hunt elk.
Then again, who
knows? Perhaps when the DVD is released, a few might sneak it home,
secretly watch it when no one is around, and face their own
internal turmoil. For now, fortunately, there still exist remote,
wild places where a man like me can still roam and sit around a
fire, eating wild elk.
David Stalling is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He is the
former conservation editor of Bugle magazine, published by the
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and lives in Missoula,
Montana.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
