Brokeback Mountain Psychology

When a man came into power, it was because of his merits and hard work. When a women came into power, it was pure luck or because of a man. Patriarchy was a societal issue in the early nineteenth century and is still prevalent today in the twenty-first century with men holding the authority over women on average in life. Patriarchy is defined as a society arranged to make sure that final social and political power disproportionately rests with males. Given the traditional gender roles set in America’s early nineteenth century patriarchy, both men and women's attitudes towards sexuality were thoroughly twisted and used to oppress women while valuing men, and slavery magnified the patriarchy’s worst aspects like sexual violence.

“Go Carolina” by David Sedaris hits on a very important and meaningful problem in today’s world: Society doesn’t determine what, or who, someone should be. Using subtle word choice, tone, characterization, and structure, Sedaris paints a vivid image in the reader's mind about the world this story takes place in, as well as how judging and harsh society could be. David and other homosexuals are “rejected” and “shunned” by them in a way; in one instance, David explains, “You could turn up your nose at the president or Coke or even God, but there are words for boys who didn’t like sports” (19). David summarizes this later in the book more explicitly: “anything worth doing turned out to be a girl thing” (24). These simple yet imperative sentences

Over the course of America's history, the gender role for men and women has evolved. Since the beginning of time, men have played the dominant role in nearly every culture around the world, including the United States. The men during the seventeenth century were dominant figures who earned money to take care of themselves and their families. Women on the other hand, were the ones who were in the home taking care of the children, cooking, and cleaning. When the Gold Rush occurred in 1849, not only was society changing, but the roles of both men and women were rapidly changing as well. The effects of gender role determined the way that society was running. When this sudden change of gender role started to change, society started to run much

Moses Kaufman is the producer of the successful play “The Laramie Project” after a horrific incident that occurred in Laramie. Members of the artistic group of Kaufman 's, traveled to Laramie to find out more about the horrific incidence. The main aim of the whole project was to find the emotions, reactions, and reflections that the people of Laramie manifested concerning the beating and subsequent death of a twenty-three-year-old college student (Gale, 2016). A lot of questions were raised concerning the death as people had different point of views. Some thought it was a hate crime, others thought it was just a brutal assault or a form of robbery. Four hundred interviews were conducted so as to come up with the reasons behind the brutal murder straight from the town folks. The main issue was how homosexuality was defined in the crime. The Laramie Project, questioned the rights of the LGBT+ group. For example, why were Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgenders discriminated by the community and the society as a whole even though their rights were constitutional?

Laramie, WY, is a modest town which became ignominious overnight in the fall of 1998, when Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was found tied to a fence after being callously beaten and left to die, setting off a nationwide dispute about homophobia and hate crimes. My reaction to this moment in time initially is horror and shock that people did and do these unspeakable acts to their fellow human. However, I can also appreciate the many different views that were portrayed in the film.

Food and Drug Association agents on one side, desperately sick people on the other. Anyone would normally think these two groups would be on the same page but this was the scene for many buyers’ clubs around the nation in the late 80’s and early 90’s as the HIV/AIDS crisis took ahold of America and what inspired the movie Dallas Buyers Club. The movie is based on the story of AIDS patient Ron Woodroof, who was described as “handsome, in a Texas dumb hick white trash kinda way” by his transgender sidekick, Rayon, and his pursuit to live despite the fact that the only drug approved by the FDA to fight AIDS is actually killing patients. The growth of buyers’ clubs proves that in a time where AIDS victims

The American lifestyle from the early days of settlement until the 1900s can be summed up simply in one quote; “America holds that every association must have a head in order to accomplish its object and that the natural conjugation is a man” ( “How Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes) Up until the 1900s, the typical American man was depicted as conquering the workplace, politics and dominating at home, while women were forced to tend to their homely duties, Woman  had no rights and nor did any other human who was not a white male. While reading and interpreting Alexis de Toquevilles “How Americans Understand the Quality of Sexes 1840s” and Elizabeth Caddy Santon The Declaration of Sentiments we are able to see the similarities

I have recently watched the movie called “The Laramie Project.” The Laramie project is about a young gay student named Matthew Sheppard, who was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming by two boys from the town named, Aaron McKinley and Russell Henderson. The evidence and testimonies from the case suggested that Matthew was attacked, because of his sexuality as a gay man. Matthew was beaten, tied to a fence and left dead in Laramie, Wyoming in 1988. This movie captures the reaction of the murder and draws on hundreds of interviews conducted by the theatre company with the inhabitants of the town, company members, own journal entries, and published news reports. After watching this movie, I reflected on my own perspectives and thoughts about a few issues in the movie, such as hate crime, the phrase “Live and Let Live,” and “flaunting it.”

“The Laramie Project” is a production that was created to addressed the cruel murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard who lived in a small town of Laramie, Wyoming. Due to this critical situation that occurred, the state of Wyoming suffered from major judgements from other states in the U.S and countries around the world. Laramie, had demonstrated stereotypical actions and discrimination towards the gay community, due to the people who had killed Matthew being homophobic. When the incident occur in 1998, the legislative had not introduced the end to anti- discrimination for the society, but is now introduced this year, 2017(King, 2017). Sexual prejudice includes stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination based on ones’ sexual identity or behavior, in which this term can relate to what occurred in the small town of Laramie, Wyoming (Blaine, pg. 163).

In American history, when men had much more power and rights than women did, women were viewed as men's property. This meant that the men didn’t really view the women as their wives, partners, or equals. Instead the women were an object there to be handled however the men saw fit. Much like The Mask You Live In, Violence: An American Tradition also explored the relationship between men, masculinity, and violence.

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian both challenge the traditional societal views of masculinity in the Western genre. Brokeback Mountain depicts two cowboys involved in a homosexual relationship, focusing on coupling the opposing themes of homosexuality and masculinity. On the other hand, Blood Meridian introduces the reader to the Kid, who courageously establishes his own masculinity outside of the Judge’s hypermasculine and traditional Western philosophy. Brokeback Mountain and Blood Meridian are both classified as Westerns. The Western is a beloved American genre that features the quintessential cowboy hero.

Erving Goffman maintained that negative labels are often stigmatizing. He believed that stigmas result in a “spoiled identity.” Goffman coined the term stigma to describe the labels society uses to devalue members of certain social groups (pg. 107). He identified three categories or types of stigmas: abominations of the body, blemishes of individual character, and tribal. When a person became aware of a certain stigma they had been labeled to, Goffman noted three ways to manage it: hide the stigma, distance themselves from the stigma or try to correct it, and embrace or accept the stigma. The movie Dallas Buyers Club offers a chance to see several stigmas brought to light, and the way that each was handled. For instance there are examples of HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, feminism, and criminal activity that are prevalent and shape the way the movie is organized.

The image of the Old West as been depicted by Eastern writers shows a certain demand for male audiences. During the early 20th century, the emergence and necessity of American masculinity was driven in part by the industrialized Eastern frontier. Because of the newly industrialized world, audiences believed that the Western frontier could potentially regain and re-establish a diminishing manhood. This manhood, with respect to Western literature, was a construction of dominant, sexual physique as well as assertive intuition and action. This new establishment—in the form of virility—would be expressed in a more adventurous life with assertive patriotism. The loss of the Western frontier culture was depicted by these Easterner writers as a departure of American exceptionalism. The Eastern front and its modern, industrialized being became too much for the decaying Western world to withstand.

The raison d’etre of the Western is arguably to celebrate masculinity, but Brokeback Mountain is a revisionary Western that challenges definitions of masculinity. Discuss this statement with reference to Jane Marie Gaines’s and Charlotte Cornelia Herzog’s comments on the homoeroticism of the Western.

Brokeback Mountain is a short story written by Annie Proulx in 1997, which portrayed two Wyoming ranchers, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, engaged in a homosexual relationship that started in the 60’s and lasted through the 80’s. This short story gave people a different look into the cowboy society and how the rugged men of the frontier possibly sought out love and affection.