Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Performing masculinity: queer performance's last frontier in "Brokeback Montain"

2006; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.19177/rcc.v1e220065-7

2179-9865

Carlos Guilherme Hünninghausen,

Cinema and Media Studies

"Brokeback Mountain " goes beyond the frontiers ordinarily established by Hollywood in relation to gender questions. The main reason for this, although quite simple, isn't obvious. Judith Butler writes: the category of gender cannot be understood and referred to as a biological destiny but as a performance which evokes the constitution of gender as a cultural category. Having this in mind, my idea in this paper is to show how every social drama lived out by the main characters in this film are caused by the inability of the heterosexual stage to recognize discreet performances which deviate from its regulatory practices of gender coherence, the "gender as destiny" norm of compulsory heterosexuality. In the specific case of Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar, the main characters in Brokeback Mountain , the attraction, the pleasure and the growing affection for each other as two individuals of the same biological sex.