It’s been 20 years since the classic gay Western Brokeback Mountain hit theaters, and we’re still not over it. In 2005, when homophobia was everywhere and good faith queer representation was almost nowhere, the film—adapted from the Annie Proulx story of the same name—gave queer people an earnest, loving portrait of a same-sex relationship, even if it did come to a tragic end for both men.
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There’s a reason that the saga of Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar continues to capture hearts and minds even 20 years later. The film that brought so many of us out of the closet as since spawned a play, a collection of essays, and many, many imitations. Because of that legacy—and the 20th anniversary—the film is now back in select theaters, and the gays are flocking to see it on the big screen. But there’s a catch.
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Films like Brokeback Mountain can become a victim of their own success as they age, and this is exactly the phenomenon we’re seeing with this theatrical re-release. Because of the film’s extreme memeability—coupled with the fact that many younger queer people encountered the film through memes first—audiences are apparently laughing at the film’s most serious (and meme-ified) moments, such as the famous “I can’t quit you” scene or the moment when Michelle Williams sees Jack and Ennis’s illicit kiss through the window.
Needless to say, the gays are feeling a certain way about this.
“I find it really sad that 20 years later…we have nosedived back into another super conservative, homophobic era. And now with the film coming out in theaters, people are laughing in the theater, laughing at the scenes that have been meme-ed to death,” reports TikToker @maladita.
“They’ve released Brokeback Mountain in theaters,” says TikToker @dandrewilcox, “but I hear y’all in there laughing? What’s funny? ‘Cuz I don’t play about Jack nor Ennis.”
Listen, it’s not that the film doesn’t have camp appeal. But if the laughers in question knew how much Brokeback Mountain meant to the community in the barren landscape of 2005, they’d put more respect on the film’s name!
Obviously there are many important queer films that have aged poorly, or stike us as comically old-fashioned today. But Brokeback Mountain remains an earnest, painful story that, despite its memeability, still has the power to move us. So the laughing is…not it.
“I still find myself crying at inopportune times,” wrote one anonymous entry in the 2007 collection Beyond Brokeback. “Months after seeing the film, I still wake up most mornings hearing the music of the film or seeing Jack or Ennis. This hit me particularly hard one day when, in the first waking moment, I saw the face of Jack, broken, defeated, and resigned as he watched Ennis drive out of his life for the last time. No ‘Good-bye.’ No ‘See you in November.’ No ‘I love you.’ I spent the day paralyzed by heartache and tears.”
Look, everyone has their own complex response to powerful art, and it’s possible to find humorous moments in the film while still appreciating it as a dramatic story. Just know that in a different time, Jack and Ennis meant more to us than anyone who didn’t live through it can ever know.
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