Brokaback Mountain/God's Own Country

Brokeback Mountain and God's Own Country - Two Moments in Gay Liberation

 Two romances between two men in the isolation of nature. One in the 1960s in the mountains of Wyoming, the other in the modern days on the hills of Yorkshire. Two similar stories, two different periods, two different outcomes. Brokeback Mountain and God's Own Country are two films whose similarities are undeniable and they reveal and reflect two different moments in the history of gay liberation, and this is what I'll be trying to get at in this article. It's important to point out the fact that these two stories are about working-class people, which are the ones whose stories most reflect the social oppression of society. Through these two stories and the comparison between the two, we are able to understand the differences between the two periods they are set in and how gay liberation has progressed through the years.

In Brokeback Mountain, we start when Ennis and Jack - played, respectively, by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal - are hired to herd sheep through the Summer of 1963 in the Wyoming mountain. During their time there, in the isolation of the mountains, they slowly grow closer, developing a friendship that, after a drunken night, deepens into something stronger and effervescent. Set during Spring, God's Own Country starts by following the life of Johnny Saxby - played by Josh O'Connor - who, alone and frustrated in his life, numbs his pain with casual sex and binge drinking, until the arrival of Gheorghe - played by Alec Secareanu - a Romanian migrant worker hired as a helping hand during lambing season, When the young men depart to the isolated hills where the sheep are, they start developing feelings towards each other and their relationship blooms like the wildflowers in the fields around them.

 Both films have almost identical first parts, plotwise. Both films have the leads going to an isolated area to do some kind of (sheep related) work where their relationship is allowed to develop. The isolated natural landscapes are like a separate idyllic world where any kind of love can flourish. It's a safe space where the two men can discover themselves and fall in love without being tainted by homophobia. Both the mountains of Wyoming and the hills of Yorkshire are a representation of a queer paradise - a world where oppression is non-existent and freedom of expression and love exist. It's also, paradoxically, a place where they don't feel the isolation and loneliness they feel in the non-isolation of society. It's in an isolated natural place that they are able to find someone that fulfills them.

 Where both films differ is in what comes after the inevitable end of this idyllic utopia, and in that comparison lies that different state of gay liberation that the two films represent.

 While in Brokeback Mountain the two men aren't able to deal with their emotions after the Summer comes to an end and they have to return, something associated with traumatic experiences that they suffered - Ennis witnessed the killing of a man accused of being a homosexual - they separate and go back to a heteronormative lifestyle, in God's Own Country both men are able to transport their romance to the farm when they return, even if they keep their affair on the backs of Johnny's family. This shows two very different aspects of the two romances. While we see a heartbreaking impossibility in the romance between Jack and Ennis, we see a greater possibility in the romance between Johnny and Gheorghe, not only because of outside factors but also because of inner factors. While Johnny and Gheorghe seem to have a greater understanding of their emotions towards each other, in Jack's and Ennis's case, their emotions create a struggle and conflict inside them because of much stronger repression of feelings they have imposed on themselves due to the homophobia they have always been subjected to. Johnny and Gheorghe live in a time where homosexuality has been decriminalized in the UK and there is a generalized greater understanding of gay relationships, while Jack and Ennis live in a time where there is still a lot of ignorance about people like them, limiting the potential of their relationship. While there is an inner dilemma in the relationship between Ennis and Jack, that dilemma is much fainter between Johnny and Gheorghe, although it still exists, as they worry about what would happen if Gheorghe started living with Johnny.

 Going back to the plot of Brokeback Mountain, four years pass with both men separate. They have married and had children. However, they both feel that hollow incomplete space inside themselves and long for each other. And so, they plan reunions and "fishing trips", going back to that isolated paradise, a sort of continued dream. Yet, they need to always go back to their families, and that starts to wear them down through the years. This reveals the reality of the bond that their relationship has with that isolated paradise and the impossibility of its survival outside of it. They have built a life (or rather a shield) around them under the social constraints they live, and the tragic end comes because of the impossibility of living without that heteronormative shield, coming as an inevitability- and it's certainly one of the most heartbreaking endings of any film because of this. It's a story of impossible love that is only impossible due to the prejudices of a heteronormative society. And that's what contrasts with the other story of this article.

 What is interesting about God's Own Country is how it plays with rom-com tropes to tell the story of this working-class romance (it's worth to point out that 99% of all rom-coms are about relationships between straight bourgeois white people and that using the tropes of this genre to tell the story of a gay working-class relationship is a bold thing to do). After the few days that they spend together in the isolated hills where their relationship blossoms, they return to Johnny's family's farm. There is a "honeymoon phase" where the men are able to transport their romance away from the isolated paradise of the hills, although secretively. After a drunken night in the local pub, Johnny commits the classical "mistake" trope, having sex with another man in the pub's bathroom, betraying Gheorghe's trust, making him leave him. Realizing that his love for Gheorghe is too ardent and he cannot live without him, Johnny goes on a trip to win him back. He shows up on the farm where Gheorghe works and, after a deeply moving "declaration of love" scene, he is successful in winning him back. We see them return to the farm and our heart turns to mush with how beautiful everything is. We get a happy ending, just like in the classical rom-com genre, but in a deeply complex romantic drama about a gay relationship. Instead of a tragedy where queer love finds a wall of homophobia that keeps it from achieving itself freely, we see the two men entering their home together as a couple, facing the future ahead of them together. And through the use of this familiar rom-com plotline, the promise of gay love is equaled to the promise of straight love.
 It's important to note the reaction that straight people have when they find out about the relationship between the two men in each film. When Ennis's wife accidentally sees him kissing Jack, she is distraught and files for divorce - although I see it more as her feeling betrayed, and not necessarily a sign of homophobia. In a similar way, when the man who hired them for the job of herding sheep observes them in the mountains, he refuses to hire Jack back in the next Summer when he returns seeking work. On the other hand, when Johnny's grandmother finds the clothes of both men and a condom in his room she has trouble dealing with the affair that she realizes that they are having but, in her own way, she accepts it because she sees how Gheorghe completes Johnny. His father, who observes both men while they are working, seems to suspect about their relationship, yet he accepts it when Johnny asks him permission to get Gheorghe back. While in Brokeback Mountain we see an inflexible and intolerant society, in God's Own Country straight people are more willing to accept a relationship that doesn't go according to the heterosexual norm, showing a shift in society. Where Brokeback Mountain reflects on a time where homophobic oppression of heteronormativity made gay love a utopic impossibility, God's Own Country reflects a time where love is liberated and gay love is no longer a utopia.
 Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain is a deeply heartbreaking and exquisitely made important commentary on the oppression that queer love faced and still faces around the world, and may always be under the threat of facing (something always important to not forget), and God's Own Country is a hopeful look at a bright future where any kind of love can flourish. The mountains and hills are a symbol of an idyllic world that is separate from the oppressive reality of heteronormativity, but Francis Lee's film shows us hope that that world can be brought into our society and that we can transform it into a better, freer one.
 These are the two moments of gay liberation that the two films reflect: one where gay love is shackled and another where it's set free. It's no coincidence that God's Own Country is set during Spring - it's a cinematic representation of a "Queer Spring". It's the promise of a future where love is allowed to grow and flourish in all its totality and diversity, driving hatred away.