Brokeback Mountain's girl problem

What's with the marketing for Brokeback Mountain focusing so much on the wives? Anne Hathaway has like two scenes in the movie (one of which is a tearjerker doozie, it's true), yet her cowgirl photo illustrates every single movie review I've read (with the notable exception of the review in the Times, where Gay-O Scott presides).

This is every editor's favorite photo, from when she aggressively seduces Jack/Jake at a rodeo. Yes, the hot chick from The Princess Diaries shows her boobies as she rides Jake Gyllenhaal in the back of a Buick. Maybe that caught film reviewer's attention. But other than that and the penultimate death scene, she's basically a hair model in the background of a couple domestic scenes.

The film slavishly follows the short story, down to every bit of dialogue, every stray gesture, except for the way it portrays the wives. The only scenes added in the film that were not in the short story were new scenes with the wives. This is what Hathaway told me in an interview in this month's V Magazine:

V: The film hews very closely to the short story, with the conspicuous exception of your character. Why do you think it was important to flesh out Lureen?

AW: It’s important to provide a counterpoint to Jack’s obsession with Brokeback Mountain. At center stage is that obsession and all these different moments [involving his inability to pursue their relationship openly] that rob him a little of his soul. That’s why it’s important to create a home life for Jack, to make all that even more pressing. You don’t see too much of Lureen, just glimpses. In her last scene you realize how deep she goes. It makes you think about Alma and Alma, Jr. [Ennis’s wife and daughter] and all the women affected by these men, how their choices robbed the women of happiness, too, and all the lives they touched.

Fair enough, but there's something stinky about it.

Finally, I'm sorry but why does every review have to mention that Michelle Williams had sex with Heath Ledger throughout the film shoot? OK, we get it, Heath can't actually stand the dick.

Kind of pathetic, don't you think?


Other posts about Brokeback:
Bi Shepherds, Not Gay Cowboys
Text of Story
Best of Left Behinds 2005
Anne Hathaway Interview

Tags: brokeback mountain,films, movies, gay cowboys, gay