Screening the unspeakable: The representation of gender/sex roles and same-sex love in Brokeback Mountain

This study reports a critical discourse analysis of the representation of gender roles and queer sexuality in the film Brokeback Mountain (2005). Semiotic choices were analyzed in six film scenes in terms of categories from the Systemic-Functional Grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), the framework for the representation of social actors (van Leeuwen, 2008) and the Grammar of Visual Design (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). The semiotic choices analyzed, such as types of processes used in the characters' speech, indicate that Ennis del Mar, who plays the role of the penetrator (top), embodies a hegemonic ideal of masculinity, whereas Jack, who plays the role of the penetrated (bottom), embodies certain aspects often associated to femininity. This binary relationship between the characters therefore produces a heteronormative view of male gay sexuality. In addition, the use of indirect references to gay sex, and personal and demonstrative pronouns produce an effect of "the unspeakable" regarding the main characters' homoerotic relationship in accordance to the context in which the narrative is framed - the conservative, homophobic North-American southern society in the 1960's. Brokeback Mountain thus represents the (still) taboo nature of male homosexual love and desire in many contemporary societies.