Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy: The Gay Cowboys of 'Brokeback Mountain' Do More Than Eat Pudding

Throughout cinema history, there have been some iconic nude scenes that have transcended the bounds of the films in which they appeared. Our weekly column Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy will take an in-depth look at these scenes, their history, their deeper meanings, and their legacy. This week, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal ascend Brokeback Mountain and break new ground for cinema at the peak!

Back in 1998, the second season of South Park aired an episode titled "Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls" wherein the Sundance Film Festival relocated to the sleepy Colorado hamlet. While many of the townsfolk are excited about the influx of independent cinema, Cartman derides independent films as being about "gay cowboys eating pudding." 7 years later, that statement would prove oddly prophetic with the release of Brokeback Mountain, an independent film about gay cowboys who, in all fairness, are never actually seen eating pudding.

This sort of jokey comparison seemed to haunt the film prior to its release. Would anyone be able to take a movie about gay cowboys seriously? Would this unintentional association with a raunchy comedy series hurt the film's prospects? Could a straight-identifying director and cast accurately portray the gay experience? 15 years on, it's easy to see that outside of the realm of pop culture, the two are barely associated with one another anymore, as Brokeback Mountain turned out to be such a masterpiece that it transcended any sort of jokes made about it at the time. In fact, to this day, it remains the most recent film selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Although Brokeback Mountain was hardly the first "mainstream" film to deal with a gay relationship, it broke ground in so many ways simply by taking its premise as seriously as it would were it a heterosexual love story. Gay characters in film had, for the most part, been supporting players or marginalized background characters, with their relationships not given the same weight and context as their straight counterparts. And while cinema had produced gay love stories in the past, they were never greeted with the almost universal critical and commercial acclaim that Brokeback received.

A tremendous part of the reason the film was as successful as it was lies in the expert craft brought to all aspects of the production. Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana boiled Annie Proulx's short story down to its essence and delivered an enormously well-rounded screenplay, winning themselves an Oscar in the process. Director Ang Lee, who also took home an Oscar, has always been a master of empathy and it shines through in every frame of the film. Heath Ledger gives an absolutely gut-wrenching portrayal of a man fighting his own inner life with every fiber of his being, and his last three words in the film are infused with more emotion than you'll find in all of the combined dialogue of many other actor's performances. Jake Gyllenhaal likewise does career-best work in the film, presenting a man unafraid of his feelings, yet unsure of how to convince his lover to be more like him.

Ledger and Gyllenhaal play, respectively, Ennis and Jack, two ranchers hired to tend a flock of sheep on the titular mountain for the summer of 1963. Ennis is a completely closed off human being, in stark contrast to the more gregarious Jack, which Jack correctly intuits has at least something to do with his inner life of denial. Though Ennis rejects Jack's advances at first, their passions boil over in the tent one night when they give in to their emotions and have rough, animalistic sex. Although there's no nudity in the scene, it still ranks as one of the greatest gay love scenes ever committed to film...

The two men come down off the mountain at the end of the summer and go back to their society-mandated heterosexual relationships, but they reunite once a year to "go fishing." Of course, all of this is a gross oversimplification of the plot, but my assumption is that by now, most of you reading this have seen the film. Box office riches and awards season glory would follow, though the film inexplicably lost the Best Picture Oscar to Crash. Though the film would remain something of a cheap punchline and shorthand for any film with even a perception of latent homosexuality in it for several years, it has since become bigger than any jokes made at its expense, thanks in no small part to the late Heath Ledger himself.

In an interview earlier this year with Another Man Magazine, Gyllenhaal related a story about he and Ledger being asked to appear in the opening montage of the following year's Oscars, poking fun at their roles in the previous year's contender. While Gyllenhaal was game, it was Ledger who put the kibosh on the idea...

“I mean, I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it,” he says. “And Heath refused. I was sort of at the time, ‘Oh, okay... whatever.’ I’m always like: it’s all in good fun. And Heath said, ‘It’s not a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it.’” I say how smart of Ledger that seems, in retrospect. “Absolutely,” says Gyllenhaal. “That’s the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke. Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, ‘No. This is about love. Like, that’s it, man. Like, no.'”

Straight men everywhere take note... That is what an ally looks and sounds like.

Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Manatomy...

Two of History's Manliest Men Wrestle Naked in Women in Love

Ewan McGregor Has Got It, Flaunts It in Velvet Goldmine

A Pair of Stars are Born in Y Tu Mamá También

Harvey Keitel Goes Hog Wild in Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant

Viggo Mortensen is Naked From Every Imaginable Angle in Eastern Promises

There's No Shame is Michael Fassbender's Dick Game

Kevin Bacon Steals the Show Going Full Frontal in Wild Things

How We Met Jason Segel's Dick in Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Jack Reynor is Uniquely Vulnerable for a Man in Midsommar

Jaye Davidson Knows All There is to Know About The Crying Game

David Bowie Battles Rip Torn for Dick Supremacy in The Man Who Fell to Earth

Al Pacino Doesn't Get In All That Deep for William Friedkin's Cruising

John Cameron Mitchell's Ass Gives Hedwig and the Angry Inch the Perfect Ending

Ross Lynch Makes One Sexy Future Serial Killer in My Friend Dahmer

Rocketman Not-So-Boldly Goes Where Bohemian Rhapsody Refused

Color of Night Brings Us the Return of Bruno's Dick

Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu Get Serviced in Bertolucci's 1900

Future Oscar Winner Mark Rylance Gets Real and Really Nude in Intimacy

Louis Garrel Lets It All Hang Out in the French New Wave Biopic Godard Mon Amour

Bronson Makes Tom Hardy and His Uncut Cock a Star

Henry June Ushers in the NC-17 Rating with a Distinct Lack of Parity in Nudity