How Brokeback Affected Me--continued

[killersmom]

Well said.  but are we done? V.

Not yet!!

[B.W.]

On March 13, 2006 I read this article in the NY Times. 15 minutes later I joined the forum.

Upset 'Brokeback' Fans Advertise Their Feelings

By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: March 13, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/business/media/13brokeback.html?_r=0

I think it's so cool that the members of this forum did something like this. I don't think that I have ever really seen such a passionate fan response to a film before.  I certainly think that the cast and crew of "Brokeback Mountain" must have appreciated it.

[gattaca]

Yes, this was "magical" as Linda says.  We members came together to right a most awful wrong unlike has been done before (or since).   V. 

[magicmountain]

Question: Given the emotional upheaval many experienced on viewing/reading BBM, should this film/story have come with a trigger warning?

[Sara B]

And if yes, how should the warning have been worded?

[magicmountain]

And if yes, how should the warning have been worded?

For a start "Brokeback Fever" could involve the following:

Symptoms include obsessive thinking about the movie/story, disturbed sleep patterns, weeping/sobbing, and a need to discuss it endlessly with family, friends, and coworkers.

Some have reported physical symptoms, including aching joints, throbbing head, and a mild depression that can last for hours or days.

Additional symptoms that have been identified include obsessive reading about the movie (reviews, interviews, etc), listening to the soundtrack repeatedly, and a desire to write fan letters to authors Proulx, Ossana, and McMurtry, director Ang Lee, and stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway.

http://nursing.advanceweb.com/Article/Brokeback-Fever.aspx

I myself experienced obsessive thinking, depressed emotions and a compulsive need to discuss the movie on this forum. These reactions lasted for months on end.

[Sason]

I've never seen that article before.

Thanks for posting it, MM!

As for your question, my answer would be no. I've never heard anyone regret they ever saw they movie, quite the contrary.

[Sara B]

I know of many who were untouched by it and one or two who didn't like it, but none who regretted seeing it.

I think I had most of those symptoms. Not depression though - it was more like being in love, though touched by a deep sadness and grieving (it was soon after Heath had died). I didn't have any physical aches, but it certainly affected my sleep, and I noticed that I tended to breathe too fast much of the time - an anxiety state, I suppose. Certainly very emotional and easily moved to tears, though not in a bad way...

And desperate to talk about it - and I was amazed to find that others felt the same way.

[magicmountain]

it was more like being in love, though touched by a deep sadness and grieving

Snap. Some of what I wrote at the time:

"You are filled with grief and longing, which maddens you because you don't know where to put these feelings or what to do with them. It's like being in love - hopelessly in love - with someone or something out of reach."

[magicmountain]

Thanks for posting it, MM!

A pleasure Sason.

[Sara B]

Snap. Some of what I wrote at the time:

"You are filled with grief and longing, which maddens you because you don't know where to put these feelings or what to do with them. It's like being in love - hopelessly in love - with someone or something out of reach."

Yes, exactly!

[One'senough]

"You are filled with grief and longing, which maddens you because you don't know where to put these feelings or what to do with them. It's like being in love - hopelessly in love - with someone or something out of reach."

This is it exactly. And nine years after the rest of the world had seen it!

[suelyblu]

                                                                ^^

I'm still shell shocked. All these feelings and don't know what to do with them or where to go with them.
I move through my days in a kind of haze. Even after 10 years.....I'm feel I'm reaching out for something that is
out of reach and that perhaps...... doesn't even exist. 

[magicmountain]

reaching out for something that is out of reach

Just a thought. I have an interest in sufism and its mystics have long written about the longing experienced by an "awakened heart" - stating "the heart longs for God, and seeks to find its true Beloved".

One of them, a woman named Rabia, wrote:

The source of my grief and loneliness is deep in my breast.
This is a disease no doctor can cure.
Only union with the Friend can cure it.

IMO somehow and in some way this movie subtly reflected this theme through the story of Ennis and Jack - "awakening hearts" in people who, like us in this post religious age, "don't know where to put these feelings or what to do with them".

[Sason]

That's an interesting interpretation, MM.

For me, those extremely intense feelings have slowly subsided with time.

Thankfully, because they took over my life and made me quite dysfunctional to the point where I couldn't go to work.

OTOH, I also miss that time. The raw emotions and intensity of it all made me feel alive in a strange way.