‘Brokeback Mountain’ critique missed point

Re “Giving the lie to five Oscar pics,” Current, Feb. 26

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez may have read the screenplay of “Brokeback Mountain,” but I am not sure she has read Annie Proulx’s story. I have been discussing it with my students since it was included in the O. Henry Prize Stories in 1998, and I can find nothing to corroborate Valdes-Rodriguez’s insistence that Ennis Del Mar and his wife, Alma, are Latino.

Calling “Brokeback Mountain” a movie about Latinos is as misguided as calling it a movie about gay cowboys. There is nothing in Proulx’s story to suggest that Jack Twist and Del Mar are homosexual. They never wanted to have sex with other men before they met each other. They just fall in love, and the significance of Proulx’s story is that when people love each other, gender is irrelevant.

CHARLES E. MAY

Garden Grove

*

As a gay man, I feel compelled to respond to Valdes-Rodriguez’s assessment of “Brokeback Mountain.” Yes, it would have been great if a Latino actor had played Del Mar. But it would have been even better if at least one of the lead characters had been played by a gay actor. The gay relationship is what drove the plot of the movie, not the characters’ ethnicities. Director Ang Lee and the producers faced an uphill battle when they cast “Brokeback Mountain.” Few established actors have the guts to take on a gay role.

SCOTT GUTMAN

West Hollywood