An article was forwarded to me today that I couldn't help but comment on: this piece, which examines part of an interview with Annie Proulx, author of "Brokeback Mountain."
The main takeaway: Annie Proulx wishes she had never written "Brokeback."
The whole interview (found here) is actually very fascinating and informative, but the "I wish I'd never written it" comment is so interesting that it really warrants some analysis.
In summary--an incredibly dangerous phrase, I know--Proulx states that "Brokeback" has caused many problems because so many people misunderstood the story. They can't stand that it doesn't have a happy ending, so they rewrote it to have one. In a phrase most elegant: "They can't understand that the story isn't about Jack and Ennis. It's about homophobia; it's about a social situation; it's about a place and a particular mindset and morality."
This remark is really admirable. Proulx is accurately identifying a societal phenomenon wherein people fail to engage with fiction. We as a society have been raised on simple stories, easy fictions, with happy endings galore, which has of course increased our demand for similar stories, but that also makes our fiction bland and samey. Not only does commercial fiction often fail to engage us on a deeper level; we also lose our ability to engage deeper material ourselves.
This is an utterly horrifying reality, of course, and I appreciate the way Proulx has characterized it. But there is still some contention to be had about the whole "I wish I'd never written it" thing.
Mostly I just think Proulx is missing the forest for the trees here. Lots of people fail to critically engage deep fiction, yes, but the problem isn't her story, it's people's inability to critically engage deep fiction. It's like wishing you weren't gay because society is intolerant of gay people. The problem isn't that you're gay. It's that society is a dick to gay people.
I'm not sure that deep down Proulx truly wishes that she'd never written the story. It strikes me as a very exasperated, spur-of-the-moment thing to say, born not from ill will but from mere exhaustion.
But it does open the doors for some fascinating discussion. Confronting the fact that many people are accustomed to (and in fact seem to demand) easy, laid-back, happy-ending fiction is a scary proposition. It's unarguably a problem that deserves a remedy; books, movies, all the stories we tell, help shape the way we see the world, and I prefer a critical society that leans forward to one that lazily leans back.
At the moment, I'm considering the merits and demerits of what I can only describe as "tricking" people into consuming deeper fiction. Dress it up in the garb of commercial fiction so people will watch/read it, but then--masterfully, carefully--make the story inescapably engaging. I guess I'm of the opinion that there are some stories with which people can't help but engage. It's just not in their nature to seek them out initially.
But there are a lot of other possible solutions out there too.
Thoughts?
(On a final and unrelated note, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Proulx's writing processes, especially that she write her endings first and then writes toward them. I've heard this advice a few times, and it definitely resonates with me.)
The main takeaway: Annie Proulx wishes she had never written "Brokeback."
The whole interview (found here) is actually very fascinating and informative, but the "I wish I'd never written it" comment is so interesting that it really warrants some analysis.
In summary--an incredibly dangerous phrase, I know--Proulx states that "Brokeback" has caused many problems because so many people misunderstood the story. They can't stand that it doesn't have a happy ending, so they rewrote it to have one. In a phrase most elegant: "They can't understand that the story isn't about Jack and Ennis. It's about homophobia; it's about a social situation; it's about a place and a particular mindset and morality."
This remark is really admirable. Proulx is accurately identifying a societal phenomenon wherein people fail to engage with fiction. We as a society have been raised on simple stories, easy fictions, with happy endings galore, which has of course increased our demand for similar stories, but that also makes our fiction bland and samey. Not only does commercial fiction often fail to engage us on a deeper level; we also lose our ability to engage deeper material ourselves.
This is an utterly horrifying reality, of course, and I appreciate the way Proulx has characterized it. But there is still some contention to be had about the whole "I wish I'd never written it" thing.
Mostly I just think Proulx is missing the forest for the trees here. Lots of people fail to critically engage deep fiction, yes, but the problem isn't her story, it's people's inability to critically engage deep fiction. It's like wishing you weren't gay because society is intolerant of gay people. The problem isn't that you're gay. It's that society is a dick to gay people.
I'm not sure that deep down Proulx truly wishes that she'd never written the story. It strikes me as a very exasperated, spur-of-the-moment thing to say, born not from ill will but from mere exhaustion.
But it does open the doors for some fascinating discussion. Confronting the fact that many people are accustomed to (and in fact seem to demand) easy, laid-back, happy-ending fiction is a scary proposition. It's unarguably a problem that deserves a remedy; books, movies, all the stories we tell, help shape the way we see the world, and I prefer a critical society that leans forward to one that lazily leans back.
At the moment, I'm considering the merits and demerits of what I can only describe as "tricking" people into consuming deeper fiction. Dress it up in the garb of commercial fiction so people will watch/read it, but then--masterfully, carefully--make the story inescapably engaging. I guess I'm of the opinion that there are some stories with which people can't help but engage. It's just not in their nature to seek them out initially.
But there are a lot of other possible solutions out there too.
Thoughts?
(On a final and unrelated note, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Proulx's writing processes, especially that she write her endings first and then writes toward them. I've heard this advice a few times, and it definitely resonates with me.)
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