Writers tend to be split into two camps – those who don’t mind others taking their creations and spinning them into their own fantasies and ideas in whatever direction they wish (within limits), and those who are very protective and get frustrated by other people’s ‘incorrect’ interpretations and extrapolations.
It appears Brokeback Mountain author Annie Proulx is one of the latter, as in a recent interview she’s suggested she wishes she’d never written the story, due to how obsessives fans have reacted to it, particularly since her acclaimed short story was turned into a movie.
Talking to Paris Review, she says, ‘I wish I’d never written the story. It’s just been the cause of hassle and problems and irritation since the film came out. Before the film it was all right… In Wyoming they won’t read it. A large section of the population is still outraged. But that’s not where the problem was. I’m used to that response from people here, who generally do not like the way I write. But the problem has come since the film. So many people have completely misunderstood the story. I think it’s important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience, but unfortunately the audience that “Brokeback” reached most strongly have powerful fantasy lives. And one of the reasons we keep the gates locked here is that a lot of men have decided that the story should have had a happy ending. They can’t bear the way it ends—they just can’t stand it. So they rewrite the story, including all kinds of boyfriends and new lovers and so forth after Jack is killed. And it just drives me wild. 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. They just don’t get it. I can’t tell you how many of these things have been sent to me as though they’re expecting me to say, Oh great, if only I’d had the sense to write it that way. And they all begin the same way—I’m not gay, but . . . The implication is that because they’re men they understand much better than I how these people would have behaved. And maybe they do. But that’s not the story I wrote. Those are not their characters. The characters belong to me by law.’
You would think a writer would be happy their work has had such a profound effect of their audience, but for Proulx there’s obviously more to it than that. If you read the entire interview though, Proulx does come across as rather crochety and, to be honest, a little snobby, so perhaps it’s understandable that she doesn’t like others to interpret her work too much.
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