What Brokeback Mountain Says about Literature

A Writer’s Take
I mentioned that perhaps a moral compunction to homosexuality may have stopped Brokeback from winning Best Picture this year. Larry McMurtry, famous contemporary Western writer who shared an award with Diana Ossana for adapting Annie Proulx’s short story into the screenplay, has brought up quite a different reason for Brokeback’s loss that I wouldn’t have thought of: urban bias.

In a nutshell, McMurtry claimed there’s little understanding or appreciation for rural stories. I immediately wondered what that means for literature. I question if the Western novel can stand up to the changes of contemporary society.

A Scholar’s Take
I did find a relevant article titled “The American West and Its Historians” by Professor Richard Etulain in The Bulletin of the Historical Society (Boston University).

Professor Etulain maintains:

"The social and cultural complexities of the late 1990s have encouraged a more complete view of the West. That an alternative view of the American West has cycled into view in the past few years is not surprising. Shifting historical interpretations of the West have always been revealing evidences of socio-cultural transformations in the region."

The long and the short of it is that literature from the West is changing as culture changes. We don’t have to fear extinction—just expect adaptation.