New York Times critic Manohla Dargis has explained better than anyone else why Brokeback Mountain and Heath Ledger’s hurtin’ cowboy are connecting all over: “It’s partly because [Ledger’s] character in Ang Lee’s romantic tragedy, Ennis Del Mar, represents a kind of impacted masculinity that a lot of us recognize: I don’t know a single straight woman who hasn’t been involved with a man as emotionally thwarted as Ennis, the man who can’t tell you how he feels because he may not honestly know. And because the film is, in many respects, about how difficult it is to live in a culture that punishes men who give the appearance of being too soft, too weak and too feminine, I imagine that a lot of men, gay and straight, recognize Ennis, too.”
