Brokeback Mountain Shirts the Stuff of Film Legendry

by Michael A. Jones

categories: LGBT Entertainment, LGBT History

Published August 19, 2009 @ 06:11AM PT

Like that sled from "Citizen Kane," or those slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," or even those sabers from "Star Wars," the cowboy shirts from Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" have just been established as film props destined for eternal reverance.  How so?  By being installed at the Gene Autry National Center of the American West, a museum dedicated to "exhibit and interpret" the heritage of the American West.

This is seemingly a small thing, but underneath the surface it's a really cool step.  As Mike Szymanski writes for examiner.com, the Autry National Center is known for its more manly and macho images of cowboy culture.  The fact that the museum will now be displaying the two shirts worn by actors Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal mark a breakthrough for LGBT film history, and the crippling of a stereotype that says the American West is for straight people.

For their own part, the Autry National Center issued a press release saying much of the same thing.  "The iconic shirts are at the center of the Contemporary Westerns case in order to highlight Brokeback Mountain's significance in keeping the Western genre alive and thriving in the new millennium, and also to spotlight the LGBT community's struggle for safety and inclusion in the rural, Western communities from where many originate yet often feel forced to abandon," said the Center.

Actor and art collector Tom Gregory, who originally purchased the shirts at auction and has lent them to the Center, took it a step further, and said that these two shirts represent much more than just film props.  According to Gregory, this two shirts are the "ruby slippers" of our time. "These shirts are a visual representation of love. Two shirts intertwined, stained and soiled with mud and the life-blood of Brokeback Mountain, where exhilaration soared for two men who found a deep, passionate, and reverent love with one another, a love that they were never allowed to live," said Gregory during the installation of the shirts. "These shirts have become the only tangible reference point for millions who have been touched by Annie Proulx’s story and Ang Lee’s film, including the hundreds of men and women who sent me e-mails and letters emoting for their long lost same-sex love."

And truth be told, Gregory is right.  How many of us were able to hold back the emotions during that last scene, where in the closet of Heath Ledger's character hangs his lover's shirt?

I'll still never understand how Brokeback Mountain didn't win the Best Picture.  But kudos to the Autry Center for underscoring the importance of this film, both for the LGBT population and for the American West.