Annie Proulx lays the smackdown on overzealous "Brokeback Mountain" fans

Brokeback Mountain stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger

A few years back, Brokeback Mountain was all the rage, doing record-breaking box office for a gay-themed movie, winning countless awards (although, controversially, not that Best Picture Oscar), and finally showcasing the true talent of the late Heath Ledger, who had previously been squandering them on teen movies and horror genre fare.

The film also captured the minds of many who seem to have taken its ambiguous ending as a starting point for a great deal of fan-fiction. Brokeback slash fic can be seen all over the internet,and ranges from heartwarming (Jack returns to Ennis and they live happily ever after, awwwww) to sensual (extended and, um, detailed descriptions of their many trysts at that mountain).

However, after hearing the recent statements from author Annie Proulx on the fan-fiction she receives, it sounds as if she may want to take a tire iron to all those aspiring writers.  In a interview with the Washington Post's Bob Hughes to promote her newest short-story collection Fine the Way It Is (snap!), Proulx describes the Brokeback Mountain phenomenon as ”the source of constant irritation in my private life”, and then proceeds (as only a writer can do) to lay the verbal smackdown on the “ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites” she is sent by overzealous fans who dare attempt to extend the story.

While these two quotes are snarky enough, they don’t do the deliciousness of the full response justice, so I’ve included it here for you:

WSJ: What effect did the success of Brokeback Mountain have on your writing life, if any?

Proulx: Brokeback Mountain has had little effect on my writing life, but is the source of constant irritation in my private life. There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story. They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and applause for "fixing" the story. They certainly don't get the message that if you can't fix it you've got to stand it. Most of these "fix-it" tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men's children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, "I'm not gay but…." They do not understand the original story, they know nothing of copyright infringement—i.e., that the characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property—and, beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can. They have not a clue that the original Brokeback Mountain was part of a collection of stories about Wyoming exploring mores and myths. The general impression I get is that they are bouncing off the film, not the story. There's more, but that is enough, ok?

There you have it, folks.  In laymen’s terms, stay away from the woman’s intellectual property.  Or, if you suddenly find yourself consumed with the burning desire to continue the story of Ennis and his ill-fated Jack, send it to one of the 3,526 Brokeback Mountain fan-fiction sites, start a writing group, read it to your boyfriend in bed, but for the love of God, don’t send it to her.  She might not like it.