Heath Ledger Hated Gay Jokes About 'Brokeback Mountain,' Jake Gyllenhaal Says
Brokeback Mountain is most remembered for its groundbreaking portrayal of a same-sex relationship.
However, some late night hosts made fun of the relationship between cowboys Ennis and Jack.
Jake Gyllenhaal says that Heath Ledger didn't like the jokes and he was protective of the movie.
Brokeback Mountain was a groundbreaking movie for many reasons—it was nominated for the most Oscars at the 78th Academy Awards, and it ended up winning three Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.
However, the movie is most notable for its portrayal of the relationship between cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. At the time, there hadn't been many mainstream movies about same-sex relationships, and the sensitive and emotional relationship between Ennis and Jack marked a new, positive wave in the telling of LGBTQ+ stories.
But despite this, the movie was also at the receiving end of some pretty cruel jokes, and the jokes affected the movie's stars, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Yahoo reports that in an interview on Sunday Today, Gyllenhaal said that Ledger was "protective" of the movie, and he didn't like the insensitive jokes.
Now 15 years on from the groundbreaking movie, Gyllenhaal explained, "I see people who have joked with me or criticized me about lines I say in that movie—and that's the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke. Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, 'No. This is about love.' Like, that's it, man. Like, no.'"
Back in 2015, around the time of the movie's 10th anniversary, Gyllenhaal had also noted that Ledger was aware of the impact of Brokeback Mountain.
"He was extraordinarily serious about the political issues surrounding the movie when it came out," he told Out. "A lot of times people would want to have fun and joke about it, and he was vehement about being serious, to the point where he didn’t really want to hear about anything that was being made fun of."
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