They aren't gay; one of them is a womanizer and the other spends his whole life regretting the loss of the one woman he loved. They're straight, but just as crippled by a society that tells them how a man must behave and what he must feel" (Ebert, 2005). In a Western, the most heroic characters in the spare, lawless landscape of the Old West, often feel the deepest, and in "Brokeback Mountain" the characters who feel forbidden love, feel the most pain and joy in love. The two characters share a love that is greater than the love they feel for any feminine element of society, including women. This is also typical of non-homosexual male...

"Brokeback Mountain." The Chicago-Sun Times. 16 Dec 2005.
28 Oct 2007. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051215/REVIEWS/51019006/1023

Holden, Stephen. "Brokeback Mountain." The New York Times. 12 May 2005.

28 Oct 2007. http://movies.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/movies/09brok.html?_r=1&oref=slogin