Due to large number of men writing to her complaining about the ending of "Brokeback Mountain," writer Annie Proux admits she regrets writing the story. The author said although Brokeback Mountain was a critical and commercial success, "the hassle, problems and irritations" she received when the film came out are not worth it.
The American author said in an interview with the Paris Review, "So many people have completely misunderstood the story. I think it's important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience, but unfortunately the audience that 'Brokeback' reached most strongly have powerful fantasy lives."
Proux added that, "One of the reasons we keep the gates locked here is that a lot of men have decided that the story should have had a happy ending. They can't bear the way it ends - they just can't stand it. So they rewrite the story, including all kinds of boyfriends and new lovers and so forth after Jack is killed. And it just drives me wild."
Due to the volume of letters she received complaining about the film, the author was frustrated that men, especially heterosexual men, did not understand that the story was not about the lead characters Jack and Ennis.
Proulx said that the story is about homophobia, a social situation and "a place and a particular mindset and morality" but people just do not get it.
Proulx is particularly irritated that men who write to her boast that they knew better than her because of their gender. That they are men, said Proulx, they knew how the characters would behave.
"And maybe they do. But that's not the story I wrote. Those are not their characters. The characters belong to me by law," she said.
The story originally came out in The New Yorker in 1997 and was adapted into a movie by the award-winning director Ang Lee in 2005, starring Jack Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger.
The author stated that the hype brought about by the story's ending, when lovers Jack and Ennis separated, became intolerable for her after the film's release.
"I wish I'd never written the story. It's just been the cause of hassle and problems and irritation since the film came out." she said.