what does brokeback mountain mean?

does the excellent new adaptation of the e. annie proulx story by ang lee have anything new or specific to say about what it means to be gay? manohla dargis from the new york times frames the discussion (free reg and mind required).

Jack and Ennis are not cowboys (if anything the two are shepherds), but they are, in Ms. Proulx's resonant words, "beguiled by the cowboy myth." It is a myth shaped as much by Hollywood as history, which is why when Ennis pushes his Stetson down to obscure his face, the gesture recalls nothing so much as James Dean pushing down his Stetson in the epic 1956 western "Giant."

(thanks, andy.)