After the announcement that ‘Brokeback Mountain’ would return to theaters for its 20th anniversary, a viral tweet nailed the movie’s status as a rite of passage for many queer millennials. “Watching Brokeback Mountain in a theater doesn’t sit right with me,” wrote [@]dinosaur_info. “You’re meant to watch that movie from 1am to 3am on a laptop in your bedroom in high school.” As the first big-budget gay romance to arrive in the age of digital piracy, ‘Brokeback’ was a watershed moment for closeted teens. Unlike gay-centered box-office hits of the past, it didn’t matter if you were too young, or too afraid of awkward run-ins, to see the film on one of the 2,089 U.S. screens that Ang Lee’s film played on at its peak. The AVI file was accessible to anyone with a dial-up modem and a working knowledge of LimeWire. In these bedrooms, under low lights and with blinds firmly drawn, Brokeback Mountain taught a generation of gay men how to yearn. The film’s focus on the closet might not be part...