Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

Topic of the Week 03/07: Did Lureen know Jack was gay?

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Penthesilea:
Another Monday, another TOTW  :).

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Do you have a question you have long meant to ask? Is there a question that has already been discussed long ago, but you would like to take it up again? Do you notice a specific aspect which continues to come up repeatedly in different threads, but never has been discussed as its own topic? - Here is the place to put it in focus! Just send your question as PM to Katherine or me. We're looking forward to your suggestions  :).


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This week's topic leaves much room for a broad range of perceptions, because the question applies to a time span of almost twenty years.

Did Lureen know Jack was gay?

.....and if so, when?

Do you think Lureen knew from early on? Maybe she just had an inkling? How about the phone call between her and Ennis? Or was she complete clueless?

Tell us your POV  :).

moremojo:
She probably had an inkling, but willfully deceived herself otherwise for many long years (one should never understimate the power of the human mind to rationalize the truth away). Her father's not-so-veiled contempt for Jack's alleged lack of manliness, coupled with her own barbed question regarding why men never dance with their wives, suggests that the truth was an unacknowledged undercurrent.

And then the phone call from Ennis sealed it all, made her (forced her) to finally put all the pieces together. She could no longer deny to her conscious mind that she had fallen in love and married a man who had loved another man.

shortfiction:
Agreed.   She was never shown confronting him the way Alma did and clearly never sought a divorce.  She probably wanted to maintain her social standing and not be a divorcee, not have her husband known as gay, etc.

    When Ennis told her on the phone that they had herded sheep on BBM back in 1963, you can hear her choke back a little cry or whimper, because it's at that moment that she realizes why that mountain was Jack's favorite place and why he had wanted his ashes scattered there.

ifyoucantfixit:
     I deliberately didn't read the other responses.  I didnt want to be influenced by the other opinions....
    
 I dont think she knew he was gay...I think she thought he might have been having an affair, and wondered why he didnt selem to
have the closeness with her that she wanted.  I think she truly loved him.  She withstood the taunts (the men calling him a pissant) and her fathers obvious disapproval.  She knew he had a good center, and was a caring husband and a father...Maybe she too was subject
to some of the strident things women back then were subjected to.....STICK IT OUT.......YOU ARE MARRIED MAKE THE BEST OF IT.....
 and my all time worse one to hear... YOU MADE YOUR BED, NOW YOU GOTTA LIE IN IT.  

      I dont see any way she had to discern that his affair may have been a gay one.  The movie didnt show it, and the book didnt say
so.  Therefor, I dont see it as true.

      I do think she figured it out however during that phone call with Ennis...she could barely hold herself back...you could just imagine her hanging up the phone, going to her room and just falling to pieces...Her beautifullly made up face and hair smeared and frazzled onto her pillow..  her gorgeous doe eyes pouring ..........

huntinbuddy:
Well, like many here probably, I have seen the film more times than necessary, and in fact do have it memorized now.

I don't believe Lureen knew Jack was gay, when they first met.  Hell, as horny as she was, he could have probably told her there in the back seat
of that Thunderbird, "well, you are in a hurry, aren't you.....you know, I'm queer",

and Lureen would have still responding that she had to have the car home by midnight, while mounting him!

I think by the point in tiime, where Jack and Ennis are last on Brokeback together, and Ennis asks Jack, "What about you and Lureen?"

I can tell by the time that Jack takes to take another hit on the bottle and the expression on his face from the side, as
he says "Lureen's good at makin hard deals in the machinery business, but so far as our marriage goes, we could do it
over the phone."

That one line there by Jack tells me that his marriage has gone south.  What his sex life with Lureen was like after
fifteen years of marriage is anyones guess.  My guess is with periodic "fishing trips" with Ennis, and whatever Jack called them
trips to Mexico, I doubt there was much fire in the sexual department of their marriage.

If Lureen had an equally low sex drive, she probably didn't suspect anything.  If she expected sex in the manner that she
did back in the mid 60's, then yeah, I would think if Jack didn't put out for her, she would suspect something.

As someone else posted here, and this is just excellent acting and direction on Ang Lee's part.  When Lureen gets the
phone call from Ennis, and he tells her, "we herded sheep up on Brokeback one summer, back in 63", you can see the expression on
her face change, and she puts it all together in that one scene that this is the guy who has been getting Jack's
lovin all these years.

That's the way I interpreted it.

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