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

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Marge_Innavera:
In the scene were Jack is looking for his parka and Lureen is asking him pointed questions about why 'your friend can't come to Texas," there's a pointed quality in her tone of voice -- like she's needling him about something. But I've never gotten the impression that she even suspects  he's gay at that point.  It looked more like she knows these 'fishing trips' are bogus, but that  (1) Ennis doesn't exist: Jack has a long-term girlfriend in another state; (2) Ennis does exist, and is an old buddy who can be counted on to vouch for Jack if Lureen starts investigating, or (3) Jack and his friend spend their "trips" gambling and whoring.  Actually, a gambling problem could explain a lot of Jack's behavior.

Even if their marriage is already starting to slide downhill, there are any number of reasons why that can and often does happen. IMO Lureen isn't sure about the reasons for the decline in their marriage but Ennis' phone call is what tells her the rest of the story.

moremojo:

--- Quote from: Katie77 on August 15, 2007, 02:53:58 am ---....so even after Ennis' phone call i still dont think "gay" was the word she would have thought about the relationship that Jack and Ennis had.
--- End quote ---
Just as Jack and Ennis probably never saw their relationship as "gay". Yet "gay" is undeniably what the rest of the society would have labelled it.

brokeplex:
Did Lureen know that Jack was gay? Probably not at first, but over time.... yes she did. And, her father definitely did and disapproved of Jack. Look at the differences in the screenplay and the movie during the "Sit down you old sonuvabitch!" Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps her father's disapproval of Jack is one of the reasons Lureen married Jack. In the movie, by the time we get to 1978 in the scene at the fundraiser for the Childress County Children's home, Lureen is clearly disappointed in her life. I think that she quietly accepted his "wanderings" as long as he didn't make a public spectacle of himself. Her tone when she was speaking with Ennis in 1983 after he learns of Jack's death shows that she had mentally compartmentalized Jack, and clearly he had not been the focus of her life for some time. On the other hand,for Alma, Ennis was the love of her life and she felt KEEN betrayal upon the understanding of her husband's affair with Jack. I don't think that Lureen ever felt for Jack what Alma felt for Ennis. So in Lureen, you didn't see the anger that was demonstrated in Alma....Lureen just had a sense that her marriage was probably a mistake and was dealing with it in the best way she could. I feel great sorrow for both women, especially Alma. The CLOSET has many victims, included in that number are spouses and children. Had Jack and Ennis felt free to live their lives together, two unhappy marriages could have been averted.

Marge_Innavera:

--- Quote from: brokeplex on August 15, 2007, 10:29:24 am ---Did Lureen know that Jack was gay? Probably not at first, but over time.... yes she did. And, her father definitely did and disapproved of Jack. Look at the differences in the screenplay and the movie during the "Sit down you old sonuvabitch!" Thanksgiving dinner.
--- End quote ---

But the father-in-law's hostility can also be explained by the fact that he "makes serious money", to quote Jack, and his daughter marries a rodeo cowboy with little education and from a dirt-poor background. And his snarky suggestions about Jack's masculinity (e.g., "boys should watch football") could as easily have been a reference to the fact that Jack has continued to work at the family business and not tried any kind of career on his own.  If the son-in-law had been from The Right Background, Newsome could have lived with that and regarded Jack as a protege but that wasn't the case. Moreover, the decor in the Twists' house suggests a nouveau riche family background, which would make the parents-in-law more sensitive about their daughter having married beneath her than if they'd been prosperous for several generations.



--- Quote ---I feel great sorrow for both [Lureen and] Alma. The CLOSET has many victims, included in that number are spouses and children. Had Jack and Ennis felt free to live their lives together, two unhappy marriages could have been averted.
--- End quote ---

We're all in agreement on that aspect, for sure.

moremojo:

--- Quote from: Marge_Innavera on August 15, 2007, 12:02:26 pm ---We're all in agreement on that aspect, for sure.
--- End quote ---
Although, without his marriage to Alma, Ennis would never have had the two daughters who were so dear to his heart, and may even, by the film's end, have become his primary or sole reason for living.

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