I missed this subject the first time around, so was overjoyed to find and read it. I'd like to add something I noticed in the scene around the table with Jack, Lureen, LaShawn, and Randall. After not seeing the movie for quite a while, I watched again with fresh eyes. You can see Lureen bristle when LaShawn starts off calling Childress a "poky little town." That's why she comes back with the reply, "I was Kappa Phi myself," a more prestigious sorority than LaShawn's. LaShawn gives the impression of a social climber, a person with low self-esteem who needs to obtain the approval of others. Here it's Lureen, so she comes back with the smidgeon of rhythm comment and, by saying she and Lureen might have to dance together, intimates that the two women are in the same boat. As they talk on, the women keep finding more and more things in common, till this starts to alarm Jack, who has perhaps become sensitized by Ennis's paranoia. He starts to brush off the veiled accusations by saying "Ain't never give it no thought," at the same time actually brushing cigarette ashes off his black finery. He asks LaShawn to dance, IMO, simply because he is drawn to her and identifies with her; they are a lot alike, the socialness, the complaints, the garrulousness. Especially the low self-esteem and need to seek the approval and love of others. But he gets a dividend from dancing with LaShawn--seeing that Randall doesn't ask Lureen to dance is another in a series of little hints that Randall is gay.
