Author Topic: Lureen's questionnaire  (Read 6974 times)

Offline Brown Eyes

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Lureen's questionnaire
« on: March 04, 2007, 07:37:14 pm »
Heya,  Katherine I'm taking your suggestion about making questionnaires about other characters.  I really, really like Lureen, but like all the others she's complicated.  So, here are a series of questions that might help us examine her character and motivations closely (I'm sure some to these questions have been addressed in other threads, but it might be nice to re-consider them in a fresh thread/ context). 

***

Do you see Lureen as a woman who's a bit ahead of her time?  How would she have been perceived by her local community in Texas during the years this story takes place- first as a well-educated woman with a college degree- also as a fiesty and skillful rodeo participant- as a sexually confident woman (when we see her with Jack, she's even shown as the one on top... which is often used as a feminist metaphor)- and later as a savy business woman who speaks her mind?

Was Lureen already pregnant when she met Jack?  Could this be one of the motivating factors behind her "hurry" in the car?

Did she want Bobby?

If her character is understood to be quite confident, etc., why don't we see her standing up to her father?  She's worried about disobeying her father in the scene with Jack in the car.  She rolls her eyes over her father's shoulders in the nursery in commiseration with Jack, but doesn't say anything to  question her father's rudeness and possessiveness over the baby.  Why does she mostly sit quietly during the Thanksgiving scene beyond the one stern "Daddy."?

How do you view her use of cosmetics, hair coloring and nail polish throughout the film?  Why do these things seem so important to her?

As the years go on, is she bitter only because of the increasingly strained and/ or distant relationship with Jack?  Or are there other possible factors?

What was behind her comment about husbands not wanting to dance with their wives?

What was behind her comment about Kappa Phi to LaShawn following LaShawn revealing that she was in Tri Delt?

How early does she suspect or know about Jack's sexuality?  What does she really think of the fishing buddy who never comes down to Texas before the phone call?

Is the phone call the first time the whole reality of the situation dawns on Lureen?

After Ennis tells Lureen about herding sheep on Brokeback, she immediately tells Ennis that Jack said Brokeback was his favorite place.  What was her motivation in letting Ennis know this?  What was her motivation behind encouraging Ennis to visit Jack's parents and to deal with the ashes?

In the story we know that Lureen never met Jack's parents.  Why not?  Do we get the sense of this fact from the movie too?

Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?
« Last Edit: March 04, 2007, 09:18:06 pm by atz75 »
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2007, 08:59:57 pm »
What was behind her comment about Kappa Phi to LaShawn following LaShawn revealing that she was in Tri Delt?

Snobbery. I'm sure I read in a post somewhere a long time ago that in the social hierarchy of sororities, Kappa Phis had higher social standing than Tri Delts.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2007, 09:11:18 pm »
If her character is understood to be quite confident, etc., why don't we see her standing up to her father?  She's worried about disobeying her father in the scene with Jack in the car.  She rolls her eyes over her father's shoulders in the nursery in commiseration with Jack, but doesn't say anything to  question her father's rudeness and possessiveness over the baby.  Why does she mostly sit quietly during the Thanksgiving scene beyond the one stern "Daddy."?

I've always seen Lureen as afraid of her father. She might be a generally confident individual, and this confidence may have grown with the passage of time as she became successful in business (which might account for why she's able to utter that stern "Daddy" by Thanksgiving 1977), but I don't think that precludes her being afraid of her father when we first meet her.

I don't believe she was already pregnant by someone else when she met Jack. But I have always suspected that she deliberately got pregnant by Jack, so she would have to marry him, as an act of rebellion against her father.

She may have hoped that marrying Jack would get her out from under her father's control. If so, evidently she was disappointed, since she and Jack both ended up working in her father's business.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2007, 09:17:20 pm »
Thanks for these great replies Jeff! 

Do you think that her fear of her father (which, I agree is plausible since he's a pretty imposing guy) and Jack's fear of his father was something Lureen and Jack bonded over?

This leads to one more question that I'm going to add to the questionnaire in the first post. 

Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?
the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2007, 09:36:07 pm »
Thanks for these great replies Jeff!

Thanks!  :D 

Quote
Do you think that her fear of her father (which, I agree is plausible since he's a pretty imposing guy) and Jack's fear of his father was something Lureen and Jack bonded over?

Interesting thought. I don't know.  ???

Quote
This leads to one more question that I'm going to add to the questionnaire in the first post. 

Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?

That is a good question. Personally, I'd hesitate to call them good friends because despite Jack's closeted sexuality, I've always felt that he sounds quite bitter when he tells Ennis that he and Lureen could conduct their marriage over the telephone. That suggests to me that by 1981 the marriage had grown cold and even bitter.

I'm thinking, too, of the tone of Lureen's voice as she tells Ennis over the telephone about Jack's heavy drinking, and how she thought Jack meant Brokeback Mountain was his favorite place to get drunk--or that it was "some pretend place." I think she sounds contemptuous.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2007, 02:10:49 pm »
Do you see Lureen as a woman who's a bit ahead of her time?  How would she have been perceived by her local community in Texas during the years this story takes place- first as a well-educated woman with a college degree- also as a fiesty and skillful rodeo participant- as a sexually confident woman (when we see her with Jack, she's even shown as the one on top... which is often used as a feminist metaphor)- and later as a savy business woman who speaks her mind?

I see her as sort of an accidental feminist, not a deliberate or political or activist one. Yes, she's confident on a horse and in a car seat, and she's a savvy and opinionated business woman -- those qualities are just part of her natural character. But in some ways I think she would have played a more traditional wife role if her husband had been more of a traditional husband.

Was Lureen already pregnant when she met Jack?  Could this be one of the motivating factors behind her "hurry" in the car?

No, I don't think so. Though she might have been pregnant BY Jack when they got married.

Did she want Bobby?

Sure!

If her character is understood to be quite confident, etc., why don't we see her standing up to her father?  She's worried about disobeying her father in the scene with Jack in the car.  She rolls her eyes over her father's shoulders in the nursery in commiseration with Jack, but doesn't say anything to  question her father's rudeness and possessiveness over the baby.  Why does she mostly sit quietly during the Thanksgiving scene beyond the one stern "Daddy."?

I think that although she's an assertive person, she still adheres to those traditional roles that call for a daughter to be deferential to her father. But she's a behind-the-scenes rebel -- yeah, she'll get the car back by midnight, but meanwhile she'll use it for purposes he wouldn't approve of.

The assertiveness failure I find most problematic, though, is her declining to stand up for Jack in the "pissant" scene.


How do you view her use of cosmetics, hair coloring and nail polish throughout the film?  Why do these things seem so important to her?

Some of it is probably just the style of the times and the community -- it's sort of a stereotypical Texas look (sorry, Texans).  But she's also doing what she can -- maybe partly unconsciously -- to attract Jack's attention in the only way she knows how.

As the years go on, is she bitter only because of the increasingly strained and/ or distant relationship with Jack?  Or are there other possible factors?

As far as I can tell, the only factor is her relationship with Jack. Strained, distant, sexless, devoid of love except maybe the platonic kind.

What was behind her comment about husbands not wanting to dance with their wives?

Though her comment is a double entendre about husbands not wanting to have sex with her wives, I don't think she is deliberately or consciously hinting that. But she may be frustrated about all the things Jack doesn't do with her, sex included, and because she can't very well complain about their sex life at the dinner table, it comes out as a snide complaint about dancing instead.


What was behind her comment about Kappa Phi to LaShawn following LaShawn revealing that she was in Tri Delt?


I gather it's some kind of sorority one-upsmanship or snobbism. It was lost on me, because I know nothing about sorority status levels.

How early does she suspect or know about Jack's sexuality?  What does she really think of the fishing buddy who never comes down to Texas before the phone call?

She probably suspects something about Jack's sexuality pretty early on, but Jack's reunion with Ennis is probably a turning point, after which he's even less interested in her romantically than he was before. Over the years, I think she develops some pretty accurate suspicions about Jack, but I don't think she connects them with Ennis until the phone call.

Is the phone call the first time the whole reality of the situation dawns on Lureen?

Yes. It's when she puts it all together -- connecting her unsatisfying relationship with Jack, Jack's lack of interest in sex, his longtime "fishing" relationship with Ennis, his talk about Brokeback Mountain. When Ennis says they herded sheep together there in '63, she realizes that Jack and Ennis were lovers the whole time -- in fact, since before she even came into the picture.


After Ennis tells Lureen about herding sheep on Brokeback, she immediately tells Ennis that Jack said Brokeback was his favorite place.  What was her motivation in letting Ennis know this?  What was her motivation behind encouraging Ennis to visit Jack's parents and to deal with the ashes?

I don't think she was doing anything scheming or deliberate. "Well, he said it was his favorite place" sounds mostly resigned and a little bitter, IMO. Both that, and her recommendation that he get in touch with Jack's folks, were rather nice things she did for Ennis without thinking much about them. That is, she didn't have any strong motivation to do a good deed, but she didn't really hold anything against Ennis, either, so she was just being offhandedly polite.

In a symbolic sense, though, her comment about Brokeback being his favorite place -- but also thinking it was a pretend place -- might be some kind of equivalent of OMT's "I know where Brokeback Mountain is." OMT is saying outright that he knew Jack was gay. Lureen might be saying she thought, or hoped, that he might be gay in his mind or heart or imagination, but hearing what Ennis says tells her he was gay in practice.[color]

In the story we know that Lureen never met Jack's parents.  Why not?  Do we get the sense of this fact from the movie too?


I'm not sure. As far as why they never met, it must be some combination of class division and OMT's refusal to "go see Jack ride" -- in this case, to visit his son's Texas home. Lureen's "they'll be there til the day they die" suggests that she doesn't think they get out much.

It's possible there's some deeper, more symbolic reason for why they never met in the story. I've heard theories that all those kinds of things are significant.


Even if Jack and Lureen's marriage is a failure, can they still be interpreted as good friends?

I'd say they were good friends at first. Probably less so as the years went on, with both of them increasingly bitter and frustrated. I think we see a change between the time when Ennis asked if Jack's marriage is "normal and all," and Jack shrugs and nods, and at the end when Jack says they could do it over the phone.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2007, 02:30:53 pm »
I think that although she's an assertive person, she still adheres to those traditional roles that call for a daughter to be deferential to her father. But she's a behind-the-scenes rebel -- yeah, she'll get the car back by midnight, but meanwhile she'll use it for purposes he wouldn't approve of.

The assertiveness failure I find most problematic, though, is her declining to stand up for Jack in the "pissant" scene.


Katherine, I like that phrase, "behind-the-scenes rebel."  :D

As for the two old farmers in the company office, she gives a little sigh, so she's unhappy when she hears the comment, though maybe it's up for debate what she's unhappy with--Jack himself or the community's perception of Jack. As to why she doesn't respond and stand up for her husband, maybe it's just that you don't go all Brokeback on a couple of guys who may be buyin' hunderd thousand dollar tractors 'n' shit from you.  ;)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #7 on: March 07, 2007, 03:34:24 pm »
As for the two old farmers in the company office, she gives a little sigh, so she's unhappy when she hears the comment, though maybe it's up for debate what she's unhappy with--Jack himself or the community's perception of Jack. As to why she doesn't respond and stand up for her husband, maybe it's just that you don't go all Brokeback on a couple of guys who may be buyin' hunderd thousand dollar tractors 'n' shit from you.  ;)

True on all counts, Jeff! I've never felt I fully understood this scene, mainly for the reasons you give above (and also, I always wonder, why are the men such jerks?  :-\). It's not quite clear what keeps her from speaking up.

Oh, guess what! I just now looked up the scene in the STS-version screenplay, and it might hold some clues. For one thing, it describes Jack in this scene as "doing a fine job of putting the tractor through its paces, but there's an air of boyish inanity about him." So maybe he's supposed to be seen as a tiny bit of a f'up. Then Lureen, after hearing the farmers' comments, "looks over at the oblivious Jack, a look of mild disappointment on her face."

I think maybe this scene, which occurs right after the reunion, is sort of a transition, indicating that the honeymoon is over, Lureen's disillusionment is starting to develop.

The scene in which Lureen looks most pleased with Jack, not counting on the night they met, is when he stands up to L.D. at Thanksgiving. Given that his behavior in that scene is a display of "masculinity," I think that's significant, too.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2007, 05:20:31 pm »
True on all counts, Jeff! I've never felt I fully understood this scene, mainly for the reasons you give above (and also, I always wonder, why are the men such jerks?  :-\). It's not quite clear what keeps her from speaking up.

I guess the mundane answer is that they're just a plot device to show us that Jack isn't respected in the Childress community, or at least not in the "social set" into which he married. Men who are customers, buyin' hunnerd thousand dollar tractors, from L.D. Newsome ain't just dirt farmers. They might be apt to look down on Jack for his poor origins--that is, they're displaying snobbery such as Lureen displays toward LaShawn in the sorority remark--and, if they feel themselves "self-made" they might also look down on him for working for his father-in-law (riding on his wife's apron strings?) rather than making something of himself.

Quote
Oh, guess what! I just now looked up the scene in the STS-version screenplay, and it might hold some clues. For one thing, it describes Jack in this scene as "doing a fine job of putting the tractor through its paces, but there's an air of boyish inanity about him." So maybe he's supposed to be seen as a tiny bit of a f'up. Then Lureen, after hearing the farmers' comments, "looks over at the oblivious Jack, a look of mild disappointment on her face."

I think maybe this scene, which occurs right after the reunion, is sort of a transition, indicating that the honeymoon is over, Lureen's disillusionment is starting to develop.

Good idea about the beginnings of Lureen's disillusionment!  :D

Quote
The scene in which Lureen looks most pleased with Jack, not counting on the night they met, is when he stands up to L.D. at Thanksgiving. Given that his behavior in that scene is a display of "masculinity," I think that's significant, too.



She might still be afraid of her father--and plainly still unused to anyone, let alone her husband--telling off the old S.O.B.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2007, 10:18:47 am by Jeff Wrangler »
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Lureen's questionnaire
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2007, 08:20:58 pm »
heya,

This is just a quickie comment about the "mean guys"/"pissant"/tractor scene.  I wonder if that little scene comes across as a little confusing based on the way it's played and filmed.  Now, keep in mind that I haven't watched this scene for quite some time (I'm still forcing myself to hold off on BBM viewings for a while... I think I was OD-ing for a while), so maybe my memory of some of the details is a bit off.  But,  we see Lureen look up when the men are making their mean comment about Jack, but do we really see what she's looking at?  Annie plays this scene with an expression that's very difficult to interpret one way or the other (at least for me).  Is she looking up in disapproval of the "mean comment" or is she looking up in disapproval of Jack?
the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie