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.