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

[Penthesilea]

Another Monday, another TOTW  .

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that everybody is welcome to make a suggestion for a TOTW:

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  .


For those who are new to this feature, you can learn more about its concept by going here: http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,12186.0.html


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.

[moremojo]

...Her beautifullly made up face and hair smeared and frazzled onto her pillow..

Note too the little smudge of nail polish on Lureen's finger in the phone scene. I've taken that as a very subtle hint that she hasn't been entirely collected and focused (understandably so) for a while even before her epiphany from Ennis's single comment.

[Brown Eyes]

My opinion on this question changes from viewing to viewing (or depending on my mood).

More and more lately I'm guessing that she may have known deep down but was in denial about it or hadn't quite articulated it yet in her head until Ennis's phone call.  There seems to be no real doubt that Ennis's phone call is meant to be a big turning point moment when everything clicks for Lureen and she understands the full picture.

The one point prior to the phone call when it seems she might really know about Jack's sexuality is at the charity dance with LaShawn and Randall.  When she sarcastically questions why "husband's never seem to want to dance with their wives"... she seems to be heavily implying some kind of subtext.  Who knows if she really was wondering about Jack's sexuality with that statement (but again, I think even if she was, it wasn't articulated fully yet in her head).

Lureen was much more worldly than Alma and may have had a much easier time understanding Jack than Alma could with Ennis.  I still think that Lureen is actually tremendously kind to Ennis on the phone... especially letting him know that Jack said Brokeback was his favorite place (even after Lureen understands the full meaning of that word) and also urging Ennis to get in touch with Jack's parents.  She didn't need to do either of those things, and her quick decision to say both of those things I think shows something pretty deep about her character (despite all the outward superficiality with the cosmetics and hair dye, etc.).

[delalluvia]

No, she didn't.  She finally got the inkling when Ennis called, things started to slide into place for her, but before then?  No.  She knew their marriage was distant, but she didn't know why, she probably just assumed he was bored with her - hence the look on her face during the charity event when Jack was dancing with that Lashawn.

[SFEnnisSF]

I always thought she knew by the time of the phone call, because of the way she says "Jack kept his friends addresses in his head".  She says it real bitter too.  But now in reading this, I think she figures it all out during the phone call.  That expains her little sounds she makes and she almost starts to cry...

[Katie77]

Im like Atz....my opinion changes on this all the time.....

I think Laureen knew that she was always "second best".....and maybe never knew who she was second best to until the phone call from Ennis after Jack died..

If she had thought he loved someone else,  in those days and times, the thought that that would be a man, may not have ever entered her head, but when Ennis called her, it may have been a feeling of "so it was you, so it was a man Jack was in love with"......even then, I dont think she would have tagged him as "gay"...more likely, she came to the realization that she had been "second best" to a man....

They seem to have had a respectful marriage, and the sexual side of it, over 20yrs, or lack of it, may not have been a problem for Laureen...the fact that Jack had friends that she didnt know, and whose numbers he kept in his head, may have annoyed her, but I dont think she would have thought they were sexual friends.....

I dont think she thought he was gay....again in those days, "gay" would have meant that he had never been with a woman, and she knew that was not true....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.