MovieChat Forums > Blue Sky (1994) Discussion > A question about Jessica Lange's charact...

A question about Jessica Lange's character (possible spoilers)


At some point in the beginning of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones's character says that his wife had ran away from home when she was young, but doesn't explains why. Although it's never been actually said in the movie, did Jessica Lange's character run away because she was abused (physically or sexually) by her father?

At the start, it was already a bit confusing why she would always mechanically lie about her past or exaggerate it. It was as if it had become a custom of hers to make up stuff about her childhood and her family, or in other words, avoid dealing with her childhood and her family by making up her own. Besides, if she were in fact mistreated in any way by her father, that would partially explain her excessive promiscuity and why she seems to need men's attention all the time, to the point of cheating on her husband with men she doesn't care for at all.

Moreover, throughout the movie, I got the feeling that she never really grew up. In her marriage, she acted more like an immature daughter than a wife and Hank acted more like a father than a husband. And most of the time, instead of calling Hank by his name, she called him "Daddy". Although I've read in some posts that some wives call their husbands that way for numerous reasons, I felt that, given her behavior in general, she was calling him "Daddy" because that's exactly how she saw him: the good father she never had (probably the father by whom she finally gets to be spoiled). (There's even a scene in which she calls one of her daughters "Sister", which I think joins the idea that she kind of froze at a certain age and doesn't see herself as a grown-up)

The reason why I believe it must be due to abuse by the father and not to neglect specifically is because of a very interesting scene at the beginning of the movie, where the family is moved to another base, and Carly freaks out, takes the car and enters a shop, and Hank follows her. When he finds her, she is hiding and protecting herself with her arms, visibly afraid. She sorta reminded me of a little girl curling up in her room and hiding. Her husband doesn't seem the least surprised by how defensive and scared she is. He then tells her he's not going to hurt her, as if she would have reasons to believe she would be hurt if she misbehaved. As Hank doesn't seem like a violent person, she might have grown to have these reasons because of another man who hurt her, possibly her father.

Although that is not really relevant to the whole movie, I was really curious as to why she was behaving the way she did, and I expected the reasons to be revealed at some point, but they never explained it. Would it make sense to say that she was in fact abused? It might explain as well why her husband was so tolerant and forgiving with her all the time, despite how badly she treated him sometimes. Anyways, what do you think?

reply

I think it is almost certain she was the victim of some kind of abuse as a child.

It is almost a "myth" nowadays that "fathers abuse their children very commonly". In fact, natural fathers abusing their own children is way, way down the list of perps. The most abuse is by single mothers - more than 50% of all abuse requiring DFACS levels of intervention is by such women. Second is "live-in boyfriends", then other boyfriend types of the mother, other women (step-moms, girlfriends of child's father, etc.), other male relatives of the child or family friends, then natural fathers.

Young girls and women often exhibit neurotic flirting behavior when they DON'T have a good father/father figure in their lives growing up. There are ever more of these types of girls now as the national born out of wedlock rates continually increases and is now over 50% (for mothers under the age of 30). This neurotic activity can become a psychotic compulsion if other abuse has occurred and is added in to the mix. I don't quite understand why the wife herself, in this movie, is not under some kind of ongoing counseling or treatment. The husband certainly was educated enough to understand this, I would think even during that time period.

reply

I think she was abused when she was a child. When they moved to the new base I got the feeling that the house reminded her of her childhood home and that is why she panicked so strongly and ran away. I love how much her husband loves her despite her issues and is always there for her.



Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .

reply

I think she acted that way in the movie because it was written in the script.

Projecting your own beliefs or baggage and rewriting a non-existent backstory into a movie makes you the screenwriter for your imaginary remake.

reply