Your Parents’ Favorite Music Biopic Is About Grooming
Coal Miner’s Daughter, based on the autobiography of country music star Loretta Lynn (co-authored with George Vecsey), was released in March of 1980. The film is remembered fondly by many, particularly by folks over the age of 50. I decided to watch it the other night, and while I had a recollection of many scenes in the film – likely from having seen it with my family – I was rather taken aback by the details I hadn’t remembered.
It opens in a mining town in the mountains of Kentucky, shortly after World War II. We are introduced to a large family, The Webbs, with seven children, the eldest being 13-year-old Loretta. She is played by 29-year-old Sissy Spacek.
One night, at a local jamboree, she makes eyes with a charming young man named Doolittle, or “Doo”, as everyone calls him. His age is never specified, but he is played by Tommy Lee Jones, so he can't be a teenager, right? Well, in reality, Doolittle – real name Oliver Lynn – was around six years Loretta's senior. That would've made him 19 years old when he met Loretta.
Loretta and Doo leave the party together. He invites her to take a ride in his Jeep. She refuses, so he walks her home instead. He begins to flirt. “Y'know, the first time I ever seen you, I said, ‘Me and that little gal are gonna get together’?” He recounts his experience in the war, before asking, “Y'know what D-Day is, dontcha?” He laughs at her naiveté.
The two arrive in front of Loretta's house. Doo grabs Loretta by the arm. She starts to back away when he leans in for a kiss. He has his hands on her forearms. She keeps her arms to her sides as he kisses her. She runs up the stairs to her front door, and before she goes inside, Doo calls up to her. “Hey, Loretta. I'm gonna bring my Jeep up here and take you for a ride… Ain't nothin’ I can't do, girl, once I set my mind to it!” He falls back into a pig-sty, and on that slapstick note, the grooming process has begun.
The next day, Doo arrives in his Jeep to pick up Loretta, and they go riding the whole day. When she comes home to her parents, her father Ted spanks her with a stick. Later, Doo shows up at the house, and the parents don't even want to look at him. When the parents are made to look harsh and unreasonable, it makes the audience side with the couple.
We see Loretta with her father at the coal mine. Ted forbids her from seeing Doo again.
Ted: “...You just a little girl. He's a grown-up man. Wild as the Devil.”
Loretta: “I love him, Daddy. And he's a-wantin’ me to marry ‘im.”
Ted: “You ain't even 14 yet! Y'all ain't known each other a month!”
Loretta: “But I love him.”
Ted: “Lord Lord. Don't do it, Loretty. Don't throw all them young years away. You're my pride, girl. My shining pride.”
The father's concerns are understandable. I'm sure most fathers would be worried about an adult man robbing the cradle. But alas, Ted ultimately doesn't try to stop his little girl from tying the knot with Doo. The couple are married at the chapel, and just like a typical chick flick, the father shows up at the last second to give his consent to the marriage.
The timeline doesn’t quite line up with the facts as they are presented on the Internet. They say that Loretta is 13 going on 14, which would place this story in early 1946. However, the real Oliver and Loretta Lynn were married in 1948, when she was 15. So, between the process of Loretta recalling her past, writing it down in her autobiography, having George Vecsey co-author it, then having Tom Rickman adapt it into a screenplay, and finally, Universal filming that screenplay, someone somewhere along the way decided to make Loretta even younger than she was in reality, as if it wasn’t creepy enough!
But wait! There's more!
On their wedding night, the couple shack up in a motel. The two lay in bed together. Doo tells Loretta to go and remove the clothing under her nightgown, despite how cold she is. She heads to the bathroom while he undresses. She gets back into bed with her nightgown on. Doo gets close and starts kissing her, before mounting on top of her. Loretta cries, “Don’t do that! No! No!” The scene cuts.
The next morning, Doo brings her a tray of breakfast from a restaurant across the street, which has gone cold in the winter air. They argue about last night.
Doo: “Baby, it's just a little rough the first time, that's all.”
Loretta: “It didn't seem too rough on you.”
Doo: “Well, you better get used to it, darling, that's what a damn marriage is like–”
Loretta: “I ain't gonna get used to you gettin’ on me and sweatin’ like an old pig!”
Doo slaps Loretta across the face. She chucks her breakfast tray at him. He gets up to slap her again, before stopping himself.
I won't deny that a lot of men have acted in this manner, even more so back then. But if this behavior is going to be depicted in a film, then the filmmaker should at least try to confront it, whether they decide to portray the abuser as the villain, or show the emotional toll he/she takes on their victim.
The film's director is Michael Apted, best known for his Seven-Up documentary series, in which he chronicles the lives of the same group of people every seven years, from the age of seven. He completed his final installment of the series, 63 Up, in 2019, before his death two years later. I wonder what attracted him to the story of Coal Miner's Daughter.
Apted will periodically show the audience Doo's volatile nature, but will just as soon revert to the quirky, heartwarming romance that he's trying to sell us. Any duress or abusive behavior is quickly brushed aside by the end of the next scene, or the scene after that. For example, right after the motel sequence, the couple are settled into their home. Doo comes home from work, face covered in soot, and Loretta greets him with a “Hi, Hon!” He hands her a book titled “Sex for Newlyweds”, with pictures. An attempt at comic relief.
Doo decides to leave town for Washington State, just as Loretta learns that she is pregnant. Doo coerces his wife to come along with him. The film jumps forward about a decade, and we find Loretta at their new home with a litter of children.
Doo begins to notice Loretta’s gift for singing and sees an opportunity. He buys her a guitar as a present, urging her to start practicing. He tries to bring her on stage to perform at a local country bunker, but she ends up retreating into the bathroom. A short time later, she does end up performing on stage, and the audience loves it.
After this, Doo drags Loretta around to recording studios, and then to radio stations in the hopes of getting some airplay. He begins dictating the agenda for her, and micromanaging her life. You may think that he just wants to encourage her to use her talents and make her voice heard. But then, he commands her not to wear make-up. When she refuses, he lunges at her, but by the hand of God, is knocked backwards in a drunken stupor.
Loretta maintains a childish innocence throughout the film. When the couple stop by a deli, Doo jokes that bologna makes him “horny”. Loretta doesn't understand the meaning of the word, but then proceeds to use it several times on a subsequent radio broadcast. She thought it meant “actin’ silly”.
Loretta quickly rises to stardom, performing at the Grand Ole Opry, and catching the eye of fellow country superstar Patsy Cline (Beverly D'Angelo). Loretta is invited to see Patsy in the hospital after suffering a car accident.
Patsy: “People wanna know who you've been sleeping with that you've been on so many times.”
Loretta: “Who's been sayin’ that?”
Patsy: “Them gals who been sleeping with everyone and still ain't been on yet!”
Patsy has seen the game and knows it well.
Loretta and Patsy become good friends. Patsy sits by and sees the couple getting into an argument after Loretta catches Doo with another woman. Later, Doo catches Loretta shopping with Patsy, and commands her to stop wearing makeup.
Doo: “You gonna do exactly whate'er the Hell I–”
Loretta: “I'll do just what I want, you can't–”
Doo slaps Loretta, and they get into a scuffle. Patsy has to break them up and usher Loretta into the car. Again, this conflict is resolved by the end of the next scene. Loretta confides in her husband, “You're good at managing me. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.” Doo gifts Loretta with a long-belated wedding ring.
The pressure of music stardom mounts upon Loretta, while Doo sits back and watches the money roll in. Loretta starts popping pills to cope with her hectic schedule. She reaches her boiling point when she walks on stage one night and has a nervous breakdown, in the form of a desperate cry for help.
“Things is movin’ too fast in my life. Always have. I mean, uh, one day I was this little girl, the next I was married, the next I was havin’ babies. The next I was out here singin’ for y'all… Patsy's always sayin’, ‘Little gal, ya got to run ya own life!’ But my life's runnin’ me…”
Loretta collapses and is carried off stage, into the arms of Doo.
The last exchange of dialogue between Doo and Loretta before the end shows us how the filmmakers view this volatile relationship. Doo drives Loretta in their Jeep over to the spot where their new house is set to be built. Loretta sparks another argument.
Loretta: “I ain’t said I don’t want no new house! I just said you ain’t asked me nothin’ about it! You never do. You say, ‘Hey, baby, here’s the deal, take it or leave it!’ Well, it’s drivin’ me crazy, Doo!”
Doo: “Well, Hell, let’s go in the house, call the lawyers, and get a divorce. I’m tired of this bullshit.”
Loretta: “I don’t want no divorce, I just want the dad’gum bedroom in the back of the house!”
I'm sure Doo has threatened divorce many times before just to toy with her emotions, as if to say, “Is that what you really want?” But just like always, the conflict is immediately resolved, bygones are made bygones, and the couple drive off in their Jeep, smiling and laughing, as the title song plays us out.
Loretta Lynn was 44 when she published her autobiography in 1976. By the time the film adaptation premiered, she was 47. She remained married to Doolittle until his death in 1996 at the age of 69. I don't want to play psychiatrist here, but one can imagine the Hell of manipulative mind-games she went through in a marriage that was, at best, unhealthy, and at worst, dangerous and destructive. Not to mention being in an entertainment industry surrounded by enablers of abusive behavior.
This enabling extended to the co-author of her book, the screenwriter that adapted the book, and the executives at Universal who financed this insidious production. The filmmakers enabled it, the moviegoers in 1980 embraced it with open arms, and The Academy honored Sissy Spacek with an award for Best Actress. A prize for being groomed for the public.
The filmmakers hired an older woman to portray a 13-year-old in order to disguise how gross this relationship was from the start. D.W. Griffith used a similar technique when he cast 25-year-old Lillian Gish as a young girl in Broken Blossoms in 1919. Coal Miner’s Daughter is another chapter in Hollywood’s long history of on-screen grooming.
It’s a testament to the power of cinema, that filmmakers can manipulate their audience to such a degree, that they can show you a rapist at the start of a film, and by the end, make you love him and identify with him. The audience is groomed into accepting his abuse.
I will end on this shot from the film that encapsulates the Lynns’ troubled situation. You see Loretta on the right, singing a song and playing guitar, with her husband sitting in the background, his face obscured in shadow, and Loretta’s companion Patsy on the left, visibly worried for Loretta’s safety. Patsy was one of the many people who saw what was happening to Loretta and, for fear of losing their careers, their reputations, and possibly their lives, turned a blind eye and kept quiet.
