Greenlights

McConaughey’s parents, who alternate between blazing physical fights and passionate lovemaking, are significant role models for “outlaw logic.” McConaughey, the youngest of three brothers, was an unplanned child; his father did not attend his birth and went to the bar instead, because he had been traveling around the time of McConaughey’s conception and suspected that he was not legitimately his son.

Still, McConaughey’s parents impart sound moral values, and he learns from them not to hate, lie, or believe anything is impossible. McConaughey descends from a long line of Irish “rule breakers. Outlaw libertarians who vote red down the line because they believe it’ll keep fewer outlaws from trespassin on their territory” (Location 276). He feels that he lives up to this family legacy through his tough work ethic, innovative spirit, and shoot-from-the-hip intuition.

McConaughey’s mother Kay is also daring and opportunistic. When McConaughey was going to enter a seventh grade poetry contest with one of his own poems, his mother presents him a better poem by published poet Ann Ashford and encourages him to compete with that one. She claims it is not cheating, because “if you like it, and you understand it, and it means something to you, it’s yours” (Location 318). McConaughey suspects that this attitude arose from his mother’s dissatisfaction with her own upbringing, and a desire to correct past events with a version she preferred. Her strategy worked: young McConaughey won the poetry contest, and learned the merits of “audacious existentialism” (Location 330).

McConaughey’s father Jim is a huge, tough man who worked his way up through the Texan oil trade and has had oscillating levels of wealth. He is the masculine head of the household, and instills this grit and mental toughness in his three sons through primitive coming-of-age rites, which include beating him to unconsciousness and urinating on the heads of his friends. McConaughey reflects that “rites of passage were a big deal to my dad, and if you were man enough to take him on, then you had to prove it” (Location 411). But Jim McConaughey also has a tender side, which expresses itself in his fondness for a dainty cockatiel named Lucky; he rescues the beloved bird from an accidental toilet-drowning through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Although McConaughey craves his father’s approval, he also endures his wrath when he lies to him about stealing a pizza. His father challenges him to punch him in the face and beat him in a fight: McConaughey is numb with fear and, unlike his two older brothers, fails the masculine coming-of-age test; his father labels him a coward.

McConaughey’s high school experience is full of greenlights: He is voted the most handsome, gets straight A’s, and is popular with the girls, whom he takes for rides in his truck. Fascinated by the possibility of self-invention, McConaughey decides to trade his familiar truck for a shiny red sports car. To his surprise, this shiny new car (and the version of himself that comes along with it) score him fewer dates. He happily trades in the new sports car for his old vehicle—and his old rugged charm.

When his exchange trip to Australia does not go as planned, he cannot fix it with a simple trade-in. While McConaughey, a new graduate, dreams of Sydney beaches and girls in bikinis, he finds himself far from the city in a small town with the Dooley family. His host parents, Norvel and Marjorie, not only wildly exaggerated where they live, but also impose strict and eccentric moral discipline on their young guest. McConaughey is homesick in Australia, despite valuable work experience at Australia and New Zealand Bank. Despite the circumstances, he had promised the Rotary Club, which funded the trip, that he would not return home early. To cope with his conditions, he remains abstinent, becomes a vegetarian, reads Lord Byron, and entertains wild notions of saving Nelson Mandela and becoming a monk. Norvel meanwhile, repeatedly imposes his view that Americans are inferior to the British. While McConaughey attributes all his difficulties to cultural differences, he begins to feel ill at ease when the Dooleys insist that McConaughey call them Mom and Pop and try to get him to kiss their son’s girlfriend. Both McConaughey and the Dooleys eventually agree that he should be placed with another host family. At the moment of departure, Norvel intervenes and tries to prevent McConaughey from leaving. McConaughey threatens violence if he does not let him go, and McConaughey divides the rest of his stay between three other families. He ultimately finds out that his imposed stay at the Dooleys was a prank; the locals knew they were eccentric and volatile.

However, in the full course of things, McConaughey is grateful for his Australian experience because it taught him introspection. In Texas, McConaughey’s good fortune and popularity meant that he did not need to cultivate the ability to look inwards or spend time by himself. He considers that he was able to endure his time with the Dooleys by accepting that his year-long stay with them was “inevitable,” while he “got relative” with the idea that they “were off their rocker” and “treaded water until I crossed the finish line” and “upheld my father’s integrity” (Location 1021). When he gets home he goes out with his father for some beers, and a bouncer, believing they have not paid, lays a hand on McConaughey’s father’s chest. McConaughey responds by beating up the bouncer, finally claiming his masculine rite-of-passage and earning his father’s respect.