Golden Globes 2013: Jodie’s Moment
Yeah, there were winners and losers: “Argo” had a big night, but it isn’t winning the Oscar for best picture; giving Quentin Tarantino the screenplay award over Tony Kushner (“Lincoln”) and Mark Boal (“Zero Dark Thirty”) was obscene; Christoph Waltz should relish his best supporting actor win, cuz it won’t be repeated at the Oscars; Jessica vs. Jennifer is too close to call; and “Homeland” (yay!) and “Girls” (boo!) are the elite-voters’ favorite TV shows. But, let’s face it, the best moment of the night, as measured by how it lit up Twitter and Facebook, was Jodie Foster’s coming-out speech. It was suffused with anger, even as it attempted to be forthright. It aimed for bravery, even though coming out in Hollywood when your career has never been based on sex appeal isn’t exactly SEAL-team bold. Mostly, it was odd: she’s comes out by saying she’s single? While mentioning her ex-partner, Cydney? And why does she think if she directly acknowledged her partner or partners that it is the same as starring in a Honey Boo Boo reality show? Living a responsible, honest life is not the same as turning your life into reality-TV trash. Her mention of her mother’s Alzheimer’s struggle was touching, though why does the intelligent, deeply creative Jodie ask for privacy for herself and then expose another family member’s private situation? In the end, Jodie’s speech was rambling and awkward and emotional and confusing: great television. And for all those people STILL praising Jodie for her defense of privacy, consider what my friend Kevin Sessums wrote on my Facebook feed: Jodie “paraded her children at a Golden Globes Show and allowed the cameras to pan to them and brought her private friendship with Mel Gibson out into the open as a show of support at a Hollywood awards ceremony and made it clear her mother has Alzheimer’s — and then begged for privacy…It doesn’t compute unless you equate saying one is an LGBT person = privacy = what one does in the bedroom = nothing more than a sexual act. If you agree with that then I guess you aren’t bothered a bit by the incoherence of it all.”
