Connect with us

Coming Out: Jodie Foster At Golden Globes Proves Humanity Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Published

on

Jodie Foster, the intensely private 50-year old award-winning actress whose silver screen career spans 47 years, Sunday night at the Golden Globes proved humanity, intelligence, independence, strength, and charm are in the eye of the beholder.

Watch: Jodie Foster Comes Out As ‘Private Person’ In Controversial Golden Globes Speech

Foster’s speech, delivered for receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award — tying as the youngest person ever to be so honored — was praised and panned by Hollywood insiders and outsiders, professional and amateur critics, and activists and Average Joes alike.

Foster was celebrated and chastised for coming out as a lesbian and for not, for choosing to retain her privacy in possibly the most-public place on earth, as she, in a highly-complex and sometimes confusing tear-jerker, both reveled in and revealed her secrets.

“There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life. My confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most-beloved BFF of 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family, our amazing sons Charlie and Kit, who are my reason to breathe, and to evolve, my blood and soul.”

Foster clearly and repeatedly announced she is single, and a lesbian; a very lonely lady who likes ladies.

“So when I’m here being all confessional, I guess I just have a sudden urge to say something that I’ve never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration… that I’m a little nervous about, but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But you know, I’m just gonna put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m gonna need your support on this. I am… single. Yes I am, I am single.”

And while it’s not the first time she’s announced her love of women, it’s maybe the first time she’s shared her obviously deep loneliness.

“I hope you guys weren’t hoping this would be a big coming out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age. In those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family, co-workers, and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now apparently, I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime time reality show. You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child.”

The Hollywood crowd at the Golden Globes understood. Tears filled many eyes in that room Sunday night, but across America’s living rooms and social media hangouts, a different response emerged, at least from some.

Anger. Ownership. Expectation. Frustration. And complete misunderstanding.

Bret Easton Ellis (BretEastonEllis) on Twitter

If an actor’s job is to create emotion — the right emotion — in her audience, Foster both failed and succeeded, for the ones who understood her message clearly are those who don’t judge, who have learned to love and accept and to be grateful. And it was to them she spoke.

Some people are angry at Jodie Foster for not coming out last night, or for not coming out clearly enough, or for coming out reluctantly, or for suggesting there might or should be shame attached, or even for saying, “I came out a thousand years ago.”

But just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so are understanding, acceptance, love, intelligence, charm, wit, elegance, independence, and strength.

Foster exhibited all that and more as she elicited tears, perhaps especially from the controversial Mel Gibson, her friend.

If Mel Gibson, known for his homophobic and anti-Semitic remarks, can watch Jodie Foster come out and reveal herself to the world, and cry like a proud parent, natch, guardian, why are so many LGBT activists so angry?

Sure, it would be great if every gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender celebrity, politician, scientist, CEO, entrepreneur, teacher, and other leaders all came out and became role models and inspirations for our LGBTQ youth, who desperately need them.

And yes, those who have achieved celebrity status have an obligation to give back to their community, in some way.

But the LGBT equality movement needs to remind itself why we’re here. We exist to further acceptance and love, to help others embrace the uniqueness of our own special beings, to provide support and solace, to achieve equality for all. “To know us is to love us,” we often say.

Sadly for a surprising some, not last night, when we revealed a dark side in response to one of our own.

If we attack instead of embrace Jodie Foster for her “lifestyle choices,” i.e. for how she chooses to live her life: in private, how are we different from, how are we any better that the anti-gay religious right?

If we, as a community, can’t treat one of our own — one who has never embarrassed us or disrespected us, who never created scandal or shame for our community — with love, honor, and respect, how can we expect the same in return from the rest of the nation?

There are far too many problems in this world. Children are dying. People are hurting. Families are being torn apart. Loving couples cannot marry. People and animals are starving to death. The planet is warming at an ever-increasingly alarming rate. Women are shamed trying to exercise their rights, and made ashamed to acknowledge they were raped. Smart and deserving kids cannot afford to go to college, while local school boards insist on teaching creationism as science and David Barton as history. Christian warriors are indoctrinating children into becoming Christian warriors. The Pope says gay marriage will cause the end of humanity and Uganda wants to impose the death penalty on people for the “crime” of being gay. The PATRIOT Act is alive but the Violence Against Women Act is dead. Lunatics in America are buying guns, semi-automatic assault rifles, and ammunition at an increasingly faster rate every month, while 34 men, women, and children are shot to death every single day. Even now, it’s nearly impossible for many to get affordable health care, as the nation is engulfed in a flu epidemic. Fox News is literally making people more stupid than if they watched no TV at all. LGBTQ people are being fired from their jobs, beaten in the streets, and bullied on the playgrounds, simply because they are LGBTQ people. The federal government is bullying people like Aaron Swartz, literally to death, and killing innocent civilians, including children, halfway around the world with unmanned drones. The Catholic Church has never been fully prosecuted for raping children, Wall Street bankers have never been fully prosecuted for robbing homeowners, and the Bush administration has never been prosecuted at all for war crimes and for lying about WMD. The GOP and the Tea Party want to make abortion illegal, same-sex marriage illegal, education, voting rights, and health care harder to obtain, cut Medicare, Social Security, equal access to the Internet, enshrine torture and discrimination into our constitution, deport all the “illegals,” expand “Stand Your Ground” and concealed carry laws, and bomb Iran as a first resort.

Instead of setting ourselves up as the celebrity conformity cops, let’s harvest, share, and celebrate the gifts and achievements within our community.

There are far too many problems in this world. Surely Jodie Foster is not one of them. As an amazing, diverse, beautiful, intelligent, independent, strong community, let’s not be one either.

 

Transcript of Foster’s speech via Vulture. 

Image: Screenshot via YouTube

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

Published

2 hours ago

on

April 23, 2024

By

Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

Continue Reading

OPINION

Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

Published

4 hours ago

on

April 23, 2024

By

At the end of another short courtroom day that required barely three hours of Donald Trump’s time, the ex-president spoke to reporters inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building to complain about a wide variety of perceived and alleged wrongs he is suffering, including, not being “allowed to talk.”

The ex-president’s presence was required only from 11 AM until just 2 PM. Judge Juan Merchan is overseeing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the ex-president in a case that has already drawn a straight line through the “hush money” headlines to correct them to alleged criminal conspiracy and election interference.

Judge Merchan, for nearly two hours Tuesday morning, heard prosecutors’ allegations that Trump has violated his gag order ten times, and heard defense counsel’s claims that he had not.

It did not go well for the Trump legal team, with Judge Merchan toward the end of the hearing, during which no jurors were allowed, telling Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

During the day’s hearing, jurors heard prosecutors’ lead witness, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer tabloid, David Pecker, explain how he was working to help the Trump campaign.

“David Pecker testifies that, following his 2015 meeting with Trump and [Michael] Cohen, he met with former National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard,” MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports. “Pecker outlined the arrangement and described it as ‘highly private and confidential.’ Pecker asked Howard to notify the tabloid’s West Coast and East Coast bureau chiefs that any stories that came in about Trump or the 2016 election must be vetted and brought straight to Pecker — and ‘they’ll have to be brought to Cohen.’ Pecker told Howard the arrangement needed to stay a secret because it was being carried out to help Trump’s campaign.”

Trump did not discuss any evidence against him with reporters, but he did complain about the gag order. And President Joe Biden. And the temperature in the courtroom. And his apparent attempt to stay awake, which has been a problem for him almost every day in court.

“We have a gag order, which to me is totally unconstitutional, I’m not allowed to talk but people are allowed to talk about me,” Trump told reporters, emphasizing the last word in that sentence.

“So they can talk about me, they can say whatever they want, they can lie. But I’m not allowed to say anything, I just have to sit back and look at why a conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

“I don’t think anybody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump claimed, falsely implying no criminal defendant has ever had a gag order imposed on them previously. “I’d love to talk to you people, I’d love to say everything that’s on my mind, but I’m restricted because I have a gag order, and I’m not sure that anybody’s ever seen anything like this before.”

Trump then started to discuss the “articles” in his hand, what appeared to be dozens of articles he said had “all good headlines,” while implying they claimed “the case is a sham.”

Trump oversimplified the legal arguments attached to his gag order, as discussed with Judge Merchan Tuesday morning. The judge has yet to rule on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt.

“So I put an article in and then somebody’s name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of a gag order,” he told reporters, apparently referring to his posts on Truth Social with persecutes say violated his gag order. “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s totally unconstitutional. I don’t believe it’s ever – not to this extent – ever happened before. I’m not allowed to defend myself and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair.”

“Having to do with the schools and the closings – that’s Biden’s fault,” Trump said, strangely, as if the COVID pandemic were still officially in process. “And by the way, this trial is all Biden, this is all Biden just in case anybody has any question. And they’re keeping me, in a courtroom that’s freezing by the way, all day long while he’s out campaigning, that’s probably an advantage because he can’t campaign.”

“Nobody knows what he’s doing. he can’t put two sentences together. But he’s out campaigning. He’s campaigning and I’m here and I’m sitting here sitting up as straight as I can all day long because you know, it’s a very unfair situation,” Trump lamented. “So we’re locked up in a courtroom and this guy’s out there campaigning, if you call it a campaign, every time he opens his mouth he gets himself into trouble.”

Watch below or at this link.

Continue Reading

News

Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Published

7 hours ago

on

April 23, 2024

By

Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household “disinfectant” could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump’s 2020 remarks, including by saying, “Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television.”

Less than 24 hours after Trump’s remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

“It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history,” Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s beach debacle. “It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic.”

How did it happen?

“The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press,” Politico added.

READ MORE: ‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’

“’A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,’ said one former senior Trump White House official. ‘I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'”

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” with “under no circumstance” in bold type.

Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the “single largest driver” of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump’s infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting “disinfectant,” although, like many, they have substituted the word “bleach” for “disinfectant.”

Hours after Trump’s remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks.

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.