Last night at the 70th annual Golden Globes, Jodie Foster won the Cecil B. Demille award for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.” What followed was a meandering, rambling, nearly indecipherable speech by Jodie. But, never fear, I will attempt to make sense out of a senseless situation. Below are sequential excerpts from the transcript for Jodie’s incoherent speech, interspersed with my more lucid thoughts. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment. Just know that I defend my blogs with the voracity of a feral wolf infected with super-rabies. Yes, there is such a thing. I think.
Enjoy!
“Well, for all of you ‘SNL’ fans, I’m 50! I’m 50! You know, I need to do that without this dress on, but you know, maybe later at Trader Vic’s, boys and girls. What do you say? I’m 50! You know, I was going to bring my walker tonight but it just didn’t go with the cleavage.
“Robert [Downey Jr.], I want to thank you for everything: for your bat-crazed, rapid-fire brain, the sweet intro. I love you and Susan and I am so grateful that you continually talk me off the ledge when I go on and foam at the mouth and say, ‘I’m done with acting, I’m done with acting, I’m really done, I’m done, I’m done.”
Um, okay. So you’re fifty. It’s not your birthday. Pipe down. Was it tough reaching fifty when you live insulated with your millions of dollars and your movie star friends? This isn’t Darfur, Jodie, where people who reach fifty win the Hunger Games and get exiled to happier lands. You know, most of the time these lifetime achievement awards come with people pushing a cantankerous corpse on stage, or rolling up the ramp as the colostomy bag slaps the back of the wheelchair in a sickening, rhythmic fashion. It usually takes two people to lift the near-cadaver up, and it’s immediately clear that no amount of wardrobe makeup can hide the fact that the skin is now translucent. The speech is usually short and to the point—not because it’s what was intended, but rather it’s perfectly timed in-between naps. But not you, Jodie. You’re fifty! Stating that you “need to do that without this dress on” enhances this wildly overzealous statement, while making the rest of us begin to question your downward-spiraling sanity. Question: Did you get a huge tattoo across your back in thuggish font with crisscrossed guns in the background that says, “I’m Fifty, Bitch!”? I don’t know why else you’d need to be naked when you shout how old you are. I’m slightly confused. And you finish this thought by saying someone talked you “off the ledge” when you’d “go on and foam at the mouth.” So, instead of being clothed and indoors at the Golden Globes, you’d rather be naked on a ledge while foaming at the mouth? This isn’t the ‘rational’ start we were hoping for, Jodie.
“Thank you. Looking at all those clips, you know, the hairdos and the freaky platform shoes, it’s like a home-movie nightmare that just won’t end, and all of these people sitting here at these tables, they’re my family of sorts, you know. Fathers mostly. Executives, producers, the directors, my fellow actors out there, we’ve giggled through love scenes, we’ve punched and cried and spit and vomited and blown snot all over one another — and those are just the costars I liked. But you know more than anyone else I share my most special memories with members of the crew. Blood-shaking friendships, brothers and sisters. We made movies together, and you can’t get more intimate than that.”
I find it amusing that you attribute familial relationships to punching and crying and spitting and vomiting and blowing snot all over one another. I am sorry that your mother was exploiting your ability to act as a child, thereby denying you any real childhood or normalcy when it comes to family, but I can assure you I don’t blow snot on my brother, nor do I spit on my father. But you Hollywood types really believe the people you work with are family? Spoiler alert: They’re not. Further proof you have no idea what you’re talking about: “We made movies together, and you can’t get more intimate than that.” ‘Nuff said.
“So while I’m here being all confessional, I guess I 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 I’m just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I’m going to need your support on this.
“I am single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I’m kidding — but I mean I’m not really kidding, but I’m kind of kidding. I mean, thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? [Audio is silent for seven seconds] … 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 and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now I’m told, apparently 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.”
The hell was that?! What did you just say? You open up this segment by saying that you’re being all confessional (you’re not) follow it by saying you have an urge to say something in public (you say nothing), and finish it all by saying you’re kidding, then not kidding, then kind of kidding. Pick a side of the fence and stay there. Anyone else extrapolate anything of substance here? And after all that, you ask the crowd for a “wolf whistle,” (whatever the hell that means) as if they’re all supposed to be galvanized into baying like wild animals by that load of noncommittal garbage you just uttered. Now, you do follow it with something of an admittance of having come out to family and friends in the past, but then ruin an otherwise somber moment when you mockingly state, “every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a primetime reality show.” So in one moment you exhibit a modicum of class, and in the next you slam other celebrities—your family, remember?—for the way they handled their own lives? And by the way, if this really was a coming out speech, isn’t it the biggest press conference a celebrity could hope for? You’re at the fucking Golden Globes, Jodie. Wake up.
“You know, you guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me. It never was and it never will be. Please don’t cry because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard or I’d have to spank Daniel Craig’s bottom just to stay on the air. It’s not bad work if you can get it, though.
“But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.
“I have given everything up there from the time that I was 3 years old. That’s reality-show enough, don’t you think?”
Okay, we’re starting to go off the rails here. Nobody would confuse you with a fat, illiterate, six-year old train wreck (if Honey Boo Boo makes it to fifty, that would be an accomplishment, however my money is her making it to nineteen after a nasty meth overdose). I think it’s interesting that you claim reality television isn’t for you, when, to be fair, doing television and making movies is more or less the same thing. These reality shows are all scripted, so what makes you above it? And in your most hypocritical comment yet, you say that you value privacy above all else. You’re joking, right? Didn’t you just come out—like moments ago—publicly, on an awards show watched by millions of people? Please don’t pretend you’re doing any kind of service to the gay community. The more celebrities pander to this type of self-serving nonsense, the more other gay people believe they have to do the same, when they don’t. Sexual preference isn’t a public matter or concern, and for someone who claims to value privacy above all else, Jodie, what you just supposedly did was the most public display of the most private of things. Also, if you really valued privacy, why did you choose to continue to act? Why not become an accountant? Or a teacher? Or a cardiovascular surgeon? You cannot demand privacy in a profession that has none. By definition, a celebrity is someone that is famous, therefore people know you, therefore you have no real expectation of constant privacy. You chose this. I’m guessing the millions of dollars helped ease your privacy woes, however.
“There are a few secrets to keeping your psyche intact over such a long career. The first, love people and stay beside them. That table over there, 222, way out in Idaho, Paris, Stockholm, that one, next to the bathroom with all the unfamous faces, the very same faces for all these years. My acting agent, Joe Funicello — Joe, do you believe it, 38 years we’ve been working together? Even though he doesn’t count the first eight.
“Matt Saver, Pat Kingsley, Jennifer Allen, Grant Niman and his uncle Jerry Borack, may he rest in peace. Lifers. My family and friends here tonight and at home, and of course, Mel Gibson. You know you save me too.”
I’m sorry, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that last part. You are stunning in your hypocrisy. And now you’re giving psychiatric advice. Wow. Exactly what makes you qualified to do this, Jodie? Also, when you do give psychiatric advice, try not to confuse your subjects. You give a shout out to table 222, then proclaim that it’s simultaneously in Idaho, Paris, Stockholm, and next to the bathroom. Even people that are in desperate need of psychiatric help can tell you that’s impossible. Also, you’re sort of implying that all of those places are akin to toilets. Smooth, but I picked up on it. Finally, you thank people we don’t know, nor care to Google, and finish by asserting batshit crazy Mel Gibson saved you. What is it, exactly, that he saved you from? Allow me to formulate a theory: Mel bursts through your door one stormy night, out of breath and cursing Jewish people for no viable reason. You ask him what’s going on. He claims there’s zombies headed this way, and you need to hunker down for the night. Frightened—more by a wet, deranged madman in your home than the statistically impossible zombie apocalypse—you acquiesce to his absurdity and, together, you survive the night. Am I close here? Did that happen? I bet it did.
“This brings me to the greatest influence of my life, my amazing mother, Evelyn. Mom, I know you’re inside those blue eyes somewhere and that there are so many things that you won’t understand tonight. But this is the only important one to take in: I love you, I love you, I love you. And I hope that if I say this three times, it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life. You’re a great mom. Please take that with you when you’re finally OK to go.”
So…is she dead, or not? I’m confused. And I know this was supposed to be a heartfelt moment, but even your mother—if she’s alive—has to wonder how you arrived here after just talking about tables next to bathrooms and zombie-filled nights with Mel Gibson. And finishing the whole thing with a line from your movie Contact? You really couldn’t think of anything better to say? You previously slammed other actors and reality television stars, only to finish your speech’s most endearing moment with a line that somebody else wrote? Sweet, merciful Jesus.
“You see, Charlie and Kit, sometimes your mom loses it too. I can’t help but get moony, you know. This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting and now what? Well, I may never be up on this stage again, on any stage for that matter. Change, you gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved, the greatest job in the world. It’s just that from now on, I may be holding a different talking stick. And maybe it won’t be as sparkly, maybe it won’t open on 3,000 screens, maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle. But it will be my writing on the wall. Jodie Foster was here, I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood deeply and to be not so very lonely.
“Thank you, all of you, for the company. Here’s to the next 50 years.”
I assume that when you told your children, “I can’t help but get moony,” you meant, “I can’t help but get money.” And after hearing this speech, your children won’t be the only people who appreciate that sometimes you lose it. This entire thing has been one long, meandering, stream of consciousness that only now has mercifully come to an end. And you still contradict yourself in the last few sentences. You said, “I want to be seen” (I won’t rehash the privacy argument) and “to be not so very lonely.” Then, in the very next sentence you said, “Thank you, all of you, for the company.” What? You’re one big bag of paradoxical lunacy, Jodie. Here’s hoping the next fifty years bring you some kind of sensibility. Though, with friends like Mel Gibson, I doubt it.
A Pleasant Conversation 