Parsing What Jodie Foster Did (and Didn't) Say

Now that everyone’s had time to process Jodie Foster’s speech, accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes – replay it here — responses are flooding in from all corners. Ms. Foster’s lengthy, somewhat rambling monologue confused viewers who thought she was retiring from acting. Her Wikipedia page was briefly updated to say so, though backstage in the press room, Ms. Foster denied that she would ever stop performing – “you couldn’t drag me away” — while adding that she would like be to directing “tomorrow.”

“I’m actually more into it than I have ever been,” she said of filmmaking.

The highly personal speech drew tearful responses from celebrities at the ceremony. Backstage, Lena Dunham, the “Girls” star, called it “mind-blowing,” later writing on Twitter that it was a highlight of her night. Others were also moved to post on Twitter:

Richard Dreyfuss

@RichardDreyfuss

Jodie Foster is one of the most amazing actresses of all time. More than that she’s one of the most amazing people #goldenglobes

 Adam Shankman

@adammshankman

In the most beautiful and real way, jodie Foster just stole the #goldenglobes.

But the most commented-upon of Ms. Foster’s remarks was a possible declaration of her sexuality. She referenced “coming out” and mentioned Cydney Bernard, a production manager, as “my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life.”

At The Wall Street Journal, Eric Sasson criticized Ms. Foster’s speech — “It felt confrontational, defensive, disjointed,” he wrote – and suggested it was a mistake to not make a more upfront statement. “I’m pretty sure that when someone famous comes out publicly that they aren’t automatically forgoing their right to privacy,” he said.

Ms. Foster has actually mentioned her relationship with Ms. Bernard before, in 2007, without much fanfare. But the critic Kate Aurthur, at Buzzfeed, posited that “the mainstream media didn’t know then, and still doesn’t know, how to report on the lives of gay celebrities who don’t make a huge, public declaration.”

On Facebook, the Bagger’s colleague Frank Bruni wrote, “It’s precisely BECAUSE Jodie Foster’s coming-out — if that’s what it was — had such a stop-start, am-I-doing-this, I’m-scared-but-determined quality to it that it was so powerful.”

In the press room, Ms. Foster was composed in talking about her career. She said that thinking about her directorial debut, “Little Man Tate,” can sometimes move her to tears: “It’s like a first novel you write; it’s the most you and in some ways painfully you, because you see all the words and all the, you know, the lack of confidence. But it was such an important moment in my life.” The films she made as an adolescent, “when I was, you know, chubby and had pimples and, you know, had a weird voice and made faces, I have a hard time looking at those,” she added.

She declined to comment on the more personal parts of her speech — “it stands for itself and it’s an expression of who I am and what I’m thinking and feeling,” she said – but hinted that her future projects would be highly personal.

“Being an artist is a way of saying, I am here, and this is what I stand for,” she said. “And I will never be tired of that.”