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.”
