8:23 am - 08/15/2012
Jodie Foster has shared poignant words.
Jodie Foster Blasts Kristen Stewart–Robert Pattinson Break-Up Spectacle.
Hurtful headlines. Prurient paparazzi. Fickle fans. Enough already! Jodie Foster defends a kid actor’s right to be a kid.
We’ve all seen the headlines at the check-out counter. “Kristen Stewart Caught.” We’ve all thumbed the glossy pages here and there. “Kris and Rob a couple?” We all catch the snaps. “I like that dress. I hate the hair. Cute couple. Bad shoes.” There’s no guilt in acknowledging the human interest in public linens. It’s as old as the hills. Lift up beautiful young people like gods and then pull them down to earth to gaze at their seams. See, they’re just like us. But we seldom consider the childhoods we unknowingly destroy in the process.
I have been an actress since I was 3 years old, 46 years to date. I have no memories of a childhood outside the public eye. I am told people look to me as a success story. Often complete strangers approach me and ask, How have you stayed so normal, so well-adjusted, so private? I usually lie and say, “Just boring I guess.” The truth is, like some curious radioactive mutant, I have invented my own gothic survival tools. I have fashioned rules to control the glaring eyes. Maybe I’ve organized my career choices to allow myself (and the ones I truly love) maximum personal dignity. And yes, I have neurotically adapted to the gladiator sport of celebrity culture, the cruelty of a life lived as a moving target. In my era, through discipline and force of will, you could still manage to reach for a star-powered career and have the authenticity of a private life. Sure, you’d have to lose your spontaneity in the elaborate architecture. You’d have to learn to submerge beneath the foul air and breathe through a straw. But at least you could stand up and say, I will not willfully participate in my own exploitation. Not anymore. If I were a young actor or actress starting my career today in the new era of social media and its sanctioned hunting season, would I survive? Would I drown myself in drugs, sex, and parties? Would I be lost?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: if I were a young actor today I would quit before I started. If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don’t think I could survive it emotionally. I would only hope that someone who loved me, really loved me, would put their arm around me and lead me away to safety. Sarah Tobias would never have danced before her rapists in The Accused. Clarice would never have shared the awful screaming of the lambs to Dr. Lecter. Another actress might surely have taken my place, opened her soul to create those characters, surrendered her vulnerabilities. But would she have survived the paparazzi peering into her windows, the online harassment, the public humiliations, without overdosing in a hotel room or sticking her face with needles until she became unrecognizable even to herself?
Acting is all about communicating vulnerability, allowing the truth inside yourself to shine through regardless of whether it looks foolish or shameful. To open and give yourself completely. It is an act of freedom, love, connection. Actors long to be known in the deepest way for their subtleties of character, for their imperfections, their complexities, their instincts, their willingness to fall. The more fearless you are, the more truthful the performance. How can you do that if you know you will be personally judged, skewered, betrayed? If you’re smart, you learn to willfully disassociate, to compartmentalize. Putting your emotions into a safety box definitely comes in handy when the public throws stones. The point is to survive, intact or not, whatever the emotional cost. Actors who become celebrities are supposed to be grateful for the public interest. After all, they’re getting paid. Just to set the record straight, a salary for a given on-screen performance does not include the right to invade anyone’s privacy, to destroy someone’s sense of self.
In 2001 I spent 5 months with Kristen Stewart on the set of Panic Room mostly holed up in a space the size of a Manhattan closet. We talked and laughed for hours, sharing spontaneous mysteries and venting our boredom. I grew to love that kid. She turned 11 during our shoot and on her birthday I organized a mariachi band to serenade her at the taco bar while she blew out her candles. She begrudgingly danced around a sombrero with me but soon rushed off to grip and electric department's basketball game. Her mother and I watched her jump around after the ball, hooting with every team basket. “She doesn’t want to be an actor when she grows up, does she?” I asked. Her mom sighed. “Yes … unfortunately.” We both smiled and shrugged with an ambivalence born from experience. “Can’t you talk her out of it?” I offered. “Oh, I’ve tried. She loves it. She just loves it.” More sighs. We watched her run around the court for a while, both of us silent, each thinking our own thoughts. I was pregnant at the time and found myself daydreaming of the child I might have soon. Would she be just like Kristen? All that beautiful talent and fearlessness … would she jump and dunk and make me so proud?
Cut to: Today … A beautiful young woman strides down the sidewalk alone, head down, hands drawn into fists. She’s walking fast, darting around huge men with black cameras thrusting at her mouth and chest. “Kristen, how do you feel?” “Smile Kris!” “Hey, hey, did you get her?” “I got her. I got her!” The young woman doesn’t cry. Fuck no. She doesn’t look up. She’s learned. She keeps her head down, her shades on, fists in her pockets. Don’t speak. Don’t look. Don’t cry.
My mother had a saying that she doled out after every small injustice, every heartbreak, every moment of abject suffering. “This Too Shall Pass.” God, I hated that phrase. It always seemed so banal and out of touch, like she was telling me my pain was irrelevant. Now it just seems quaint, but oddly true … Eventually this all passes. The public horrors of today eventually blow away. And yes, you are changed by the awful wake of reckoning they leave behind. You trust less. You calculate your steps. You survive. Hopefully in the process you don’t lose your ability to throw your arms in the air again and spin in wild abandon. That is the ultimate F.U. and--finally--the most beautiful survival tool of all. Don’t let them take that away from you.
source
Hurtful headlines. Prurient paparazzi. Fickle fans. Enough already! Jodie Foster defends a kid actor’s right to be a kid.
We’ve all seen the headlines at the check-out counter. “Kristen Stewart Caught.” We’ve all thumbed the glossy pages here and there. “Kris and Rob a couple?” We all catch the snaps. “I like that dress. I hate the hair. Cute couple. Bad shoes.” There’s no guilt in acknowledging the human interest in public linens. It’s as old as the hills. Lift up beautiful young people like gods and then pull them down to earth to gaze at their seams. See, they’re just like us. But we seldom consider the childhoods we unknowingly destroy in the process.
I have been an actress since I was 3 years old, 46 years to date. I have no memories of a childhood outside the public eye. I am told people look to me as a success story. Often complete strangers approach me and ask, How have you stayed so normal, so well-adjusted, so private? I usually lie and say, “Just boring I guess.” The truth is, like some curious radioactive mutant, I have invented my own gothic survival tools. I have fashioned rules to control the glaring eyes. Maybe I’ve organized my career choices to allow myself (and the ones I truly love) maximum personal dignity. And yes, I have neurotically adapted to the gladiator sport of celebrity culture, the cruelty of a life lived as a moving target. In my era, through discipline and force of will, you could still manage to reach for a star-powered career and have the authenticity of a private life. Sure, you’d have to lose your spontaneity in the elaborate architecture. You’d have to learn to submerge beneath the foul air and breathe through a straw. But at least you could stand up and say, I will not willfully participate in my own exploitation. Not anymore. If I were a young actor or actress starting my career today in the new era of social media and its sanctioned hunting season, would I survive? Would I drown myself in drugs, sex, and parties? Would I be lost?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: if I were a young actor today I would quit before I started. If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don’t think I could survive it emotionally. I would only hope that someone who loved me, really loved me, would put their arm around me and lead me away to safety. Sarah Tobias would never have danced before her rapists in The Accused. Clarice would never have shared the awful screaming of the lambs to Dr. Lecter. Another actress might surely have taken my place, opened her soul to create those characters, surrendered her vulnerabilities. But would she have survived the paparazzi peering into her windows, the online harassment, the public humiliations, without overdosing in a hotel room or sticking her face with needles until she became unrecognizable even to herself?
Acting is all about communicating vulnerability, allowing the truth inside yourself to shine through regardless of whether it looks foolish or shameful. To open and give yourself completely. It is an act of freedom, love, connection. Actors long to be known in the deepest way for their subtleties of character, for their imperfections, their complexities, their instincts, their willingness to fall. The more fearless you are, the more truthful the performance. How can you do that if you know you will be personally judged, skewered, betrayed? If you’re smart, you learn to willfully disassociate, to compartmentalize. Putting your emotions into a safety box definitely comes in handy when the public throws stones. The point is to survive, intact or not, whatever the emotional cost. Actors who become celebrities are supposed to be grateful for the public interest. After all, they’re getting paid. Just to set the record straight, a salary for a given on-screen performance does not include the right to invade anyone’s privacy, to destroy someone’s sense of self.
In 2001 I spent 5 months with Kristen Stewart on the set of Panic Room mostly holed up in a space the size of a Manhattan closet. We talked and laughed for hours, sharing spontaneous mysteries and venting our boredom. I grew to love that kid. She turned 11 during our shoot and on her birthday I organized a mariachi band to serenade her at the taco bar while she blew out her candles. She begrudgingly danced around a sombrero with me but soon rushed off to grip and electric department's basketball game. Her mother and I watched her jump around after the ball, hooting with every team basket. “She doesn’t want to be an actor when she grows up, does she?” I asked. Her mom sighed. “Yes … unfortunately.” We both smiled and shrugged with an ambivalence born from experience. “Can’t you talk her out of it?” I offered. “Oh, I’ve tried. She loves it. She just loves it.” More sighs. We watched her run around the court for a while, both of us silent, each thinking our own thoughts. I was pregnant at the time and found myself daydreaming of the child I might have soon. Would she be just like Kristen? All that beautiful talent and fearlessness … would she jump and dunk and make me so proud?
‘If I were a young actor today I would quit before I started. If I had to grow up in this media culture, I don’t think I could survive it emotionally.’
Cut to: Today … A beautiful young woman strides down the sidewalk alone, head down, hands drawn into fists. She’s walking fast, darting around huge men with black cameras thrusting at her mouth and chest. “Kristen, how do you feel?” “Smile Kris!” “Hey, hey, did you get her?” “I got her. I got her!” The young woman doesn’t cry. Fuck no. She doesn’t look up. She’s learned. She keeps her head down, her shades on, fists in her pockets. Don’t speak. Don’t look. Don’t cry.
My mother had a saying that she doled out after every small injustice, every heartbreak, every moment of abject suffering. “This Too Shall Pass.” God, I hated that phrase. It always seemed so banal and out of touch, like she was telling me my pain was irrelevant. Now it just seems quaint, but oddly true … Eventually this all passes. The public horrors of today eventually blow away. And yes, you are changed by the awful wake of reckoning they leave behind. You trust less. You calculate your steps. You survive. Hopefully in the process you don’t lose your ability to throw your arms in the air again and spin in wild abandon. That is the ultimate F.U. and--finally--the most beautiful survival tool of all. Don’t let them take that away from you.
source
It's the everyone who has been bitching on her for the last few years that need to eat a dick or two. Seriously, first the abnormal fame of Twilight, now this thing blown SO MUCH out of proportion?
A young woman made a mistake millions of people make and nobody died. All the people throwing stones should look hard at the smudges in their glass houses tbh.
And besides, there are plenty of stars that we don't see photographed very often because they don't make a point to live in Hollywood, or even if they do, they make a point to stay private by not showing up to the hot spot stores, restaurants, etc.
I think for Kristen right now she would have a hard time avoiding the press but it's isn't imposable is you can ignore fake National Enquirer stories.
It's even better if you live in London because you can get court orders to ban the press from following you on the streets like Sienna Miller did.
I mean, I still don't like her and have lost any respect I had for her, but, IDK, I don't hate her as much as the rest of ONTD, for sure.
Call me when she's starving to death because her village has been in a 2 year drought and can't grow crops.
I always feel kind of sorry for young people who fuck up. I don't mean to say that they didn't do something wrong, but I think some people forget what it's like to be young and, yes, a little stupid.
As long as people grow from the experience and learn something, i don't think we should be too hard on them. She probably is punishing herself enough without other people chiming in.
i am the same age as kristen (or at least almost). yet i don't feel the need to make such bad decisions. do i make mistakes? definitely. am i being stupid sometimes? without a doubt. but being young is no excuse to deliberately make such bad decisions.
besides this is not just a typical mistake that young people make, i mean turn on dr phil and you'll see 30+ woman who made the same bad decisions.
first of all i just think cheating is wrong, no matter what the circumstances, or whoever is involved. i have been cheated on and could never inflict so much pain on someone. let alone if there was a family/young kids involved.
second of all when i was 13 my dad cheated on his girlfriend with one of his ex-girlfriends. i accidentally found out because he was still logged in on hotmail, and the email in which he and his ex-gf were talking about it was right there when i went on MY computer....
i told his gf because i thought she deserved to know the truth, even though i had grown really fond of her (wouldn't have minded her as my step mom) and knew it could possible be the end of their relationship (and it was). i was very aware of what was wrong and right, and i knew that not knowing was not fair to her.
also kristen knew the wife - that makes it all the more wrong in my eyes. she could've just said no, but she didn't. do i think it's sad that her life is under a microscope and that everyone is talking trash about her? most definitely. but then again she should've used her brain, doesn't take a genius to see that this was wrong and therefor it's kind of her own fault.
I fucked up in my relationship too, and I wish I had a time machine. I cheated on my lovely boyfriend for a stupid reason (basically, I'm an attention whore). My boyfriend forgave me and took me back, and we are doing very well, but still. I know our relationship will never be the same. A certain...innocence is gone. :(
I look back and I can't even figure out why I cheated. It's so stupid and was SOOOOO not worth it. Ugh. I'm an IDIOT.
And I feel so bad about it.. just because of the S.O. and the fact that it started in a club (friends of his were around)
she asked for this crisis. the fates provided. hopefully this lends itself to her acting abilities.
Edited at 2012-08-15 02:15 pm (UTC)
JODIE: WHYYY??
Why feel sorry for her now?
she's a role model and whether she wanted to be a media spectacle, she had to know she would be a role model when she started signing up for roles.
I don't disagree with her points about the media intrusion into celebrities lives and the paparazzi and all that. It's a bitch and celebrities don't sign away their right to privacy.
However, it's a bit much to be wah-wahing about Kristen (who hasn't even so much as been seen since the scandal) when Liberty Ross has the paparazzi following her and taking pictures of her kid's birthday party and Robert Pattinson has to do a press junket and answer questions nonstop about "the scandal". Both are dealing with that the best the can and with class, but Kristen needs an article asking people to leave her alone?