Friday, November 19, 2010

Considering Jodie Foster On Her Birthday


I like her well enough. I certainly appreciate her talent & dedication to the craft of acting. I don’t love her enough to shoot a President, although it was a sad day for me when John Hinckley missed. I 1st noticed her as Becky Thatcher in a crappy musical version of Huckleberry Finn (produced by Reader’s Digest!) in 1973. I thought- “wow, that little girl sure is butch, just like I want my girls!”  But, I turned around & she really held my attention & interest in the wonderful Scorsese flick- Alice Doesn’t Live Her Anymore.



Alicia Christian Foster began acting in commercials when she was 3 years old, & her first important role came in 1976 in Taxi Driver as a preteen prostitute. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Also that same year she starred in the cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. She finally won that Oscar for Best Actress in 1989 for playing a rape survivor in The Accused. In 1991, Foster received a 2nd Oscar & international acclaim for The Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling. She received her 4th Academy Award nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994) a film that I truly disliked, although I do a 1st rate imitation of her work in this film. Other popular films: Maverick(1994), Contact (1997), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Brave One (2007) & WTF?-Nim's Island (2008), all of which I found dreadful or at least peculiar.


Foster's films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. She has also won 3 Bafta Awards, 2 Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, & has received 2 Emmy nominations.


Deeply in the closet, Her recent "mid-life crisis" was probably the subject of much speculation at soft ball practices, therapy sessions & over wholewheat muffins in bakeries around Hollywood by the entire lesbian community of L.A.


Foster had dramatically ditched 55 year old Cydney Bernard, her partner of more than 15 years - for Cynthia Mort, 33, a highly intelligent big deal writer, who has made a name for herself by giving viewers some of the most explicit sex talk on TV. She made her way in the business as a writer on Roseanne, where she worked for 4 years in the late 1990s, & was later hired as the supervising producer. She wrote Tell Me You Love Me, the show for HBO about couples in therapy, which garnered an enormous amount of publicity for its frank depiction of sex. Mort served as the executive producer of Will & Grace, & is currently writing a bio-pic about the singer Nina Simone, to star Mary J Blige.


Cynthia Mort

The relationship with Foster started when they met 3 years ago on the set of the The Brave One, which Mort had written the screenplay. Now they are going to set up a home together.


The former couple have already agreed to raise their 2 boys together. Bernard & Foster are still living together while Jodie makes plans to move out. A sad end for a romance which for a decade & a half, was as happy as it was private. Foster: "Thank you to beautiful Cydney, who stuck with me through all the rotten & the bliss".


Their partnership seemed to have been the very model of a modern lesbian couples. Foster had the babies, which were conceived with a sperm donor, her friend, openly gay film director- Randy Stone.They raised them in the comfort of West Hollywood, where they & their dogs went for walks in the local park & lived as a "regular" family, given the circumstances & Foster’s fame.


About the breakup, Foster: "Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it & I go: 'I think I'll just kick it.'"


More peculiar than Foster’s inability to fully come out of the closet is her recent defence of crazy, abusive, homophobic, anti-semetic Mel Gibson. Foster & Gibson have a history, they appeared together in Maverick & co-star in the yet to be released comedy The Beaver, directed by Foster.


A production still from The Beaver.


When her good friend Gibson is given to sexual abuse, threats, & racial slurs, & with a history of drunk driving & accusing the Jews of being "responsible for all the wars in the world," maybe she could as quiet about him as she is about her private life. Foster has had a lifetime of "no comment", why stop now?


Foster: "When you love a friend, you don't abandon them when they are struggling. Of course, Mel is an undeniably gifted actor & director, & 'The Beaver' is one of his most powerful & moving performances. But more importantly, he is & has been a true & loyal friend. I hope I can help him get through this dark moment. Mel is honest, loyal, kind, but alcoholism has been a lifelong struggle for him & his family. I just wish I had been there, that I had been able to say, 'Don't do it, don't take that drink. He is incredibly loved by everyone that's ever come into contact with him or works with him. He is truly the most loved man in the film business, so, hopefully that stands for something."


The thing that really gets to me about Foster, is that besides publicly thanking "my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten & the bliss" she has never acknowledged her personal life or relationships. For somebody of her power, influence, & fame being silent is cowardly.  She thinks Mel Gibson is "incredibly loved." Why are her gay fans, who fell in love with her in Bugsy Malone, not saying that she is no longer our role model, & hold that applause?

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