My new Taki's Magazine column is an overdue tribute to Jodie Foster:
Movie folks think they are better than you or me, and sometimes they are right. Jodie Foster, for example, isn’t the world’s best director, but she may be the bravest. Who else would have the brass to direct her old buddy from 1994’s Maverick and today’s leading object of collective hatred, Mel Gibson, in The Beaver, a good dramedy about hereditary manic depression?
Read the whole thing there. I discuss the oddest of many odd things about Jodie: this calmest, most calculating of stars' enduring relationship with nuts, both onscreen and off.
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43 comments:
Dude, I think that the title is a little inappropriate!
You do have to wonder what Jodi had in mind with that title. She doesn't do things by accident.
The name of that innocent animal has become so improper that it has been stripped from both an old American college in Pennsylvania (now "Arcadia University") and the venerable magazine of Canada's National History Society (now "Canada's History").
I know she has a raspy voice, but Steve, is there something else I have missed about Ms. Foster's mannerisms and such? You refer to her twice as "normally boyish."
Okay, so lots of lesbians appear and act butch, and maybe I've not seen enough of Foster's movies, or maybe I am non-observant, but I've not noticed what seems to be "boyish" (I presume this means dykey) behavior in her films.
Gibson seems to be one of those tortured souls who'd give you the shirt off his back as long as he wasn't drunk and wanting to punch you in the nose.
Maverick was a good movie, Foster should have done more comedies.
"I know she has a raspy voice, but Steve, is there something else I have missed about Ms. Foster's mannerisms and such? You refer to her twice as 'normally boyish.'"
So it's wrong to call a woman boyish if she happens to be a lesbian? I say this as a huge fan of Foster, who couldn't care less about her sexual orientation and whose movie is next up in my queue. I used to love Mel Gibson. I'm not sure why he went off the rails, but I'm glad Foster has the courage to stand behind him.
My attitude toward Foster finally changed while watching Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2004 WWI drama...
My attitude toward Foster finally changed when she made it her prerogative to deprive her sons of their patrimony as a "single mother by choice"-- which is as close as anything to the female equivalent of rape (i.e., sexual expression on an innocent, unconsenting victim.)
Gee, it's nice her boys can prove their Mayflower descent through their mother's line. What about that poor boy next door on Lesbos Lane who can't prove his, as it's in his donor's?
I was probably a JF fan before anyone else here, when she played Brandon Cruz's friend on The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and I was maybe twice her age at most. But Taxi Driver and that creepy thing with Charlie Sheen's dad turned me off for good-- John Hinkley in reverse, in effect.
I can't think of puppet therapy without thinking of Mr. Hat from South Park.
Regarding the question of American actors doing foreign languages: it's not perhaps as unusual as one might think. Gwyneth Paltrow has done an absolutely perfect Castilian Spanish on film, and the recent horrible profile of Jane Fonda in The New Yorker reminds us that she's starred in a bunch of French movies. This shouldn't come as a great surprise: many actors are excellent mimics, of course--a talent that seems largely uncorrelated with general intelligence. (As does acting talent more broadly, if you ask me.)
Speaking of speaking: the one thing that has always irked me about the otherwise admirable Jodie Foster is that meta-sibilant thing she does to the sound "S." Her mushy esses have been copied by a certain kind of Ivy / Seven Sisters chick of her generation and are rife in certain circles of (now mostly middle-aged) women. The only good thing about this phenomenon is that you know who's a bitch pretty much the moment they open their mouths.
she tried to makin a movie about leni Reifensthal but das juden, who, according to the ad, are powerless in hollywood, stopped it
"The name of that innocent animal has become so improper that it has been stripped from both an old American college in Pennsylvania (now "Arcadia University") and the venerable magazine of Canada's National History Society (now "Canada's History").
What has the word "cock" done for chickens? And of course there's that synonym for cats.
"My attitude toward Foster finally changed when she made it her prerogative to deprive her sons of their patrimony as a "single mother by choice"-- "
She made sure the sperm donors were high IQ. Her boys will certainly be made aware of the identity of their fathers in the fullness of time, but kids do need dads. I live in a neighborhood that has any number of lesbian couples who obtained their offspring in any number of creative ways and combos. Some of them have an arrangement with the fathers where they are "there" for the kids. I try to be open-minded. I try; but it is deeply sick to me.
This is one of the dangers of considering homosexuality as a norm. Not that there's anything wrong with it, because it does seem to be a regularly occurring phenomenon in a certain percentage of society. But as with any exceptional quality, there's an element of the extreme. There is something in the human psyche that wants to be both father and mother to one's own child. Hence we get father gods vs. mother gods. An extreme example are the Kurdish Yezidi religionists who believes they are descended only from Adam, no thanks to Eve. Apparently there was a competition as to whose "seed" was better. Adam put his in a jar and lo and behold, a beautiful boy grew there. Later a girl. Poor Eve's only grew vile insects. The rest of us are descended from Eve and Adams.
So regarding Ms. Foster and her story-telling skills. It could be worse.
Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Jodie wasn't born a lesbian, Steve. She was made one through years of systematic abuse. Jodie hates her own identity, you see, and she thinks that makes her a man. But her pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.
But seriously folks, Jodie Foster doesn't pass the man hands test:
http://rainbowroomsuk.co.uk/images/jodie-foster-20060830-156804.jpg
If she really were butch she would have an index finger significantly shorter than her ring finger, which as you can see from the photo, she doesn't.
"And Foster doesn’t quite have the directing chops to make us wonder whether Mel’s manic spell after he becomes a national celebrity isn’t all in his head."
Like in Beautiful Mind? I guess that would have cinched the Oscar had Ron Howard not already done it.
To Jack Aubrey who said,
"So it's wrong to call a woman boyish if she happens to be a lesbian?"
No. I see nothing wrong with calling anyone "boyish" if it fits. I simply was wondering what I had missed in viewing her in her film roles and wanted Steve to point out what makes her appear "boyish" to him.
I was wondering if men were about to pick up things that I, a woman, hadn't noticed. (BTW, a straight woman--not that there's anything wrong with that!) :)
Reg Caesar - right on. I wrote this about her the last time she came up -
"Jodie Foster is in most ways the sort of lesbian I can feel some sympathy with. Besides her strange two-moms upbringing that Steve has chronicled before, she went through a traumatic experience (the Hinckley incident) that could turn almost anyone off the opposite sex. She is intelligent, seems to be otherwise abstemious in her personal habits, and clearly is a bit ashamed of her orientation. But she has no right to manufacture a child - it is not a cute foible as Steve treats it as being, it is a monstrous act."
Gibson is absolutely nuts. And a great actor. Proof that talent and character (and wisdom for that matter) are separate spheres.
I discuss the oddest of many odd things about Jodie: this calmest, most calculating of stars' enduring relationship with nuts, both onscreen and off.
In my experience, the only men lezzies get along well with are what we call "nuts", that is, eccentric but manly men. They don't like nerds or gays; while ordinary straight men, be they alpha or beta, they resent for obvious reasons.
For some reason they find appealing the combination of virility AND eccentric personality. With men like that they can be "pals" and maybe once in a lifetime on a drunken occasion end up in bed with Gibson certainly fits the bill.
Jodie Foster - the lesbian - just isn't very attractive as a human being. If you can't figure that out please re-read your 1994 essay on "Why Lesbians Aren't Gay".
Let me save you the trouble. Lesbians are pushy and unlikeable. Normal men are surprised that they tend to personally like male homosexuals even though they are repulsed by their sexual practices. Normal heterosexual men often find lesbian pornography attractive but can't stand lesbians in person.
Mel Gibson is on the other hand an immensely likable person and a truly interesting director. Who could have imagined that movies presented in dead languages would be box office hits?
He parlayed his charismatic screen presence into a creative role behind the camera. The evidence is that being a director is not all that hard. Many movie stars have managed the trick. OTOH It has always been rare for stage actors to write a play or singers to compose an opera.
So it's not very surprising that Foster can direct but she hasn't had anything like the impact that Gibson has had.
Gibson's mistake as far as I can determine it was to not drink quite enough. A lot of the heavy drinking Hollywood actors like Burton or O'Toole kill themselves with a binge too far. Had he just drunk a bit more that night he would never have gotten a chance to rail against the Jews and his reputation would have survived even if he hadn't.
Albertosaurus
Mel Gibson is nowadays considered the model for the Hollywood bad boy. Or is it Charlie Sheen?
In any case my favorite has to be Steve Cochran. That was a guy who knew how to live and die.
At a Hollywood party he got into a fight with a professional boxer. Steve - no fool he - used a baseball bat.
And it's hard to top his demise for sheer seediness. As his career wound down he took to recruiting girls to man his sail boat. He died at sea with three Mexican hookers aboard. His body rotted on deck for more than a week - they were afraid to toss it overboard.
That's colorful.
Albertosaurus
"Gibson is absolutely nuts. And a great actor."
Certainly my first choice to play Henry VIII.
"Mel Gibson is on the other hand an immensely likable person..."
Dos Equis, you've entered the twilight zone again. Please come back, and you're welcome.
We in Oregon still call it The Beaver State! Take that PC!
"And it's hard to top his [Steve Cochran's] demise for sheer seediness."
True, but apparently Albert Dekker had a good time trying.
As his career wound down he took to recruiting girls to man his sail boat.
Can girls "man" a sailboat?
I've never been able to take Foster since Nell. That was one meandering, pointless, underwritten and overdirected waste of time.
I will defend Mel Gibson to an extent--but only to an extent--if only to expose the hypocrisy of Hollywood. It has no problem awarding a child-rapist-on-the-run with 'best director' award, but it cannot tolerate what Mel Gibson did and said in PRIVATE. If we were to hear the private conversations of Hollywood execs and actors, my guess most of them would come across as assholes, bigots, jerks, perverts, and etc. Another thing. If a drunken Mel Gibson had badmouthed Muslims, Chinese, Hindus, or peckerwoods, would he have gotten into much trouble? I think not. Also, the Hollywood's treatment of Gibson following PASSION OF THE CHRIST was abominable, not least since Jewish Hollywood has been making tons of 'hateful' films about Muslim terrorists, evil Japs(RISING SUN), evil blonde Aryan movies of all stripe, etc. And I find it hilarious that Jews, who get a kick out of hateful filth such as GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO would be soooo offended by PASSION.
Even so, WTF has Gibson been doing after APOCALYPTO? With all the money he earned from PASSION, he could have made or financed many worthy projects, but he wasted his time and money chasing skanky beaver around the world. One wonders why he even bothered to make PASSION when he's such a sleazy lout whose main passions are booze and loose beaver. Even if we accept that Hollywood's reaction to Gibson's private failings was gleefully hysterical and over-the-top, the main reason for Gibson's pathetic decline owes mostly to his own stupid excesses. If these excesses had at least been invested or expended creatively--as with Brando in the 60s and 70s or with Kinski-Herzog at their nuttiest--, there would at least be an element of tragedy and heroism, no matter how ludicrous. But what Gibson's been doing since APOCALYPTO doesn't even deserve the title of 'mad'; it was just stupid.
Maybe BEAVER has three meanings.
An allusion to LEAVE IT TO BEAVER,a time when the American family was idealized in an innocent and idyllic suburban setting.
The other meaning is more obvious today: pussy or cunt. But given what beavers do in nature--gnaw on wood--, there's the sense of the new sexual dynamics whereby empowered women gnaw away at the sense of pride/possession among men. Beavers not only gnaw on wood--which also has double meaning--but knock down the phallic tree and uses it to dam rivers and build a home. Metaphorically, it could mean that the modern American home is created by the independent woman figuratively castrating and penis-lopping the male figure, who had once stood firm and hard in yesteryear.
The third meaning, with the beaver as puppet, could stand for psychoanalysis as the solution or escape from the current sexual-social malady affecting men. Since the beaver-pussy now has power over the wood-cock, the male has to find a way to come to terms with this power. Since he can no longer possess or dominate the woman by driving his wood into the beaver--which is constantly chomping on wood--, he has to finda way of submitting to or coming to terms with beaver power.
In a way, this sexual dynamic may not be wholly new. Especially in primitive societies, there is a kind of male awe of the female, who is often depicted(in stone figurines) and worshiped as the Earth goddess or something like that. Since spirituality is passe for modern man, the only option may be psychology. This allows the man to have a conversation with the pussy that he can no longer possess as his father once did. In an era of the VAGINA MONOLOGUE, the male seeks a way to open a dialogue with the poon power. He subliminates the pussy into a puppet. And the fact that he uses it as a toy for his little son means that the new generation of males will grow up guided by the new consciousness of pussy-power, i.e. they'll grow up to be SWPL dorks.
I think there was some of this in THE AMERICAN, which expressed the anxiety of the middle aged white American male. The killer in the movie takes pride in his technical prowess with machines, rather poignant in an age when so many white males lost manufacturing and machine-operating jobs which once gave them so much pride as builders and designers of things. At one point, he even meets a woman who is as knowledgeable and skillful with guns as he is--maybe even better. He thought he was the best with the machine-phallus but a cold-hearted professional bitch is his match in every way. Though the title of the movie is THE AMERICAN, he's like a drifting journeyman in a global world without roots or loyalty, which says something about globalism. In the end, he recognizes that for all his acumen and skill, he's just a hired whore in the world economy, just like the Italian woman he bangs, which may explain their mutual attraction/fondness. He's also a good-looking guy but middle-aged, thus fading--Last of the White Males, like Tom Cruise character in COLLATERAL. How can a man like him have any kind of edge in the new world? Well, I won't give away the spoiler, but he has one trick left to outwit the cold professional bitch.
Both THE BEAVER and THE AMERICAN seem to be white male anxiety movies.
"If she really were butch she would have an index finger significantly shorter than her ring finger, which as you can see from the photo, she doesn't."
I didn't follow your link, but I could tell it had to do with the research about androgenization of a fetus in utero. They know that digit ratios are related to some degree to finger length. So, from that, some researchers claim that gays and lesbians might have digit ratios of the second and fourth finger that are atypical of their gender.
One day about three years ago, I told this to a gay colleague. He knew about the research--in fact, he keeps up with much of the scientific research dealing with the possible cause(s) of homosexuality.
He suggested that for fun we look at the digit ratios of 10 men (including him and his partner) we knew to be gay.
Our "research" was completed by the end of the next day. As our guide, we printed out a pic from a site on line that showed the standard male hand vs. the "gay" hand.
Out of the 10 men, not even one matched the "gay" hand. Not even close. All the guys had finger lengths and ratios that matched those pic.
Now, I realize this isn't a scientific sample, but you'd think if this were a successful marker of male homosexuality, we'd have found at least one or two in that sample.
Then, we did the same with the hair whorl thing. Supposedly gay men are much more likely to have a counterclockwise hairwhorl while straight guys more likely to have a clockwise whorl.
One gay guy out of the 10 had the counterclockwise whorl. Whatever.
So did the Jews ever forgive Mel Gibson or what? I remember he got the DUI, did a lot of apologizing, talked to the rabbis, etc. However, since that point, he hasn't done much acting. Did somebody in Hollywood make a few calls and say "hey, Mel's all right now."
Albertosaurus:"Normal heterosexual men often find lesbian pornography attractive but can't stand lesbians in person."
Correction: Heterosexual men find fake "lesbian" porn (i.e., porn featuring straight actresses who are gay-for-pay)attractive. Real Lesbians going at it is one of the least arousing sights known to man or beast.
Jodie Foster strikes me as a typical Anglo woman. They tend to be mannish, because northern Europeans have thick bones and less sexual dimorphism than equatorial populations. Southern European and East Asian women tend to have more gracile skeletons and to display more sexual dimorphism compared to men. Everyone points out the lack of ass and the narrow hips of Anglo women.
Yes, but what did Steve think of Thor? I want to see him go to the Plant and sit with a Hispanic crowd delighting in a buff blond Australian and Jewish hottie acting out Marvel's half-assed version of Norse mythology.
Out of the 10 men, not even one matched the "gay" hand. Not even close. All the guys had finger lengths and ratios that matched those pic.
You missed the part about many male homosexuals having a hypermasculine ratio.
I have a very masculine ratio but dodged a bullet. Yes!
Jodie Foster strikes me as a typical Anglo woman. They tend to be mannish, because northern Europeans have thick bones and less sexual dimorphism than equatorial populations. Southern European and East Asian women tend to have more gracile skeletons and to display more sexual dimorphism compared to men. Everyone points out the lack of ass and the narrow hips of Anglo women.
I must disrespectfully disagree. This is ridiculous
"The other meaning is more obvious today: pussy or cunt. But given what beavers do in nature--gnaw on wood--, there's the sense of the new sexual dynamics whereby empowered women gnaw away at the sense of pride/possession among men. "
Let's not forget the beaver's spatula-like tail which represents the female tongue detached enough to lob one diatribe after another at her mate. Paradoxically this all gets balanced out by the beaver overbite functioning somewhat as a damn to those piles of words that what otherwise be flung a man's way. That along with the beaver's function which is to use those teeth to drag logs to build dams.
Now that we know the solution is to dam the beaver dam with copious amounts of log, I think we can move on to the next problem: the bitchy badger.
Back to you, Wally...
"Jodie Foster strikes me as a typical Anglo woman. They tend to be mannish, because northern Europeans have thick bones and less sexual dimorphism than equatorial populations. Southern European and East Asian women tend to have more gracile skeletons and to display more sexual dimorphism compared to men. Everyone points out the lack of ass and the narrow hips of Anglo women."
Difference Maker: I must disrespectfully disagree. This is ridiculous.
I think he's just using the term "sexual dimorphism" sloppily. Asian and other women can be more gracile and feminine in build relative to "Anglo" women, while not being more dimorphic relative to their own men. I doubt Northern Europeans are less sexually dimorphic than other groups.
The flatter ass is indisputable, but the "everybody" pointing out the narrow hips of Anglo females must be "everybody who is blind". As some witty, forgotten - by me - blog commenter once observed, "black chicks are IMAX while white chicks are wide-screen", and I don't think he was referring to French or Latin white girls.
But I cannot speak to Miss Foster's broadness of beam or lack thereof.
It's funny to see people parade their fantasies about ethnic groups. "Northern Europeans" are not generally more heavy boned than southern--the opposite is true. Scandinavians have a high osteoporosis rate, the more med peole have less because their bones are denser. The stocky build is more common in southern Europe. You can recognize a southern Italian woman, (or Spanish or Greek) by the apple like body once past youth. Scandinavians tend to be slim and tall, and actually have some of the best bodies in Europe. Their reputation is based on reality. No, I'm not Scandi.
The only difference between southern and northern Europeans is coloring, and that is fairly minor. Personally I recognize southerners by their heavier, darker eyebrows. Rather large lips are common among Scandis, like Liv Ullman and Anita Ekberg. But here I'm indulging my own fantasies and anecdotes.
"Anglos" are no more mannish than any other type. Where do you get this? British writers have defined the art of writing, and we have countless descriptions over the centuries of "Anglo" women, and while some are "mannish" you have every white type represented among them. Bronte, in one novel, describes the English ex-pats as being graceful and mobile, distinct from the stiff, shapely but solid, "Dutch built" Belgians. Read literature from the 18th and 19th centuries. You learn a lot about your own history, which people here claim to care about.
Slogging through a long line of predictable malefic comments and bad jokes on "beaver", I wondered... why do I do it? I don't know. But then I remembered why I clicked this open. Gibson's name, combined with Foster's...
"One wonders why he even bothered to make PASSION when he's such a sleazy lout whose main passions are booze and loose beaver."
Am I the only person who read that the people he had playing Jesus and Mary (Magdalene or Virgin, I can't recall) were noted for their appearances in soft porn?
That's one hint for you. Gibson is a mass of contradictrions, a Catholic who must be committed to the St. Augustin prayer, "God, help me to sin no more, but not yet..."
Is this like GROUNDHOG DAY, another movie about some middle class white guy finding the true meaning of life?
It also kinda sounds like REGARDING HENRY(didn't see)where a white guy becomes better after being shot in the head.
Gibson as a manic-depressive? Art imitates life!
"I simply was wondering what I had missed in viewing her in her film roles and wanted Steve to point out what makes her appear "boyish" to him."
Rereading your first post, I stand corrected. To me Foster comes off as somewhat less feminine in her performances than most other actresses, so I think the "boyish" description isn't too far off. I actually like that.
If the gun is the extension/expression of man's physical aggression/dominance, could the (hand)puppet be the extension/expression of man's sexual aggression/dominance? Notice the hand goes into the puppet, like a penis goes into the vagina. In a way, the beaver puppet is to Mel's character what Magnum 44 is to Dirty Harry.
But things that men control have a way of controllng them back. Men use guns and machines to gain control, but they've also come under the domination of machines, as expressed in the Terminator(which in part 2, is remade into man or boy's puppet).
Similarly, though the woman is supposed to be the sexual puppet of the male, she also has power over him emotionally and psychologically(even politically, socially, and economically in the modern world). Though man controls the woman as a handpuppet, it could be woman more slyly controls the man as a (heart)string puppet. Mel's attempt to hang himself is like becoming a string puppet. And who can forget the hilarious scene in TIME OF THE GYPSIES where some kid tries to hang himself when he can't get some girl? He too has become emotionally puppetized.
It's intersting that Mel controls the puppet through his hand, but the puppet gains control over him. Maybe it's like man thinks he has control over the woman but the woman has control over him too, albeit in a more subtle way. In a way, possessing a woman(and family)can make a man feel more insecure since he feels the need to be the Man of the House. It's like a lone guy who gets beat up isn't as badly humiliated as a guy who gets beat up in front of his girlfriend.
Modern culture sends mixed signals to men. It wants men to be happier and better adjusted, but 'progress' requires men to be less manly, or further removed from his true nature. Can any true male feel happy being a nice goo goo boy? I dunno.
I haven't seen the movie, btw, so I could be entirely wrong about it.
Problems of Identity seems to be a key theme in the modern world. Due to psychology/psycho-analysis, rapid social changes, demographic shifts, changing sexual roles(between men and women, between straight and gays), racial dynamics, issues of nationality vs ideology, globalism, the near-virtual world of cinema and tvand interactive videogames), loss of faith, multi-media, new ways of communication and identification(via internet especially), use of experimental drugs, postmodernism, and so on, there is less and less a sense of 'who am I?' and 'who are we?'
Movies like THE BEAVER, SHUTTER ISLAND, MULHOLLAND DR, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH(and other Kaufman films), INCEPTION, MEMENTO, films by Egoyan and Cronenberg, etc, etc, all wrestle with the problem of Identity.
Of coures, all art is like puppetry, and all actors are like puppets. Yet, we imbue fictional characters with something like 'real life' and they do have power over us--just like the fantasy creation of Scotty in VERTIGO takes on a life of her own.
Maybe, this is a kind of PASSION OF MEL GIBSON. Just as Jesus created a myth of His own life and followed his own script to higher truth, Mel in the movie comes in contact with a deeper part of his own soul by creating a mythic being which is partly a projection of his own being. Of course, like religions, this sort of thing can take on a life of its own. Jesus's own puppet-ego-play as the Son of God did spread like wildfire(and the Beaver puppet seems to become popular).
In the trailer, the beaver puppet looks kinda like E.T. which is somehow fitting since E.T. was essentially Spielberg's private messiah puppet for himself, a Jewish kid who was not supposed to celebrate Christmas like all the other kids, so he created his own puppet Jesus.
Though kids don't play with puppets anymore, many artists of the past, like Ingamr Bergman and Jean Renoir, were started with puppet-play in their youth. A puppet is more creative toy than dolls, which are mostly mute objects to look at and hold. A puppet, in contrast, is given a voice, a conscious identity, even a soul(which is both apart from
and a part of the child). I wonder if allowing kids to play with puppets makes them creative or neurotic--split personality thing. Prolly both. But in a way, all dramatists are essentially puppet masters who just happen to use human actors.
"Scandinavians have a high osteoporosis rate, the more med peole have less because their bones are denser. "
Blacks have a lower osteoporosis rate than whites. The extra estrogen helps.
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