I mean---wouldn’t it have been so much easier to simply
accept that award, talk about her work, keep her life private?
She sort of came out already. Why do that weird dance? It’s
like---she was pissed off that she had been forced to come out to begin with
and she was letting the world know it. But sort of people pleasing, too.
Deep down, I believe the “keeping things private” thing is a
load of hogwash. Sure, you keep your secrets about really private stuff…because
much of it is too intimate or embarrassing. But being gay is not that intimate
a subject any longer or an embarrassment. Unless, of course, it is to you. And
you are annoyed that people are putting you in a crappy position.
In my twenties, when I was sexual bait for all kinds of
genders, I knew it was a point of power to not let people know about my exact
sexuality. Because I was primarily an actor then, it was also important that I
hid the truth about my ass (I use the term as in “my being”). I used to have
horrible daydreams that I would be interviewed by Barbara Walters and she would
force me, in her B.W. way, to “Tell America what they really want to
know,” and I would get furious! Though I might have been a tad insane to even
ruminate about such a thing, I imagined she was using my “misfortune” to create
some sort of sensational segment on her show—in collusion with the homophobes
of America
who want to see someone squirm. I was furious that Barbara took on the least
common denominator of American opinion about a subject, sat with it as if it
was hers, and then exploited it. Yes. I felt exploited.
Yeah, all that. It’s no wonder I was so tired in my
twenties.
But instead, I never was interviewed by Barbara Walters and
the terrified young gay person I was, having his own regressive Walter Mitty field
day, soldiered on until it was no longer uncomfortable. It is horrible to
imagine being exposed if in the long run you imagine it will harm you.
Jodie Foster is so talented and smart and beautiful. And appears
to be a person with a lot of integrity. I think she should have passed on the half
coming out confirming thing and could have chosen to just focus on her life’s
work in her speech. By watching her behavior, the whole sexuality thing is
something she is not publicly comfortable with…the strange unfocused talking,
the repetitive nervous knocking on the dais, that she should have left it
alone. She looked scared and unhappy, roasting on a spit of terror. That does
not instill confidence in other gay people.
It is not Jodie’s job to be comfortable or uncomfortable.
But I do believe there is an art to being truthful. She stumbled with it. I so wish
her well. I wish I could calmly hold her in my lap and stroke her hair and say,
“Give Me That Hair!” No, I wish I could
stroke her head and say, “Jodie, really, it’s no big deal. You are loved. Let
it go. Sexual preference announcements are so 2011. Carry on, girl and love
yourself, fully, for who you are. That’s what we want to see.”
Sometimes, too, humor works.