‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ $164.5M Global: Lower … 
Cannes: Backup Media, Memento Bring Heat To Fest Helmer Jim … 
Cannes: Sundance Selects Acquires Dardenne Brothers’ … 
Cannes: Wrekin Hill Acquires U.S. On Gabriele … 
Bill Hader’s ‘SNL’ Stefon Farewell: Video 
Cannes: The Weinstein Co. Books ‘Suite … 
BBC Confirms ‘Doctor Who’ Season 8 
Finally, Cannes Dealing! Radius-TWC Nabs Director’s … 
Hammond On Cannes: Wet Fest’s Official Competition … 
‘Vampire Academy’ Adds ‘Modern … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Shark Tank’ Finale Up, … 
Cannes: Worldview Options Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn … 
UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
‘Mike & Molly’ Creator Mark Roberts To … 
Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts Set For … 
Hammond On Cannes: Weinstein Brings Out Stars For 2013 … 
Cannes: Fake Gunshots Interrupt Canal Plus Live Broadcast … 
‘The Great Gatsby’ Starts With $5.4M … 
Cannes: Music Box Snags Competition’s ‘Michael … 
UPDATE: Amazon Studios Begins Pilot Pickups; … 
Bruce Rosenblum Bids Classy Goodbye 
Jodie Foster publishes an impassioned plea to social media to leave Kristen Stewart and her private life alone. The two women know each other well from 2001: they spent 5 months on the set of Panic Room “mostly holed up in a space the size of a Manhattan closet” when Stewart turned 11 years old and played Foster’s daughter. Foster in The Daily Beast on Wednesday decries social media scrutiny for young actors:
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… 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… 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?
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.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
telling it like it is. Totally agree the performance on screen does not warrant invasion of privacy.
Articulate and well-written. What else can be said? She is correct
in every account on the degradation of the individual in the age of the self-created celebrity.
Hi Jody,
My father cried only three times in front of me.
1) When his mother died.
2) When Winston Churchill died.
3) When he told me how badly he felt that I would not experience the ‘freedom’ he had as a child. The restrictions and culture had dramatically changed, and he felt so badly. This took place 45 years ago.
The technology of today certainly has its advantages…but, at what price? And, you cannot put the stopper back into the technology bottle.
There is no longer a line between professional and personal lives.
I totally and sadly agree with where you are coming from and commend your statement.
Well done.
This should have been addressed to ‘Jodie’ not ‘Jody”…please, excuse the typo.
Jodie, I completely agree with you, and especially with your last line. Social Media really needs to be self moderating, which sadly is something that will never happen, due to the complexities of such a task and the cries of ‘free speech’. Though Free Speech does not included attacking someone, you can certainly disagree but thats not the same thing.
Well written, Jodie knows how to use the pen. Nice job.
Jodie Foster is the best female actress in the last 30 years. She is as classy, intelligent and compassionate as they come. I have huge respect for her.
Mohammed, Jodie Foster is not the best actress in the last 30 years. Even, Jodie will tell you her idols Holly Hunter and Meryl Streep are better actresses than she is.
I agree that Holly and Meryl should be caunted. I don’t have anything but praise for those great actresses. It’s just my preference I suppose. For me her Clarice Starling inches a bit above Ripley as the single greatest female movie character in the last 4 decades.
I agree with Jodie Foster 100%, yet I can’t help thinking that her description fit Lindsay Lohan rather than Kristen Stewart.
Kristen Stewart was largely doing quite well. She had a high profile relationship with a fellow actor. She wasn’t scandal material, but now she is. At some point, personal choices matter.
Although personal choices do matter, the point I took from Jodie Foster’s piece was that Kristen’s choice has been blown up into a much bigger deal purely because she’s a public figure. I know she chose that path but if she’d been a regular Jane the story wouldn’t still be so big in the media three weeks later.
It appears that Kristen is getting crucified over and above the norm purely because it sells magazines and generates hits, and that’s hardly fair no matter what she did.
Funny how she sticks up for degenerates (Gibson: racist, abuser of women), (Stewart :homewrecker) all the time. Get some new, classy friends, dear. And I’m not forgetting the director. Centering is never right. Just ask his poor wife and kids. Hope she takes him for all he’s got.
I’m happy that you are not my friend, and I shudder at the thought of those who has the misfortune of calling you a friend. Jodie Foster have never excused the actions of her friends, but she has been there for them in a their moment of need. Apparently that’s not a quality you want in your friend, neither one your friends should expect from you.
You forgot Roman Polanski!
Don’t forget that she also traveled out of the country to work with Roman Polanski on CARNAGE (a film set in New York City), since he can’t come back into the USA because he’s a convicted child rapist. The man drugged and sodomized a 13-year old girl, but that’s apparently okay with Jody, you know, since he’s so talented. Every actor who is a parent should be ashamed to work with him, but they’re all fame whores.
“Classy friends” who go into online comments sections and attack a 22-year-old they’ve never met on the basis of a tabloid photo?
I guess you must not have many friends, since you apparently replace them when they do something wrong. What a sad life you must lead.
EOTW. Let me guess. Eediot Of The Week? I have no time for Gibson but Jodie Foster stands by her friends, right or wrong, and for that she gets my respect. You, “dear”, wouldn’t recognize class if it backed a yellow school bus over you.
It’s called ‘loyalty’, darling. Look it up in the dictionary.
Interesting that, even though this rant is supposed to be about Kristen Stewart, it ends up being primarily about Jodie Foster.
As to the rant itself, we live in a culture of celebrity that has made many many marginally talented people rich beyond their wildest dreams. It’s called a trade off. Move to Idaho like Bruce Willis did if you don’t want scrutiny of your private life. Otherwise, shut up and collect your check.
I agree. There is a difference between someone taking a long-range lens photo of you in your backyard and someone taking a photo of you messing around with a married director in your car. It is ridiculous that this is still a story–Stewart has been vilified enough–but at the same time janitors get paid pennies to smell sh*t. Celebrities feed into have of the media sensationalism so for them to sit back and complain when there is something they don’t like written is absurd.
ok jodie, but in the end, your girlfriend KStew is solely responsible for the situation where she is. No journalist or paparazzi did forced her to sleep with the married director of her film in the back of her boyfriend. At22 years old we know what we want, and apparently according to your prose, she does only what she wants .
Jodie continues to prove herself as one of the smartest, most talented people in Entertainment (and a damned loyal friend to those she loves). The Kristen Stewart “story” is especially hypocritical by Hollywood standards…it’s almost as if the tabloids are awaiting the chance to host a live feed of a public branding with a Scarlet “A.”
Jodie Foster is a good friend, and has my full agreement. Perhaps on an upside social media will allow people to distract themselves with their own vanity long enough to leave others alone. The last death rattles of an ego based society. Unity is all we have left before the earth burns us off like a bad case of melanoma.
This is naive. Today’s “stars” cultivate this crap. Today’s “screenwriters” not talents do the same. They all lack talent, Jodi. They work hard to make up for it with social media. Sean Penn doesn’t have to tweet. Paul Schrader does not have to tweet. Look who is tweeting. You’ll quickly realize the bigger the tweeter the smaller that talent.
But it was you & your parent’s choice that made you a child actor. Everything good and bad that goes with it are consequences of your choice. As it is with Stewart’s as well.
If being in the limelight bothers you so, leave. Don’t make another film. Try to find a job like the rest of us. Problem solved.
But if you stay, remember, that’s the price you pay to be a high profile actress. Is it fair? Probably not, but who said life was fair?
Bottom line, you can’t have it both ways. As with everything in life, there are prices to be paid.
But are things all that different, really? when was “1984″ written again? Right… not in 1984. We have similar witchhunts to McCarthyism, the onerous contracts of the Golden Age, and a time when Media, the local government and businesses controlled their community and employees with no fear of oversight. Ask Monroe what she thought about the media in her day, and she’d likely decry the same injustices.
The problem here isn’t what’s been lost (because resistance to change is where the pain really lies). The problem is an inability to accept that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I agree with this save for one thing in specific to Kristen Stewart: she’s the one who released this very public statement regarding her actions and blew the lid off of this affair story. Up to that point, it was still rumors and speculation and hadn’t really lit up into a firestorm just yet. Frankly, I was shocked and surprised to see any sort of statement acknowledging the rumors so quickly on the same day that things started to swirl, let alone admitting to them. Some have praised her for being mature with her statement but to me it seemed as much an overshare into her personal life as all this mess Foster is talking about.
Everyone is entitled to privacy no matter how public a figure you are. There isn’t a single argument that could be made to support the world “owning” someone just because they’ve danced in front of a camera a few times, written some entertaining words, or run for political office. I happen to agree with Ms. Foster about the rabid celebrity culture that intrudes far too often on people’s lives. It’s disgusting and I wish it wasn’t a part of our daily lives whether we want it to be or not, for those inside of it and those subjected to it.
That said, Stewart’s public way of addressing this rather than doing so strictly in private cracked the door for that rabid culture to stick its foot in.
I totally agree with Jodie.
But want to point out that this problem also comes from within the industry itself, with paparazzi oftentimes commissioned by Hollywood publicists hoping to drum up coverage or burnish a celebrity’s waning image.
Where does this vicious cycle end? With celebrities now renting themselves out to corporate events, rich-kid bar mitzvahs, Rush Limbaugh’s birthday party (hi Elton John!), and you name it…things only seem to be spiraling out of control.
As the exceedingly hounded actress Romy Schneider once asked: “Where are the morals? Where is the tact?”
Jodie makes some good points but they do not apply to Kristen Stewart at all. Her actions and words are totally inconsistent, you can not allow yourself to be on the cover of every magazine, attend fashion shows, agree to endorse products, enjoy it when the entertainment media talk you up and then claim they should leave you alone when they make negative reports backed by evidence you supplied. That is just disingenuous.
This write up will work if private pictures of hers were leaked as in Vanessa Hudgens or Scarlett Johansson. Those were invasions of privacy. They had a right to take naked pictures of themselves. Nobody had the right to hack their computers and leak them just because they were celebrities. Yet, no one wrote a letter complaining about those. I heard no feminist voices condemning the male hacker.
In this situation, Kristen sought fame (You are not obligated to cover magazines and attend fashion shows, you can just act, attend official promo junkets and refuse endorsements), she enjoyed, she benefitted from the obsession of fans that paid good money for her movies. Being aware of the level of her fame, she was caught PUBLICLY with her married director making out. No media invasion forced her into his arms or helped her offer him her breasts to suck on while wearing her boyfriend’s clothes. She did that all on her own. Having done that, she carried on with her alleged boyfriend as if nothing happened till she was caught. That was a choice; to have an affair with the husband of a woman you worked with. It was a bad choice. She and the director are equally at fault. She is not a victim. The only victims here are Liberty, her children and Rob Pattinson.
Jodie’s words apply to Liberty’s kids who will now face the effects of a broken home and being shuttled from one parent to another with the added insult of being targeted by paparazzi. The girl is 7 years, she will have to go to school knowing that everyone in school knows her father cheated with a famous actress and the pictures are there for posterity. They are the victims and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.
If everyone agreed with Jodie, as you all say, the comments here would be empty.
I disagree with her on one point – their SALARIES are inflated beyond belief. Last time I checked, teachers, social workers, firemen, doctors, etc do not make $20 million (a film), so I have to say it goes with the turf.
Another funny thing, personally, I feel Kristen and her PR people are manipulating the conversation here. Firstly, the pics were leaked, before anyone could catch their breath, they issued a PUBLIC highly theatrical apology purely targeted at appeasing her fans. Who asked her to apologise? Whose business was it? Didn’t she live with Rob, why couldn’t she apologise to him in private? People mess up, yes, but why didn’t she just deal with her stuff in private? At the most issue a statement asking the media to give her privacy as she deals with her issues? But no. ‘Sources’ keep providing news to the media about how broken and distraught she is. Who cares? Deal with your sh*t in private if you want respect.
The truth is that they want to control the conversation publicly and paint her as a victim. So they provide the leaks to the tabloids and then get other bloggers including Jodie to come out and defend her. She is too cowardly to face the consequences of her actions so she remains in hiding while the media clears the hubris for her. The goal is that by the time she emerges, we’ll all be feeling sorry for her. Unfortunately the innocent people here, Liberty and Rob do not have that luxury of hiding out. Liberty has kids she has to be strong for, Rob has a movie to promote and he is dealing with all this professionally and with no publicist.
The annoying thing is that Kristen and her team (including Summit) will not even allow him to promote his movie in peace. On top of the fact that he has to deal with the effects of her actions on his promo. they lost no time in leaking that she was dropped from Snow White while he was on his promo tour (just in case people were feeling sorry for him and blaming her). Universal has corrected that fallacy and surely, today, Breaking Dawn pictures were released. The whole ‘feel sorry for her, she was dropped’ was to raise sympathy for her. Sorry, all my feminist sympathies are reserved for Liberty.
The first step of maturity is to admit responsibility and get off the public square. Ignore the internet, shut up ‘your sources’ and apologists and focus on the acting you claim you love. Don’t try to play the fame game then cry foul when it backfires. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Pattinson fans are some of the most intense and unhinged people in fandom. 8 paragraphs spread out over two posts to pin a scarlett letter on Stewart? Step away from the chat rooms and go get some fresh air.
Unfortunately for Stewart, she will be taking he brunt of a very rabid female fanbase who invested in the idea of a real-life Twilight fairy tale romance. It’s not the adultery they want to crucify her for, it’s shattering their fantasy. Take cover Kristen.
This is very true. I don’t think some of the commentators have seen or truly understand this. The girl has been attacked viciously by people, as if she cheated on them personally. This stems from people believing they own theses actors. Ive seen arguments from fans straightout say this. Honestly, the fanatics are getting out of hand and it’s down right scary. This isn’t a case of just general gossip, this has gotten much much bigger then what it should be.
Jodie is correct and the fact that she went through a horrible National event like Hinkley, gives her a perspective that can’t be matched. Obviously, she cares for Kristen and understands what she might be going through. Clearly, she is trying to give Kristen a public support that she may not have gotten after Hinkley.
You wish. I’m not a Pattinson fan and I’m proud that I have neither watched or read any of the Twilight crap which are affronts to art and literature in my view. However, I follow entertainment news and only started paying attention to this brouhaha because of all the irritating public apologies and excuses that are being made for Kristen. I’ve never watched anything with Rob in it but I just might start seeing as he is the one demonstrating he is in for the craft.
I find it amusing that in a free for all comment section, rather than make your points to counter the points someone else has made, you descend to insults. Like star like fan, it appears.
I’m sorry you are only used to 140 character sound bites, some of us enjoy reading and writing well-expressed opinions that are not inane or part of the bad wagon mentality and yet manage to get plenty of fresh air, thank you.
I know you will like to pretend that only Rob’s ‘rabid fanbase’ a
the perception in the legal world that the paparazzi’s rights are greater than the rights of the individuals they stalk are protected under the 1st Amendment has reached ludicrous proportions. It’s not free speech.. it’s profiteering.. And the idea that the ‘press’ as an entity has more rights than the individual to the pursuit of life liberty and happiness is as much a mockery to the Constitution as , well, giving corporations the same rights as individuals.. but of course we all know how the Supreme Court feels about that..
The truth is most famous actors rarely if ever get bothered by the paparazzi because they choose not to do things that provoke it. They lead “boring” lives. It’s those who make fools of themselves in public with their boozing and drugging and fighting and affairs and meltdowns that attract the paparazzi. And let’s not forgot those who actively court the paparazzi by alerting them every time they leave the house. Kristen had an affair with a married man and needs to pay the price just like anyone in the real world has to when they fuck up.
How exactly do most people “pay the price” for infidelity in the modern, western world? Typically, there’s some social shunning but not career consequences or threats of physical violence.
This isn’t Saudi Arabia. Ms. Stewart is not living under Sharia law. She does not deserve the digital equivalent of a stoning. So far the married man in the equation has continued to make deals to make more films, and while people demand for Stewart’s head. If her choices have disappointed you, don’t buy a ticket/DVD for her next film.
What interesting and (unintentionally) revealing about this piece to me are two things, 1) how in the bubble of privilige Jodie is…Jodie, if you want a REAL test of your dignity, try losing you job and having no idea if you will be able to feed, house, and clothe you family, sweating it out at the grocery, wondering if that debit card will clear…2) she writes from the perspective, I think unselfawarly, of a person who has lived her life trying to hide something, trying to present one person publicly that denies a huge element of who she is. That life is stressfull enough for anyone, let alone a superstar. She knows full well the paychecks isn’t just for the acting gig, it’s also for being a famous person that people are interested in watching. When a star has to bear such dissonance between who they present (straight, faithful etc) and who they are, it must be awful. And of course the petty moralizing of the public is absurd and destructive, but it is what it is, and always will be. Maybe if enough famous people said “fuck it, I am who I am, take it or leave it” the public would bore of the chase. It’d sure be a less neurotic way to live.
I completely agree with this.
Also, to see how the public actually feels about this, go the actual story and check out the comments of the non-industry people. They echo the sentiments expressed here.
Right because the Twilight Robert fanatics are good indication of the public?
I am not talking about movie fans, I am talking about people who do believe bad press constitutes actual tragic, human suffering. It doesn’t. And, for it to be characterized as such is ridiculous. KS will be making $10 million on her next film. To the average person who has lost his or job and is being booted out of their home, this fails to qualify as a real problem. Waaahhh.
Jodie is writing with the perspective of a woman who survived a National event, that for all purposes should have ended her career. There is literally no one in Hollywood that can give this POV but her. Your first point is irrelevant to what she is saying. It’s the equivalent of someone breaking their arm and telling someone how much it hurts and you jumping in and saying “you don’t know what pain is. I’ve broken so-and-so, now that’s pain!” it’s a pissing contest that does not invalidate her views.
Another thing, if you read her actual article, she does acknowledge people’s natural curiosity at gossip. What she argues is that this stone throwing has gotten way out of hand. You may not be following this scandal if you don’t see it. Some of the comments against Kristen is beyond what should be said.
I’m not surprised Jodie wrote this, she went through a horrible time with the press during the Hinkley event, around Kristen’s age. She is extending words and support that maybe no one in Hollywood gave her. While reminding others that there is a line that we should be careful not to cross. Jodie saw that line crossed back in ’81.
Yep, the line was crossed back in 1981 – before social media. So, what’s your point?
But here’s the thing. She does have a job, acting, which she has done very well over a span of at least 30 years. That is her chosen career and she should be able to work at it without having to give up her privacy. As she stated in her piece, she has tried her best to live her day to day life like anyone else, including attending college (and, as I recall reading once, even riding the bus in LA to and from work.)
If the audience could separate the work from the person, which to me seems more than appropriate considering that the person is acting — portraying a character — then maybe invasion of privacy would not be an issue.
There is no way on earth a father would have said that (#3)45 years ago.that was one of the most ridiculous things I ever read.
Hey MN,
I did not need to make up a fact about my father crying while making that statement and pointing out it was 45 years ago. The point about ‘social media’ and its impact would be the same.
It is amazing you read in such detail, but choose to call the truth ‘ridiculous’…because you were not there and do not believe it.
Hope I am never involved in a court case where you are a juror.
I like Jodie as an actress but I think she’s made a mistake by writing this. The bottom line is, few people care about the problems of the rich and famous. I’ve worked as an assistant to celebrities and I agree its pretty horrible what they endure, but its a bit like being handicapped. You can’t change it, there are certain things you simply cannot do, and you accept it. After writing this, the paparazzi are likely to strike both Foster and Stewart even harder.