Fruits?

Click to embiggen and read the comic, or you won't get this post at all:

We agree wholeheartedly that what queers really need is a miniseries comparable to Roots, the 1977 series based on Alex Haley's novel. It is the next logical step toward full citizenship in the United States of Painful History Re-Packaged as Banal Spectacle, and, no, we don't count the 1993 miniseries based on Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City because it only aired on PBS. We gladly offer Fruits as a proposed title for the series, but we're reluctant to start trying to cast the role of a queer Kunta Kinte for fear of again incurring the wrath of the Division of Standards and Practices here in Roxie's World, which is monitoring us closely after yesterday's naughty little post about lesbian sex practices in the Obama White House. (You missed the shocking news? Scroll down, or click here.) If we started daydreaming about who should play the role of Kunta Kinte in our queer miniseries, my typist's known fondness for bawdy, anatomically oriented puns would no doubt lead to a series of tasteless Jodie Foster jokes that would probably culminate in a semi-pornographic fantasy of an Amazonian warrior queen leading an army of, um, fisted sisters. Oh, dear. I told you we should not head down this road. Stop thinking about Kunta Kinte immediately. Please.

Anyway, we think this miniseries idea is brilliant. What better way to win back the friends the LGBT community is apparently losing by getting all hot and bothered when fellow citizens vote to take their rights away? SF Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders explains that, though she has voted against efforts to ban same-sex marriage in the past, in the November election she chose to abstain on California's Prop 8, apparently because gays and their allies have been just a little too pushy for her taste. "There's a heavy-handedness to the true believers," Saunders sniffs. "They use public schools to push their political agenda with young kids." She offers no evidence in support of that claim and suggests that queers are being disingenuous in arguing that Prop 8 "took away" any substantive rights enjoyed by same-sex couples in California once the Supreme Court had legalized marriage: "The only right changed was the ability to call themselves married under state law. The other benefits stand."

Dear Ms. Saunders,

Thanks for the helpful explanation. We are real sorry that you've been offended by the passion with which LGBT citizens have pursued their right to civil equality and by their righteous determination to hold fellow citizens to account for making money off the gay community and then contributing some of that money to the effort to deny them rights enjoyed by others. We can appreciate how uncomfortable this makes you and promise to exhort California queers to be more well-behaved in the future, because we understand that civil rights are always granted to those who wait politely for them to be granted without causing any undue discomposure to others. We are also grateful to you for explaining that the Supreme Court of California was gravely mistaken when it ruled that reserving the term "marriage" for opposite-sex couples was a constitutionally impermissible denial of equal dignity and respect to same-sex couples, even if their relationships were granted the same substantive benefits and protections of marriage. Since words don't matter, we've decided to start referring to opposite-sex marriages as "poop on toast" just to see how it makes our straight fellow citizens feel. We hope that won't offend you, but we got the idea from your incredibly thoughtful explanation of why queers should shut up and accept their second-class status. We promise to give you credit when we send in our RSVP to the next poop-on-toast invitation we receive.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie

Yep, what we need is a good miniseries. We're pretty sure Roots is, like, 99% responsible for the election of President Barack H. Obama. We don't have any evidence for that claim, of course, but the art of the unsupported assertion is one more lesson we learned from Debra Saunders. Maybe we can get Jodie to direct. Unless she just really, really wants to lead that unruly band of, um, fisted sisters. And fruity brothers. We'll reach out to her people and let you know what she says. Cross your fingers and get ready for your close-ups, kids!

Up to No Good(ling)

(Photo Credit: Mark Wilson, via NPR; Monica Goodling testifying before Congress in May 2007 about her role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.)

The guys in Clicks and Eyeballs were puzzled earlier today by a number of hits to Roxie's World from Google searches on Monica Goodling and Leslie Hagen, who figured in an April post we did called "In Justice," which focused on the termination of Hagen, a contract attorney in the Department of Justice under Alberto Gonzales, who was let go because Goodling, a senior aide to Gonzales, believed Hagen was a lesbian. Finally, the nerds over in research did a little sniffing and clicking around and realized that Goodling and Hagen were back in the news because DOJ's inspector general released a report today on Goodling's illegal politicization of hiring practices at Justice during her brief reign of error in 2006-07.

Goodling was White House liaison to the Justice Department and seemed not to grasp the crucial distinction between political appointments and non-political career positions, which are supposed to be walled off from partisan political pressures. Ms. Goodling, a 1999 graduate of Pat Robertson's renowned Regent University law school, used in-person interviews and Internet searches to try to determine the political beliefs and associations of people applying for career positions. She routinely (and illegally) asked candidates for non-political positions the same questions (about, for example, their political philosophies and why they wanted to serve President Shrub) that were asked of political appointees. Goodling resigned from Justice in April 2007 and acknowledged in testimony before Congress that she had probably acted illegally in vetting candidates for career appointments.

New York Times' report on the IG's report is here. dday blogs the report and Goodling's ignominious legacy here. If you go read the full report, which again is here, the section on the firing of Leslie Hagen, though she is not named, is on pp. 133-38.

What's the takeaway on this sordid little episode from the fat, tawdry annals of corruption in the Shrub years? Well, for starters Roxie's World stands by the idea, pitched here in April, that Jodie Foster should make a movie out of the melodrama of the Christian law-breaker versus the Sapphic do-gooder, assigning herself the role of Leslie Hagen and getting Gwyneth Paltrow to co-star as the evil, bottle-blond Goodling. Can't you just see it, people? Work with us! Secondly, we think Goodling is a powerful reminder of the dangers of government being taken over by ideologues who are so blinded by devotion to a cause or an individual that they see themselves as exempt from obedience to the law. Now, why should that be on our minds? Gosh, jeez, I don't know, kids. Couldn't tell ya. Long summer evenings spent sipping wine down by the fish pond have perhaps warped our judgment, made us forget that a new light has broken upon the world and we shall no more live in darkness. The rising waters shall recede, and the sick shall be healed -- but who will be making hiring decisions at Justice, and how will they be made? Will "our" side be any less cynical in its manipulation of rules and procedures than "their"side has been in the last eight years? Will hard-working dykes be able to do their jobs without worrying they will kicked to the curb should their private lives become political liabilities?

Unseemly questions, I know, but you can't blame an old dog for remembering that human beings, regardless of party, are pretty much alike. You may mean well, but you have a nasty habit of assuming that having opposable thumbs means you actually know what you are doing. Think about that before you commit your hearts or your votes to anything or anyone. I'm just sayin'.

California Loving

I had been hungry, all the Years --
My Noon had Come -- to dine --
I trembling drew the Table near --
And touched the Curious Wine --
--Emily Dickinson

(Photo Credit: Noah Berger, San Francisco Chronicle; Del Martin, 87, and Phyllis Lyon, 83, pioneers of modern lesbian activism, are the first same-sex couple to wed legally in California, 6/16/08)

That crunching noise you heard early yesterday evening was the sound of Western civilization crumbling, as the first legal same-sex marriage was performed in the great state of California by love radical San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The first happy couple to tie the knot was, appropriately, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, lesbo activists and a couple since the 1950s, whom Newsom married four years ago in the renegade weddings he performed before a court ruled them invalid on the grounds that Newsom did not have the authority to order that marriage licenses be granted to same-sex couples. Picky, picky, picky! (SF Chronicle report on the Martin/Lyon wedding is here.) An expected flood of queer hitchings and fabulous celebrations has been unleashed by a ruling last month by the California Supreme Court striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriage. A flood of painful, expensive un-hitchings is sure to follow, but, hey, that's equality for ya. We're hoping Del and Phyllis will discover that their fifty-five year partnership has been a good preparation for the rigors of marriage.

Roxie's World raises a glass and every paw in the house to Martin and Lyon, to Newsom, and to the CA Supreme Court. We also sincerely apologize for not having called attention to this monumental development sooner, but we've been awfully busy, as you know, trying to control the outcome of the presidential election. The court issued a strong, broad ruling rooted in the precedent of the same court's 1948 decision on interracial marriage (Perez v. Sharp) and affirming that "an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights." That wee parenthetical "like a person's race or gender" is a significant legal victory because decisions on LGBT rights and issues have hinged upon whether courts saw sexual orientation as like or unlike (the supposedly immutable characteristics of) race or gender. The decision also has national implications, because, unlike Massachusetts, California will issue marriage licenses to couples who do not reside in the state. (Yale law prof Kenji Yoshino blogs on the importance of the decision, which he describes as "revolutionary," here.)

Will issue marriage licenses to couples who do not reside in the state . . . . Huh. Did I mention that the moms have their big whoop-de-do convention that messes up the holidays every year in San Francisco, California this year? Did I mention that? Dear Santa: All I want for Christmas is for the state of California to make honest women of my moms. Love, Roxie

Ahem. We interrupt this sentimental foolishness to remind you that the official position of Roxie's World is that same-sex marriage is an important civil right that should be available to queers in all fifty of these United States, but that marriage as an institution and as a way of structuring intimacy has a dubious history and a tendency to become compulsory in character. We celebrate the expansion of rights, deplore any denial of full equality, and encourage all citizens -- and dogs -- to exercise their rights with care and continue to think creatively about the many possible forms of love. On the other hand, should the day come when same-sex couples are accorded the full panoply of federal benefits and protections attached to marriage, including Social Security spousal benefits, you can be reasonably certain Moose will have Goose in line at the courthouse so fast her head will spin.

By the way, one couple that apparently won't be having a double bridal shower is actress Jodie Foster and longtime partner and co-mom Cydney Bernard. We can't vouch for the story, which we stumbled across in the London Evening Standard, but word is Foster has dumped Bernard for the taller, younger, hotter Cynthia Morton, a writer she met on the set of The Brave One (which we analyze here). Jodie, sweetie, we will allow you a little mid-life crisis if you have to have one, but we would not recommend letting Morton write your next script. The Brave One was not, shall we say, your best vehicle. Call us, Jodie. We really need to talk.

Goodnight, my pretties. May you all be fortunate enough to find someone you can bear to look at, much less say "I do" to, after fifty-five years -- if and only if that is your freely chosen heart's desire and not the compulsion of a culture that privileges the couple as a relational structure.

Dear Santa: They are honest women, but, as I've told you before, they are weird. Love, Roxie

Update: More dish on the Jodie Foster/Cydney Bernard split: This UPI report from late May says that Jodie isn't the only one who dumped a co-mom! New gal pal Cindy Morton reportedly left actress Melanie Mayron (long ago of thirtysomething), with whom she has been raising 10-year-old twins, for Foster. Seems perhaps la Jodie is feeling a tad stressed by the whiff of scandal suddenly surrounding her. Check out this vid of her stuffing a large handbag in the face of a paparazzi trying to photograph her as she was approaching the passenger side of a car being driven by Morton earlier this week. Looks like it's time for somebody to pause and take a deep cleansing breath. What's a matter, Brave One? Is Morton proposing to write a sequel to Panic Room?

In Justice

(Image Credit: U.S. Department of Justice Performance Work Plan and Appraisal Record of Leslie Hagen, via National Public Radio)

Another in Our Ongoing Series of Letters to Actress and Kinda/Sorta But Not Quite Out Lesbian Jodie Foster:

Dear Ms. Foster,

Me again -- Your favorite dog blogger on the subjects of politics, pop culture, and basketball, with occasional forays into sexuality and cinema. Hope you're doing well. Congrats on the opening of Nim's Island, which my Aunt Katie saw this morning and thoroughly enjoyed. We hope it does better than The Brave One did for you. We are really thinking you should steer clear of the whole gun-toting vigilante thing. It just doesn't suit your fundamentally thoughtful, conscientious nature. We realize the death of Charlton Heston leaves a void in the universe of Hollywood gun-nuts, but we don't think you're the person to fill it.

Which brings us to the point of this letter: Your next project. We think we've found it, and we hope you'll bear with an old dog as she pitches an idea to a mega-star. We don't know if you happened to be tuned into NPR the other day when they aired a story by Ari Shapiro on the dismissal of attorney Leslie Hagen from a contract position as liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys' committee on Native American issues, despite receiving the highest possible ratings for her work. The Justice Department's inspector general is now investigating whether Hagen was let go because of rumors that she is a lesbian. The award-winning federal prosecutor from Michigan was told in October 2006 that her contract would not be renewed (though she and her supervisors wanted it to be). Monica Goodling, senior counsel to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez who resigned from the Justice Department after acknowledging she had engaged in personnel actions that were inappropriately politicized, was involved in the Hagen case. Hagen's former associates -- one of whom described her as "the best qualified person in the nation" to hold the position she had at Justice -- told NPR that she was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that she is a lesbian:

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."

Several people interviewed by the inspector general's staff said investigators asked whether people drew a connection between the rumors and Hagen's dismissal. The witnesses, who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity, said they felt that the rumors led to the decision not to renew Hagen's contract.

Someone who worked in Hagen's office says that in a 2006 meeting, senior officials were told that Hagen's contract would not be renewed because someone on the attorney general's staff had a problem with Hagen. The problem, it was suggested during the conversation, was sexual orientation — or what was rumored to be Hagen's sexual orientation.

One person at the meeting asked, "Is that really an issue?" But the decision had been made.

Here's the part that makes this story such an ideal vehicle for you, Ms. Foster: Leslie Hagen, in addition to being an exemplary employee, was also a loyal Republican and a private person who did not discuss her personal life. She was a good girl, Ms. Foster, a team player, and a discreet individual who kept her professional and personal lives completely separate. Indeed, she is so private that an exhaustive, 4-minute Google image search turned up not a single photograph of Hagen! She was let go simply because the morally/politically zealous Goodling thought she caught a whiff of the Sapphic about her. Today, Goodling is out of the Justice Department, and Hagen is back, working another contract job in the Office of Justice Programs. According to NPR, "People who know her say she feels hurt by what she's been through, and that she just wants to focus on her work." The incident hasn't gotten a lot of attention until the NPR story last week. Now, Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter are looking into the matter.

Imagine what you could do with this story, Ms. Foster -- the keep-your-head-down, play-by-the-rules career attorney versus the arrogant political hack who bends the rules toward her own self-righteous ends. We would call it In Justice (get it?). We see Gwyneth Paltrow in the role of Monica Goodling (though that's better than Goodling deserves) and relish the thought of the two of you facing off in one of those classic Washington scenes -- the encounter in the restaurant or the parking garage, the dueling news conferences, you staring fearlessly into the lenses of a thousand cameras quietly declaring, "I just wanted to do my job," while a teary Goodling breaks down and says, "I owe Ms. Hagen and the nation an apology." It's a wonderful opportunity for you to play a dyke and meditate on the complex issues of public and private, professional and personal that have been such fascinating aspects of your story, identity, and persona for so many years. It's a way to come out while raising questions about why our stories and our politics are so obsessively invested in uncovering the "truth" about sex and sexuality.

This is the film you were born to make, Ms. Foster -- and Roxie's World is happy to help you make it. We'll write the screenplay, as long as you promise to let us introduce a couple of cute dogs and maybe two or three references to queer theory -- the easy stuff, we promise, nothing you'd need a degree in French lit from Yale to understand. Call us, will you? My people are standing by, waiting to hear from your people.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie


(Photo Credits: Monica Goodling by Mark Wilson, via NPR; Gwyneth Paltrow via random search of internets on "Gwyneth Paltrow")

(With thanks again to the Shy One, who is getting really good at sniffing out stories for Roxie's World.)

Cover Your Ears

(Photo Credit: New York Post)

Top Ten Signs That It’s Time to Step Away From the Computer, Get Out of the House, and Go Roll in a Nice Pile of Warm Scat in the Ridiculously Large Back Yard:

1. Obama supporters are boycotting Saturday Night Live for its alleged pro-Clinton bias and for the casting of (white) Fred Armisen in the role of Fauxbama for election skits. (Okay, kids, it’s back to reading Proust at 11:35 on Saturday night for you. Knock yourselves out!)

2. Clinton supporters are striking (=refusing to post on) Daily Kos for constant trashing on the site of Senator Clinton and of anyone who dares to write in her behalf. (We admire your principled stand, and if you post somewhere other than Kos, maybe we’ll read you. We have to confess we’ve never been able to endure the look and feel of that place, even without the rampant Hillary-hatred.) (Via Tom Watson.)

3. Obama supporters on Daily Kos are boycotting the strike diaries and trashing the diarists for misusing the word "strike" and not having the guts to endure the vicious assaults on Senator Clinton and the distortions of her record. (That’s it, children. Everybody get in a circle. Closer, little bit closer. Very good. Now, pick up your weapons. Excellent, children. Now, ready, aim, fire at a fellow/sister progressive!)

4. Men and women all over the country are eyeing each other quizzically as they try to determine a) whether the husband has been spending the kids’ college money on high-priced escort services and b) whether the wife has any clue that the husband has been spending the kids’ college money on high-priced escort services. (Wow, do you know how loud Grape Nuts sound when people are carefully crunching them while trying not to ask those kinds of questions at the breakfast table?)

5. People with college degrees are spending precious time writing columns on whether or not the wife of a high-ranking government official or religious leader caught with his pants down is obligated to stand beside him for the public rituals of acknowledgment, apology, and resignation. (This one is a no-brainer, people. Some traditions are sacred, and the tradition of the wronged and humiliated spouse standing beside the guilty partner during his moment of public exposure is definitely one of them. We’re not giving it up until we’ve had a few opportunities to see a man in the role of wronged spouse and a soon-to-be resigning woman trying to explain all those large cash transactions.)

6. Men with college degrees are spending precious time writing puff pieces claiming that men really do see hotels as palaces of porn and prostitution, whereas women see them as places to kick off their heels and get a good night’s sleep. (Question: Is it “sexism” if men make crude generalizations about men that are really insulting, or is it just stupid?)

7. It’s getting to the point where opening one’s mouth to utter a word for, against, or in remote proximity of either Clinton or Obama pretty much guarantees that one will get ridden out of town on a rail. Ex-president? Bye-bye. (Really. Have you seen Bill lately? We’re ready to send out an APB.) Former vice-presidential candidate? So long. Old black minister with a few axes to grind about this country’s sordid racial history? Hasta la vista. By November, the entire nation will have been ridden out of town on a rail, so we’d better hope this whole vote-by-mail thing takes hold by then.

8. Jodie Foster is on the cover of this week’s Parade magazine with the most frightening hair-do we’ve ever seen on a lesbian. (“Eek!” Goose exclaimed when she saw the photo. “Did she have to go Donna Reed on us?”) Foster is also making a half-hearted attempt to re-close the (closet) door she seemed to have opened in December when she publicly acknowledged long-time (presumed) partner and co-parent to her two children, Cydney Bernard. (The middle name of both of Foster’s sons is Bernard.) Foster goes back to being coy with Parade, insisting on a strict separation of professional and personal life and answering a question about her romantic involvements by saying, “Oh, my life is basically from the head up. I’m definitely not proud of that. I’m very analytical.” (For Roxie’s World’s previous reflections on Foster’s in/out status, go here and here.) Foster does have some nice comments on the importance of connection, though.

9. Florida? Michigan? Michigan? Florida? Helllloooooooo? Anybody figure that out yet, or shall we just wait til Denver and settle the nomination battle with a coin toss? We’re too sick of this one to even put in a link.

10. The Non-Lady Terps extended their ignominious record of finding ways to lose games after building up substantial leads in the first half. They lost in the first round of the ACC tournament to Boston College on Thursday, thus guaranteeing that they will not be invited to the NCAA tournament. On the other hand: the Evil Empire of Duke was upset by Clemson in the ACC semifinal today, thus assuring that the moms won’t have to sit through a Duke-Carolina final tomorrow. Sweet!

Life is sweet, children, and the fierce urgency of spring is upon us. Stop with the pointing and clicking already. Close the computer. Open the windows and, as the Boss so eloquently put it, let the wind blow back your hair. Take a deep breath and a long look at the purple crocuses in your yard. They are as real as the issues and challenges that absorb so much of your attention, but they are fleeting. Go see those delicate harbingers of spring before it’s too late. We’ll be here when you get back. Promise.

The Braver One?

(Photo Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty Images; Jodie Foster at the Women in Entertainment Breakfast, 12/4/07)

Hot News from the Tinsel Town office of Roxie's World (with a big PAWS UP to qta for calling this to our attention): Has actress Jodie Foster decided it's time to open up the door of her crystal closet? Has the two-time Academy Award winner been lurking in Roxie's World and taken to heart our open letter urging her to stop being so darn coy about her sexuality? Could be, kids, it just could be!

The Scoop: Foster accepted the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award on Tuesday at the 16th annual Women in Entertainment Breakfast. (I bet the men get dinners, don't you? With, like, hot hors d'oeuvres and cocktails and everything? Did the women even get valet parking?) (Greg Hernandez's LA Daily News report on the event is here. Many photos of the event are here. Film clip here.) Foster gave a sweet if hard to believe acceptance speech in which she professed to be clueless and weak:

I don't feel very powerful. I feel fragile . . . unsure, struggling to figure it all out, trying to get there even though I'm not sure where there is . . . I've been working in this business for 42 years and there's no way you can do that and not be as nutty as a fruitcake.

"Oh, yeah," Moose muttered from the couch when she read that. "I'm full of self-doubt, too, sweetheart, and I don't rake in $10-12 million per project. Let me tell you about feeling fragile." "Moose," I said, "that isn't the point." "Oh, right. But, Rox, according to After Ellen, she also said she felt like 'something of an impostor.' Don't you just hate that kind of public self-deprecation from powerful women?" "Please, Moose, if we edited all the self-deprecation out of your daily speech, the transcripts would be blank." "I think you're the one who's off-point now, Rox."

On the other hand, Foster also described herself as a "professional" and a "gentleman," a curious bit of gender-bending that Roxie's World's Special Task Force on Butch-Femme Secret Codes and Signals is struggling to decipher at this very moment. Most importantly, though, near the end of her remarks, Foster finally paid public tribute to Cydney Bernard, the woman widely reported to be her life partner. (Foster's two children are named Kit Bernard Foster and Charles Bernard Foster.) Prominent among those Foster thanked in her speech was

my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss.

"I like that," Moose said. "Me, too," I replied. "Why do you like it?" "Well," she said, "you know -- that's what sharing daily life with someone is all about: a certain amount of rotten and a certain amount of bliss. You slug through it or soar through it day by day until the days turn into years and the years slowly add up, and if you're lucky or stubborn or foolish enough, someday you'll find yourself standing up in public and feel moved to thank your beautiful Cydney or Goose or Tammy or whomever just for hanging in there with you through every single bit of it." "And is that as good as coming out?" "Silly dog," Moose said, with a scratch behind my ears, "that is coming out, and you know it."

Welcome to daylight, Ms. Foster. We're glad to have you with us.

Sex Pervs for Hillary!

That post title ought to boost us up in the search engines, dontcha think, kids? Of course, it might also jeopardize our status as Unofficial Dog Blogger to the Hillary Clinton Campaign, but what the heck. Here in Roxie's World, we're fighting off the post-turkey, pre-Santa doldrums. Moose wanders the halls muttering about how fat she is. Goose keeps threatening to declare e-mail bankruptcy and delete her in-box. I wake up periodically to eat or get my hair done, but mostly I curl my creaky old bones into a ball and nap, figuring I'll just sleep through the whole cycle of Obama is surging / Hillary is stumbling news stories.

That cycle may have been broken by the bizarre hostage-taking incident that occurred yesterday at Senator Clinton's campaign office in Rochester, NH. The astonishing fact that something actually happened in the course of a presidential campaign woke the press from its holiday nap and gave the Clinton campaign a chance to show the candidate doing a full Rudy by shifting into crisis management and response mode. The golden girl took full advantage of the opportunity, as this MSNBC video shows:


Clinton: 'Relieved' no one got hurt

David Paul Kuhn in The Politico gives Clinton and her team a thumbs-up for their handling of the incident. As events were unfolding, the moms and I briefly imagined that Clinton would don a flak jacket and, with a gun-toting Jodie Foster at her side, storm the building and free the hostages herself, but having her look calmly presidential while expressing maternal concern for the young campaign workers was probably a better, though vastly less entertaining, way to respond to the situation. (Note to the political division of Roxie's World: Please add Jodie Foster to Clinton Fantasy Cabinet. She'll be the director of Homeland Security, which will have to be given some fancy, possibly French, name that sounds a good deal less creepy than "Homeland Security.")

Back to my provocative post title: Another bit of good news for the Clinton campaign came yesterday in the release of a Hunter College poll showing the senator has the support of 63% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual voters likely to vote in Democratic primaries. Pretty boys Barack Obama and John Edwards earned the support of just 22% and 7%, respectively, of those polled, which either means a disproportionate number of lesbians responded or -- and our money's on this explanation -- that gay men are trending in the same direction as the Candy Man and QTA, Roxie's World's co-chairs of the Pretty Boys for Hillary Caucus. The poll shows that 72% of LGB (no T's in the survey, alas) voters consider Senator Clinton a supporter of gay rights, "with Senator Obama at 52 percent and former Senator Edwards at 41 percent. On the Republican side, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was at 37 percent, followed by Senator John McCain at 13 percent."

“These findings suggest opportunities. Clinton benefits from a high turnout in this very Democratic bloc; her opponents would benefit from making their stated support for gay rights more visible to LGB voters,” said Murray Edelman, a distinguished scholar at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute and one of the study’s investigators.

Memo to the Clinton campaign: Don't waste one minute worrying about Oprah's decision to campaign for Obama. You've already got yourself a gay general. The photo at the top of this post suggests you're on friendly terms with Elton John. I can loan you a queer English prof or three for the duration of the campaign. I'm thinking that with a couple more appearances on Ellen, an Indigo Girls concert or two, and perhaps some timely references to relationship equality and Project Runway, you will sew up the gay vote and with it the nomination. Here's a tip, Hill: Queers may be the new Christians. The Hudson poll suggests that gay voters are more interested in politics and more likely to have contacted a government official in the last 12 months than the general population. After seven years of an administration willing to traffic in homophobia in order to swing elections, gay voters will be strongly motivated to vote for a change in direction. Present yourself, proudly and without apology, as the change gay voters want to see, and we will carry you right to the White House, where, I promise, you'll be met by a team of burly dykes ready to unpack your boxes and a team of pretty guys ready to pull off the grandest makeover this country has ever seen.

Let's go, girl!

L'Etranger

“Be brave, little Piglet.”
“It’s hard to be brave when you’re a very small animal.”
-- A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Moose insisted on the fancy foreign title for this post. She wanted to make sure that, should Jodie Foster happen to stumble into Roxie’s World, she’ll see that at least one viewer of The Brave One who does not have a degree in French lit from Yale caught all the heavy-handed references to Albert Camus’s absurdist novel The Stranger in Foster’s latest film. And by the way, Ms. Foster, the three English profs who headed off to the multiplex to subject themselves to your scenery-chewing performance in Neil Jordan’s powerful yet morally murky film also caught the allusions to D. H. Lawrence and Emily Dickinson dropped in like so many bonbons for literate viewers who were trying really hard not to focus on the bodies piling up as your character worked through her post-traumatic stress disorder. Moose cracked up as soon as you started purring into your microphone that, “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.” “Ooh, ooh, I know,” she wanted to shout. “D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature!” By the time you recited “Because I could not stop for Death – ,” all three profs had entered into a spirited game of Guess the (Way Too Obvious) Quote, which did in fact help to distract them from the aforementioned corpses. (Final total: 8)

So, what did our crack team of highly trained interpreters think of The Brave One? After the flick, the team (Moose, Goose, and the Candy Man*) repaired to a local hot spot for mojitos and snacks. They agreed that the mojitos were delicious and the film was highly watchable, though Goose and the Candy Man both looked away during the scene of the brutal attack on Foster’s Erica Bain and her fiancé David (played by Naveen Andrews) that sets Erica’s odyssey of grief and vengeance into motion. For the record, Moose rarely looks away from a screen and never does so when Jodie Foster is on it. Director Jordan doesn’t flinch from depicting the gore that is the heart of his story. The attack on Erica and David is balletic yet visceral. The attackers tape it as it is happening, so viewers are forced to reckon with it simultaneously as a “real” event and a performance, effectively introducing several important themes related to media, technology, surveillance, and self-consciousness that are central to the film’s probings of identity and violence. Late in the film, viewers watch Erica watching the tape of the attack on her cell phone and then have to watch it again when she forwards the tape to the detective closing in on her and her killing spree. One of the many sicknesses the film explores is that of a postmodern culture gorged on images of itself. The Brave One may well be the first film for the YouTube generation.

The performances of Foster and co-star Terrence Howard, who plays the weary homicide detective named Sean Mercer, are indeed gripping. Their characters are in many ways reverse images of one another – white and black, female and male, killer and cop – yet they connect on the basis of shared woundedness and professional respect. Mercer has heard Erica on the radio before she and David are attacked. He knows the dulcet, NPR tones of her voice before he sees her battered, comatose body lying in a hospital bed. Erica meets Mercer at the scene of one of her first killings and quickly expresses an interest in interviewing him for her show. (Trolling for material helps to explain her presence on the scene.) The characters are soon locked in a fascinating pas de deux, drawn in by a desire to know one another despite the risks of exposure (for Erica) and moral compromise (for Mercer, as he slowly realizes Erica is the vigilante killer he is pursuing). The air between them is thick, the thickness an ambiguous mixture of the psychological and the erotic. The performances are brilliantly understated. Erica and Mercer speak few words, but their eyes convey worlds of pain and the unbearably complex understanding unfolding between them.

Had The Brave One stayed true to the moral and psychological complexity of its central relationship it might have been a brilliant film. Unfortunately, in the end, it absconds on that complexity; it betrays its characters and takes refuge in the cheapest forms of emotionalism: bloodlust and, we are sad to say, dog love. The ending justifies the judgment offered by A. O. Scott in the Times that the film is “cowardly” and “just as crude and ugly as you want it to be.” We won’t tell you exactly what happens, but we will tell you that Moose, Goose, and the Candy Man sat in stunned silence as the credits started to roll and a smattering of applause broke out in the theater. Jodie Foster, in promotional interviews for the film (like this one on NPR), has labored to suggest that the moral of The Brave One is that guns are always bad, but the ending valorizes Erica Bain’s vigilantism as cathartic, healing, and more efficient than the slow, bureaucratic work of law enforcement.

In the final analysis, The Brave One is maddeningly divided in its aims. Its artsy-fartsy allusiveness and high production values would have us believe it is serious about examining the devastating consequences of a self upended by unanticipated and undeserved violence, but in the end it offers the comic-book satisfactions of a dead-eyed, steady-handed super hero who takes aim against a sea of troubles and blows them the hell away. The Brave One offers awesome “Jodie Porn,” but its satisfactions, as with all porn, are fleeting. We continue to hope Foster will start being a little braver about the kind of projects she takes on.

(For a round-up of reviews of The Brave One, go check out Rotten Tomatoes.)

*Postscript from the Office of Persona Management: The individual referred to in the above post as “the Candy Man” was formerly known in these precincts as “The Official Gay Stalker of Roxie’s World.” This change in identity has been carefully considered by OPM and approved by Roxie Smith Lindemann, Sole Owner and Proprietor of Roxie’s World, because it is a) easier to type than the lengthy “Official Gay Stalker of Roxie’s World” and b) more reflective of said individual’s fundamentally sweet disposition. All inquiries about identity adjustment should be addressed to me: Mark Twain, Director, Office of Persona Management, RW Enterprises, LLC.

An Open Letter to Jodie Foster

(Photo Credit: Justin Stephens)

Dear Ms. Foster,

Congrats on the forthcoming flick, The Brave One. The moms and I have some ambivalence about the whole gun-toting vigilante aspect of the story, but you look great in the publicity photos, somehow managing to find that elusive mixture of fierceness and fabulousness that has served you so well throughout your career. (You also look stunning in the photos that accompany the Entertainment Weekly cover story/interview you just got.) Moose wants to talk to your trainer. She can't believe you've had two kids and are still so incredibly. . .fit. Goose, on the other hand, would like to talk to your agent. She's disappointed by some of your recent projects. Frankly, she has never gotten over Panic Room, which was laughably bad, despite the very fetching eyewear you sported. She totally gets the "Hollywood has no good parts for intelligent women in their forties" problem. She just hopes we don't have to suffer through twenty more years of seeing you play Smart Women in Ludicrous Situations before you start getting to play the Wise and Feisty Old Broad roles. We can't wait for you to become an American Vanessa Redgrave.

But that's not why I'm writing to you. We couldn't help but notice that you figured prominently in a recent Out magazine cover story by Michael Musto, "The Glass Closet: Why the Stars Won't Come Out and Play." The "glass closet," according to Musto, is "that complex but popular contraption that allows public figures to avoid the career repercussions of any personal disclosure while living their lives with a certain degree of integrity. Such a device enables the public to see right in while not allowing them to actually open the latch unless the celebrity eventually decides to do so herself." The flamingly gay Musto identifies you as one of the "foremost residents" of the glass closet and is untroubled by the coy way you have negotiated questions about your sexual identity that have arisen over the years. He describes you as,

one of the original out-but-not-really-out queens of “at least.” You know: She’s never come out publicly, but at least she’s never tried to claim she’s straight either. She’s talked incessantly about her kids, but at least she hasn’t named the father and tried to make it sound like he was any kind of love interest. She won her greatest acclaim for a movie protested by gay activists — The Silence of the Lambs — and reportedly refused to do a short film based on the lesbian classic Rubyfruit Jungle, but at least she isn’t afraid to play tough women, single moms, and parts originally written for men (even if that might be what she mostly gets offered).

Musto is right as far as he goes, though with the passage of time your association with the transphobic Silence of the Lambs becomes more rather than less difficult to comprehend, even if it was a great part and a riveting performance. (And it was. Moose still can't watch that scene of you in the house with Buffalo Bill in his night-vision goggles without wanting to leap into the screen to rescue you. She's a real sucker for that tough-yet-vulnerable thing you do. If she had a locker, it would probably be covered with pictures of you, but I digress.)

For years, the moms gave you a pass on the matter of coming out. After a deranged fan tried to assassinate a president to get your attention, they figured you were entitled to all the privacy you could manage as an incredibly public figure. They were also persuaded by a former teacher of theirs who argued that you were in some special category of sublimely talented Artists who somehow transcended politics. Yes, and this teacher was a big old dyke herself and a founder of women's studies. She had no problem knocking Shakespeare off the top of Mount Olympus, but the hem of your garment was not to be soiled by the vulgar politics of gender and identity. Shakespeare was a dead white guy, but you had serious work to do. If you want my opinion, I think it was that Yale degree in French lit that earned you the aura of untouchability among otherwise sensible people who had put themselves and their careers on the line in order to be visible and to transform disciplines and institutions. "She got a degree in deconstruction," another of the moms' awestruck colleagues used to say. To which I reply: Big whoop!

Here's the thing, Ms. Foster: I know the arguments for coming out all sound really quaint and old-hat at this point. I know you've got kids to raise and Work To Do. I admit there is integrity in trying to live life on your own terms and in refusing to put your guts on display
for a culture addicted to stories that have anything to do with celebrities and sex. Nonetheless, I would still like to see you offer a simple, matter-of-fact acknowledgment that you are, like my moms, a sister of Sappho. We're not saying you need to do a full-on Melissa Etheridge or offer yourself up as a poster girl for same-sex marriage. Just stand up and say, "I'm gay. It's no big deal, and it's nobody's business, but, yes, I am a proud, happy lesbian. Next question?"

Why? Because your studied evasion of the question suggests that your sexuality is a big deal. The open secret is still a secret, and secrecy suggests shame, fear, some scary old thing that dare not speak its name. Do you really think such an acknowledgment would have serious professional repercussions for you at this point? I mean, seriously, Ms. Foster, could it get much worse than Flight Plan? To be honest, I think the more significant threat to your career is your own diffidence, your refusal so far to venture beyond the safety of Hollywood studio films. I think you'd find better scripts and juicier roles if you looked elsewhere, but what do I know? I'm just a dog who watches a lot of HBO.

Coming out still matters. There are still queer kids who hunger for role models and straight kids who have never met an openly gay person in their lives. Moose had a coming-out moment in one of her classes just the other day. She's teaching a queer lit course this term, so it was a no-big-deal kind of thing, because it fit in with a conversation the class was having about labels, terms, the language we use for talking about sex and gender. She tucked it in slyly, as she so often does, in the form of a joke, but the students got the joke, and she could feel a collective sigh of relief spread across the room as they took it in. The relief was all about the difference between an open secret and real openness. You and Moose, with your degree in French lit and her PhD in English, might argue til Hell freezes over about what it is that gets revealed in such declarations of sexual identity. Given time and enough wine, the two of you might actually come to agree on the ontological aspects of the question, but Moose would still insist on the political and pedagogical value of coming out.

Why? Because when she made her declaration the other day, she looked back to the corner of the room and noticed a queer kid smiling. And it wasn't just because he got her joke.

Yours sincerely,
Roxie

P.S. Another nice piece on you in the Sunday Times, this one by Manohla Dargis. It occurs to me your penchant for "secrecy," which is also a theme in Dargis's prelude to The Brave One, is a cagey marketing ploy. Keep 'em guessing -- and keep 'em coming back to try to solve the riddle of the sphinx-link Foster. Whatever, girlfriend. I think they'd come back for the acting chops and the husky voice, no matter what you were selling, but that's just me.

P.P.S. On the other hand and just in case you think I've been harsh, check out this hard-hitting reaction to your reticence and your recent roles from Modern Fabulousity. He's promising to boycott The Brave One!