Ms. Foster's outpouring could well have been one of those defiantly uncharacteristic steps some people take when they hit the last milestone of midlife. Like a 50-year-old who ends a marriage, takes up flying lessons, grows a beard or moves to Umbria, Ms. Foster publicly acknowledged, kind of, that she is, as anyone who cared already assumed, gay.
And in doing so, Ms. Foster took an extreme bungee jump in the Hollywood Hills: a respected actress and director known for reticence, discipline and brainy self-possession defended her right to privacy in the gaudiest, noisiest, most public arena imaginable. (Sunday's show was the highest-rated Globes ceremonies in six years, watched by nearly 20 million people.)
In accepting a lifetime achievement award at the awards ceremony, Ms. Foster was eloquent, except when she went wobbly. She was revealing, except when she turned opaque. She's a fierce nonconformist who nonetheless made herself look starlet-taut and slinky in silver and navy paillettes by Armani, and she delivered a valedictory speech without explaining what it was she is leaving.
Small wonder it was confusing.
Ms. Foster defended her lifelong reserve by scoffing at the celebrity-crazed culture that rewards would-be stars who expose their darkest secrets on camera, saying, "But now, apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a news conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show." In accepting her award, she spoke loftily about loyalty to friends and family, and actually practiced what she preached by pairing up at the event with Mel Gibson, who is still a Hollywood semi-pariah for his notorious anti-Semitic and homophobic rants, and even thanked him in her remarks for his support.
She didn't hide her contempt for a different kind of show business exhibitionism. "You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child," she said. "No, I'm sorry, that's just not me. It never was, and it never will be."
That sounded a bit snobbish, but this actress, who began her career at the age of 3, has more reason than most to crave privacy. Ms. Foster was an inadvertent catalyst for one of the most horrifying side effects of fame — she was a freshman at Yale in 1981 when a delusional John W. Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan because he wanted to impress Jodie Foster.
She didn't mention that incident, but she seemed to allude to it when she said, "But seriously, if you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe then you too might value privacy above all else."
Later in life Ms. Foster did not hide that she lived with a woman and that they were rearing two sons, and she certainly did not pose in fake romances with eligible bachelors. At a Women in Entertainment luncheon in 2008 she publicly thanked her partner at the time, referring to her as "my beautiful Cydney."
But even her speech on Sunday was too elliptical for many gay activists and bloggers who reacted in much the same way that several Hollywood liberals have in attacking "Zero Dark Thirty" for not emphatically denouncing torture: they were irked that Ms. Foster didn't more clearly indicate that she was gay.
Ms. Foster has not discussed her love life in interviews or made a political point of being a lesbian. At the Golden Globes, of all places, she changed her mind. Several times.
"While I'm here being all confessional, I guess I just have a sudden urge to say something that I've never really been able to air in public," she said. "So, a declaration that I'm a little nervous about, but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh, Jennifer? But you know I'm just going to put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I'm going to need your support on this — I am single. Yes, I am. I am single. No, I'm kidding, but I mean I'm not really kidding, but I'm kind of kidding."
It wasn't the most daring admission or even a complete one — she was visibly torn between a sense of duty to the gay cause and her own right to live by her own rules. It certainly wasn't necessary. Plenty of actors with more to lose have come out of the closet of late, and gay marriage is becoming legal in a growing number of states.
Mostly, it was a singular, contradictory and at times poignant unburdening by an actress who is best known for staying buttoned up.
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