Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
This morning over at the local DC news site TBD.com, sex and gender reporter Amanda Hess listed "The Six Weirdest Gender Moments of the 2011 Oscars." If I knew what a "gender moment" was, I'm pretty sure my list of weirdest would include whatever was transpiring between Melissa Leo and Kirk Douglas. But Hess was outraged that Best Actress winner Natalie Portman thanked her fiancee for giving her "the most important role of my life" (i.e. motherhood):
Portman is obviously proud of her and Millepied's forthcoming human production, but she's also at the very height of her career as an actor. It feels a little icky to use that moment to reinforce the primacy of a woman's gender role.
And it's not just Hess. Over at Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams took great umbrage at Portman's belief that motherhood is the most important role of her life. Really:
At the time, the comment jarred me, as it does every time anyone refers to motherhood as the most important thing a woman can possibly do. But the reason why didn't hit until I saw the ever razor sharp Lizzie Skurnick comment on Twitter today that, "Like, my garbageman could give you your greatest role in life, too, lady."
I honestly don't think these women are joking. What's hilarious is that Portman didn't say that motherhood is a choice every woman must make or a calling that all people must recognize as the most important thing any woman could ever do.
My husband and I are both writers. But only I was asked, after the birth of our first child, to write pieces about parenting. When I told a friend this, she asked me if female doctors are supposed to become pediatricians after their children are born.
Anyway, while I absolutely love motherhood and always have, the topic hasn't interested me as much as it does some other women. I'd still much rather write about economics than motherhood.
Maybe these cries of outrage would resonate more if we were talking about Margaret Thatcher and not Natalie Portman, whose acting range and roles leave a bit to be desired (awards notwithstanding).
If you are a mom and you honestly think that filing that brief, or filling that prescription or playing that ballet star is a more important role than gestating, birthing and raising your own child, that, to me, is "weirder" than the reverse.
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Dec '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Jeez. At the very least it's pretty dang important to the object of that motherhood.
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
1. Lizzie Skurnick no doubt will defend the nobility of garbagemen in general, as a class, which gives her license to disparage them as individuals.
2. When I tried to sell pieces about being a stay-at-home dad - the most important role of my life - I discovered that editors either wanted tales of Hapless Dads Learnin' and a-Copin', or mush from chestless simps who carried around a bag of flour in a Snuggi a month before the birth just to anticipate the wonderfulness of it all.
3. Portman's fiancee is a choreographer. If there's a better name for someone in that profession than "Millepied," I can't imagine what.
Jul '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
I'd be a lot more sympathetic if Portman and her baby daddy were actually married.
May '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
I feel sorry for Hess & Williams' children. Just icky productions complicating Mommy's career... I am sure those kids (if they currently or ever exist) will keep some therapists well employed....
Aug '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
So ...will it be the little Portman bastard or yet another Millepeid ( if that is his real name !) .
May '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Call me a chauvinist brute if you must but, I think only a lady writer would use the adjective "icky."
But, "forthcoming human production" is truly monsterous. Worse than icky.
Jan '11
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
I'm trying to get my head around what these people could be thinking. Are they so self-centered that they can't imagine the notion of someone else thinking outside their own ego-boundaries?
Of course. Just like a college professor becomes a primary school teacher when their child's time comes. Because once a kid comes out, a woman becomes a mother and a man becomes a father. Besides, what kind of a doctor would abdicate medical responsibility for their own child?
This is an insidious madness.
Jun '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Skurnick's comments were "razor sharp?" Really? Really?
I know that my husband also considers fatherhood his biggest role, even though I was the stay-at-home parent. He was the product of a broken home & the son of an alcoholic. His brother and wife were having marriage troubles because of their career ambitions and selfishness. The family was breaking apart as mom took a new job in Arizona and dad remained in Boston. I heard my husband, who never butts into anyoe else's business, telling his brother, "Don't screw up your kids, man.....just don't. You should know better."
How icky!
Sep '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
I'm surprised no one has asked the obligatory Ricochet circumcision question.
Feb '11
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Too funny; I also had the same "Oh please, it's not like she's Margaret Thatcher" response. Claire B's work is clearly done on this website. :)
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
fullfrontal,
My friend was joking.
Dec '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
So many of these actresses in Hollyweird get to a certain age and begin having/adopting children. When they do, we hear from them how important and fulfilling the addition of that child (or those children) are to their life. Even party/pretty boys like Brad Pitt reach a certain age (usually around 40) where they want a family and some semblance of a "normal" family life. The guys too will go on Letterman or E! or whatever and say how amazing being a father is.
Normal humans figure this stuff out 15-20 years earlier than the average actor/actress, even if they don't act on starting a family in their early 20's. Normal young women instinctively know that motherhood is important. As my boy Dennis Prager always says about such nonsense as we heard from the ladies quoted in this post: "You'd have to go to graduate school to be this dumb." Women like that are taught/indoctrinated to think in such spiteful, selfish ways.
We need to honor and defend motherhood (just as we do the institution of the family). I'm glad Portman said what she said and is having the baby.
Jan '11
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Mollie Hemingway: fullfrontal,
My friend was joking. · Feb 28 at 7:53pm
I think that fullfrontal was also joking.
Nov '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
I have always thought Natalie Portman's best work was her earliest work. I still remember being amazed by her in The Professional and I understood Timothy Hutton's draw to her character in Beautiful Girls, and otherwise worthless film.
I find the comments quoted to be so absurd as to almost be cliche. Even after living in LA for a decade, and being in the professional world for 15, I have never met anyone so stereotypically bent. Are such comments ever spoken aloud, or are they saved for the relative quiet of the written form?
May '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Nothing especially insightful to add - I'm just happy Natalie Portman finally put an end to my crush on her by:
Sep '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Who is Amanda Hess and why should I care what she has to say?
Feb '11
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
At the risk of getting slammed, motherhood is indeed the most important role a woman can undertake, if she chooses it. Feminism wasn't about women having to work or having to bear children, but allowing women the choice. Having three degrees and a high-powered law career in NYC, it took me years after having my kids, to realize what a gift it truly is, how hard it truly is and any grief I ever got about having children and giving up my career to raise them, came almost exclusively from women. For years my working female friends, esp'ly the ones who had children and continued to work, never missed an opportunity to let me know how unappreciated my work was and ridicule what it was I did.
Feb '11
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
I love that name. I've been collecting names like that for a few years now. Here are some of my favorites and they are for real, not made up :
Nancy Nipples who works at a creamery in Seattle.
Dr. Payne, an anesthesiologist.
Father Church, a pastor.
Mr. Landsea who works at NOAA.
May '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
Well, if she spawns Mark Hamill, her whole career will have been worth the candle for the Joker voiceovers alone.
Sep '10
Re: Natalie Portman Betrays the Sisterhood
For years my working female friends, esp'ly the ones who had children and continued to work, never missed an opportunity to let me know how unappreciated my work was and ridicule what it was I did.
I don't think there's any risk of that happening here. Count me extremely impressed.