Jodie’s pride “Parade”

Oh, Jodie, how we’ve missed you. With another movie coming out, comes another reemergence of Jodie Foster from her cocoon of private domesticity. But, as always, she is a wary butterfly, cautious not to unfurl her wings too wide for fear being spotted by the prying eyes of predators. Jodie’s reemergence this time, which I believe is the first interview since her “my beautiful Cydney” heard around the lesboverse, is in the pages of Parade this Sunday. Yes, Parade. Wow, when did this free newspaper circular become the must-have magazine about all of my girl crushes? Last weekend Tina Fey. This weekend Jodie. Please, Parade, can next weekend be Kate Winslet? Pretty please? What can I say, gays love a Parade.

Since the feature is ostensibly to promotion for her new family flick, “Nim’s Island,” Jodie talks a lot about motherhood and her boys, Charles and Kit. The rest of her private life is, as ever, not up for discussion. Not that the Parade writer doesn’t try.

On her personal life:

She will not address long-standing rumors about her sexual orientation or name her sons’ father. When asked about her personal life, she fidgets and turns wary.
“I don’t think there is any good thing about fame,’ she asserts. ‘In this business, in order to care for yourself and the people you love, you have to separate your professional life from your personal life. I have a work life that is at times fulfilling, at times mind-numbingly boring and totally trivial, with the hair, makeup, red carpet -- but when it’s 7o’clock and I come home, that’s my life.”

On her love life:

Jodie has never admitted to any romantic involvements. When I ask why she has not yet fallen in love, she gets irritated and explains, perhaps disingenuously, “Oh my life is basically from the head up. I’m definitely not proud of that. I’m very analytical.”

Now, the latter is particularly interesting given that some news outlets are already trumpeting “Jodie Foster has never been in love!” headlines. Clearly, that is taken out of context. But the interviewer’s question was either incredibly boneheaded or incredibly sneaky. I suspect it’s a bit of both. First of all, just because you’re never admitted to any romantic involvements, or never been married (as the article makes sure to point out earlier), doesn’t mean you’ve never been in love.

But that’s where the sneaky stuff comes in. Perhaps this was a subversive way of getting Jodie to admit something, anything. Regardless, her answer is a tad on the flip and puzzling side. A simple no comment or even a finger wag would have sufficed. I mean, you call someone “my beautiful” and there had to be some love there somewhere. Now if she had said “my pretty,” that would be something else entirely. What a world, what a world.

But wait, there’s more! For further proof that Jodie’s simple thanking has opened the doors to mainstream speculation, Parade -- yes, Parade -- ran a photo of Cydney Bernard with Jodie. As the article asserts:

This past December, she opened the window slightly on her emotional commitments by publicly acknowledging her longtime friend, Cydney Bernard, at a Women in Entertainment breakfast in Los Angeles. Speaking about her, Jodie said: “My beautiful Cydney sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss.” The middle name of both of Jodie’s sons is Bernard.

Sure they got the quote a smidge wrong (what can I say, I’m a stickler for accuracy; also, Bernard seems more like a second surname than a middle name to me). Still just reporting on this for an insert like Parade means it’s no longer an open secret among those in the know, it’s now anywhere a Sunday paper hits the doorstep. And in case there was any question still of what Parade really thought about Jodie, the headline says it all: “The Complicated Life of Jodie Foster.” Complicated, so that’s what they’re calling gay these days.

[Click ’em to enlarge ’em, the photos that is.]