Jodie Foster at the 2013 Golden Globe Awards: What She Said (and Didn’t) about Coming Out, Celebrity, and Queer Activism

It is easy to think about award ceremonies like the Golden Globe Awards as nothing but a distraction from things that really matter. These ceremonies are all about celebrity, fashion, Hollywood back-slapping, and everything about popular culture that cultural critics love to hate. Award ceremonies are, by definition, self-congratulatory, and memorable moments of meaningful discourse that emerge from these highly choreographed evenings of star-gazing are few and far between. Audiences generally recall who won and what they wore, but rarely do they remember, or care about, what the winner said. When an acceptance speech becomes noteworthy it is generally for what is not communicated as opposed to what is. We remember breakdowns in communication: when someone forgets to thank a spouse, conspicuously leaves out a creative partner, or veers far from the now accepted template of acceptance speech rhetoric. These are the moments that stand out, the speeches that make it to the highlights reel, and the discourse that becomes a part of our collective memory. In 2013, at the Golden Globe Awards, Jodie Foster delivered just such a memorable speech when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.”¹ The six essays in this special forum all tackle what Foster communicated, what she didn’t, and why we should care. Central to the reflections collected here is whether or not queer celebrity representation matters in terms of larger projects of GLBTQ worldmaking. In other words, does Foster declaring her queer presence matter, or not, and why?

Despite their firmly established popular culture status, awards ceremonies are not insignificant cultural moments. Televised events like the Golden Globe Awards are media rituals where audiences elevate and ordain celebrities. In these rituals, celebrities are not simply actors receiving recognition, they become something far more important. Chris Rojek argues that at a time when formal religious structures are weakening, celebrity culture is “one of the replacement strategies that promote new orders of meaning and solidarity.”² The essays in this forum tackle what meaning we can take away from Foster’s confusing speech and what solidarity, if any, she shares with a community of queers.

Part of the confusion surrounding Foster’s speech stems from the fact that celebrity and sexuality are strange bedfellows. Sexuality is a topic considered most appropriate for private spheres whereas celebrities are by definition public figures. Although celebrity culture is undoubtedly about selling a certain kind of sexuality, we rarely get moments of meaningful discourse. In a mediated culture that is seemingly all about sex, talk about sex that can be considered substantive is severely policed. In other words, we get Britney Spears, not Foucault. Whether or not Foster’s speech can be considered meaningful, discourse about sexuality is a matter of some debate in the essays collected here, yet undoubtedly her acceptance speech was a rare example of talk about sex that wasn’t necessarily sexy.

Foster has always been an individual keenly aware of her position, responsibilities, and rights as a celebrity and, as noted in these essays, seemed to ruminate as much on her status as a Hollywood celebrity as her own sexuality. Her thoughts on both topics were far from clear, yet at the same time they were oddly fascinating. Was Foster delivering a critique of the industrial celebrity complex? Was she arguing for a deconstructed notion of sexuality that exists beyond borders and labels? Did she do what queer activists have been asking us to do by resisting any essentialized notion of sexuality? Was she just overserved at the bar?

In some ways, whether or not Foster actually came out during her speech seems unimportant. As the essays that follow examine, what “coming out” actually means in 2013 is a more important question. In a multigenerational gay world, younger gay men and lesbians are declaring their homosexuality increasingly earlier in life. On the other hand, representation matters and even in an age of gay marriage, increased recognition of gay rights generally, and a...