Following in the Matt Damon tradition of being fatally unaware of IMDb, Nicole Kidman testified in Britain that Hollywood contributes to violence against women because women are often portrayed as weak or as sexual objects in the movies:
Kidman testified before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that is considering legislation to deal with violence against women overseas through humanitarian relief efforts and grants to local organisations working on the problem.
Asked by Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher whether the movie industry has “played a bad role,” Kidman said “probably” but quickly added that she herself does not.
“I can’t be responsible for all of Hollywood, but I can certainly be responsible for my own career,” she said.
Kidman appeared before the committee in her role as a goodwill ambassador the UN Development Fund for Women, known as UNIFEM, to promote the International Violence Against Women Act.
Hey, remember when she won a Golden Globe for playing a consumptive prostitute in Moulin Rouge? Or, um, the originally NC-17 rated Eyes Wide Shut (NSFW)? Apparently she doesn’t (or doesn’t want to).
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These are the days I am convinced that A-List celebrities thinks we are morons…
I try not to remember the movies Nicole Kidman was in.
Roman Polanski and Chris Brown are deeply offended by that statement.
Xenu probably is too.
But Jrod would hit it.
Well of course, who else could she blame?
“Nicole Kidman Thinks Hollywood’s Degrading of Women Is Bad
I agree. Hollywood could do a much better job of degrading women.
Hey, I have to give her props for wising up, divorcing Tom and finding a real country man to love. She hated Scientology and wanted their kids raised Catholic. I have to not like her movies, but I loved that fact that she left the crazy man.
How about most of her career? How many movies has she taken some/all of her clothes off in? Almost every role I can think of, she played a sexualized/objectified woman (usually gratuitously). Try again, honey.
Also, she totslly Botoxes.
Whoa. Totally, not totslly. I don’t seem to be able to type, read, or see.
Odd that in the industry that truly prides itself on being enlightened, feminist, pro-environment, and possessed of such a great–(what was that phrase someone used, in reference to the Polanski arrest,) “moral compass”, you’ll see the worst degradation of women since Jack the Ripper. Hollywood loves to “skewer suburbia” and vilify middle America and its values, but it looks like they have their own sizable front porch to sweep off, first. Get crackin’, y’all.
Ugh! This is like Suzanne Sommers telling all of us peons to use herbs and vitamins to cure our cancer, since chemo is ‘poison’ and does not work. And then conviently forgetting that she underwent radiation when she had cancer some years ago and was cured.
Classic cases of Hollywood ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude. Never gets old, does it?
I don’t deny that there’s some hypocrisy here, but I can kind of see her point too. I haven’t seen all of her movies, but in the ones I’ve seen, she played a strong female character.
Days of Thunder – She’s a doctor, and she doesn’t need Tom Cruise to be complete. When he acts like an idiot, she doesn’t tolerate it.
To Die For – She is the bad guy, in control of all the people around her
Batman Forever – She kicks bad guy butt alongside Bruce Wayne before being captured (and held hostage alongside Robin)
Moulin Rouge – She plays a hooker, but again she’s the one in control with the power to save Christian. (Alternatively, you could say she’s being controlled by the duke.)
The Stepford Wives – She’s an independent woman, and that’s kind of the point.
The Golden Compass – I was pretty bored and zoned out through most of that movie, but from what I could tell, she was in control again.
I don’t doubt that she’s been in movies where she was just some sex object, but I think she has a pretty good record of playing strong girls in an industry that doesn’t have many strong girl roles.
…at least she hasn’t played a Bond girl yet.
Or injecting the neurotoxin Botox into her forehead.
I saw an up close HD interview with Suzanne Sommers and she looked absolutely horrible, in particular the skin under between her lower nose and the bottom of her chin.
Looked like she had a skin graft. Very patchy, texture was pasty. Bizarre.
Ya’ll just trashed all my wonderful fantasy illusions I had of Nicole Kidman. Bummer.
No, she isn’t. She’s a nobody who swims out of her depth. Every one but her husband and the teenager she screws knows what she is and take advantage of what she wants to be.
The other movies I haven’t seen, well I have seen Moulin Rouge but the only thing I remember is the chorus of men singing Smells Like Teen Spirit. And say what you want about Bond girls but most of the characters aren’t helpless little women without him.
What pisses me off with this is that one of the biggest reasons that women have trouble getting out of abusive relationships is not being financially independent enough to leave. This is a hard concept for many A-Listers to grasp as they do not have real jobs. It is also hard to help someone who is an abusive relationship if you have financial troubles. Of course lack of finances make it difficult to donate to domestic violence shelters which is another thing they don’t understand in Fantastland, a.k.a. Hollywood. Charity comes from people not governments. So my point is: 1. Hollywood, shut the hell up! 2. Vote Libertarian!
Have a Happy Halloween!
Rocko,
That is true. I’d forgotten about the honeymoon scene. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen that movie.) My position is only that I can see how Nicole Kidman would interpret her movies differently than us; I don’t necessarily believe her interpretation is correct. She probably even has a defense for Eyes Wide Shut. *shudders*
And I was just joking about the Bond girls. I still get a giggle out of Christmas Jones, nuclear physicist.
Translation, I am now getting too old to do movies where I can comfortably take my clothes off so now I must objectify it to create a vew venue for myself. You go Nicole.
I don’t know enough about her career as a whole to disagree that she’s being hypocritical, but I have to disagree that “Moulin Rouge” is an example of her hypocrisy. Satine’s goal is to escape from being a prostitute, become a legitimate actress, and be with Christian. She’s in a bad situation, but she dies while trying to get out.
Man, Nicole Kidman was so much prettier before all the Botox. Even if she’d ended up with wrinkles instead of Botox she’d still be so much prettier.
If only Angelina Jolie had been with her… would have made it so much more legit.
I hope (and think) you’re right, Aleric, that way I never have to see her in any state of nakedness again.
So Holly, I was going to write something quippy about the post title, like:
Shut up, Holly. Just shut up. You lost me at “Thinks”.
You know, drawing a nice little parallel between Nicole and Renee Zellweger who were both associated with Tom Cruise at the time of Jerry Maguire… and both are classic egocentric Hollywood blondes who relish the chance to strap on extra weight or fake noses for acting gigs… and both of ‘em have been fluffy goodwill ambassadors even though neither one of them knows a thing about being a poor orphan eating dirt in a third-world country… and wasn’t it Renee’s one time husband who sang some twangy country song You Had Me At Hello before she dumped his ass and annulled the marriage… which got me to thinking that Nicole is Catholic so maybe she had the Tom marriage annulled too… and Nicole is now married to a twangy country singer who sang You Look Good In My Shirt… and Bridget Jones ran out of her apartment wearing nothing but Colin Firth’s shirt… and both women were totally miscast in the film slaughter of the Cold Mountain novel… and then I remembered that Nicole turned down the role of Roxy Hart because it’d be too many singing harlot movies in a row, a role eventually given to Renee, despite the fact that neither one of ‘em can sing for love’ner money…
And now my world has completely collapsed into a blithering mess of anacronistic coincidence and trivia.
Thanks. Just thanks. I’ll bill you for my padded cell.
And yes, I did indeed forgot to close the italics, because I can’t be bothered to do such things in the midst of a good rant.
LOL everyone. Good point about her being too old now to play certain parts.
Don’t forget that ridiculous witch movie that she made with Sandra Bullock, where Kidman played the typical trashy loser who’s too weak and whiney to leave an abusive boyfriend. Her character failed throughout the movie and never really found resolution or redemption for herself as far as I can remember…everything just sort of ended in a magical witchy wonderland, where they all flew around on Halloween. Just like in real life. Ugh.
The reality is that TV glorifies women committing violent assaults on men. This tren is going to make things more dangerous for women than ever before. It should be stopped immediately. Also, with the “empowerment of women”, an emerging pattern of lesbians abusing other women has dramatically decreased the safety of women over-all. The bottom line is that people should mutually respect and be kind to each other.
I can’t even think of Nicole Kidman without having nauseating flashbacks of the softcore porn scene in “Cold Mountain”. I don’t want to know THAT much about anybody in Hollywood.
Just the other day I was wondering what I’d do if Deceiver ever ran a story on Nicole.
Without boring everyone with details, this is what it feels like to be in the Matrix and having to choose between two pills.
This sucks. This sucks the suck out of suck.
Take the red one Quigon.
‘Cuz last November 4th, a buncha dumbass people took the blue pill and now look at the mess we’re in.
Dang, Minnow. My first pet, a hissing cockroach, was named “Singing Harlot”. Why’d you have to drag out THAT memory?
And as hard as we try, let’s not forget her “performance” in Bewitched.
My wife wanted to see it. About a third of the way through, she apologized for making me see it with her.
I watched “Bewitched”–or tried to–when I was going through the worst post-partum depression EVER, in hopes that it would cheer me up. I had to turn it off 20 minutes in, because I was actually getting MORE suicidal.
The problem I have with even the “strong women” characters is that they’re still over-sexualized. Sure, they’re in control and boss people around, but Hollywood has to make sure you see them half-naked or in skin-tight outfits; so they’re still being objectified. Can’t they write a beautiful, strong, feminine heroine that doesn’t strip down at some point?
You’re right TP and LW54. For Hollywood generally, “strong woman” means man-killing dominatrix for the most part. It even flows over to commercial ads where the men are always stupid and kow-towing to the wife. “What does the box say?” “The box says shut up Steve.” Ugh.
I think what finally broke the camel’s back for Nicole is when she had that role in “Dogville” directed by a very sick and twisted director Lars von Trier, who is known for such “masterpieces” like “Antichrist” – where the main actress cuts off her….you know what (google it, too scary to describe). Speaking about abuse of women on screen, that guy has quite the record, so of course he’ll be a favourite at Cannes film festival.
@TrojanPrincess
Ripley. I think she was a guy in the initial draft of Alien. Sure, she fights the alien in her undies, but I don’t think that was really sexual.
But yeah, other than that, I couldn’t agree more. There are very few worthwhile roles for actresses (largely because most writers are men, I’ve heard).
Generally, women are one dimensional in movies – the whore, the good girl, the girlfriend, the tough girl, etc. They rarely flesh out the female roles as they are generally sidekicks for the guys to pull all of their macho bull on them.
That being said, no one ever said you had to have intelligence to be a star.