As we noted in last night’s recap of the 2013 Golden Globes—congratulations again, Argo!—the buzziest moment of the evening was Jodie Foster’s rambling acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille award, an address that bordered on both the profound and the profoundly confusing. In it, the 50-year-old actress spoke with fervor about her 47 years in the business, her “modern family,” her sexuality, her lifelong quest for privacy, her 84-year-old mother (who it has been reported suffers from dementia), and entering a new phase of her career. (She did not, as we had hoped, explain that whole Mel-Gibson-serving-her-a-stuffed-hamster-on-a-silver-platter bit.) In reaction, cutaways showed Kate Hudson and Emily Deschanel tearing up in the audience; Twitter users displayed both uplifted and W.T.F.-esque sentiments; and a range of journalists and fellow actors have weighed in with varied interpretations of an address that, according to Beverly Hilton audience members, drew deafening applause. Their takes, and video of the controversial speech, below:
“Jodie Foster came out without really coming out, and suggested she was retiring from acting without exactly saying so, in a long, breathless and rambling speech at Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards.” —Christy Lemure, A.P.
“It’s precisely BECAUSE Jodie Foster’s coming-out—if that’s what it was—had such a stop-start, am-I-doing-this, I’m-scared-but-determined quality to it that it was so powerful. . . . In its incomplete and fuzzy way, her speech was as true a testament as I’ve ever seen/heard to the fear, loneliness and stubborn hope of someone who doesn’t feel she owes the world clarity or an answer but feels she owes herself, and history, and the political moment, some kind of truth.” —The New York Times’s Frank Bruni, Facebook
“Jodie’s defensive speech, in which she seemed to blame Honey Boo Boo and reality TV for supposedly creating a climate that forced her out of the closet, harkened back to a time when it was a big deal to proclaim your sexual orientation. Hello, it’s 2013! People are getting “gay married” and homos can be out in the military and stuff!” —Deb Baer, Huffington Post
“I thought [her speech] was great. . . . I love her. . . . I kiss the ground she walks on.” —Mel Gibson
“I will take Jodie Foster’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds of unfiltered passion, confusion, confession and love, so much love, over anything else anyone in Hollywood has said in a very, very long time. . . . The occasion was Sunday night’s Golden Globes, and as the actress-director gripped the Cecil B. DeMille statuette she’d just been handed for a lifetime of work, she let go of a lifetime of feelings. . . . It was at times a little crazy, as if there was so much more she wanted to say and not nearly enough time.” —Betsy Sharkey, the Los Angeles Times
“Watching the show at a friend’s apartment, many of us, some gay, some straight, had a strikingly similar reaction: the speech confused us. It disappointed us. It felt confrontational, defensive, disjointed. The Cecil B. DeMille award is the highest honor that the Hollywood Foreign Press bestows at the Golden Globe ceremony, an award given to the likes of Hitchcock, Sidney Poitier, Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland. This seemed like a more appropriate time for her to reflect on her life’s work, on the joys and perhaps frustrations that she experienced, of sharing fond memories with her friends and colleagues, maybe some advice and inspiration for the next generation of actors.” —Eric Sasson, The Wall Street Journal
“I think it was Jody Foster refusing to come out as she came out, and then retiring. I think? I was crying, but I wasn’t sure why, and then I was laughing, but I wasn’t sure why. I think maybe Jodie Foster felt the same way. Also, she was possibly kinda drunk.” —Laura Beck, Jezebel
“The speech began a bit like a light-hearted comic interlude but was actually a serious and thoughtful combination of a coming out speech and a retirement goodbye.” —Diane Anderson-Minshall, The Advocate
“What is everybody talking about? Didn’t I just hear Jodie Foster fake a coming out speech? I’ve never heard the word PRIVACY said so loudly. . . . The Hollywood hypocrisy is complete: Jodie Foster accepts her Lifetime Achievement award at The GG’s and then demands PUBLIC PRIVACY. . . . Jodie Foster was drunk. . . . Jodie Foster says “I want all of the good stuff and none of the bad stuff!” What is she? A three year-old lesbian?” —Bret Easton Ellis via Twitter
“I thought Jodie Foster’s speech was mind blowingly beautiful. . .I think that one of the most wonderful things about the speech that Miss Foster just gave was that it was really a complex, interesting assessment of what it’s like to have a creative career over a long period of time. She wasn’t trying to hand you one moral.” —Lena Dunham
Please share your own interpretations in the space below.