Free Radical Amphibian

The event left her with an enduring dread of cats-- Antonio Frank

The shepherd which had to be buried in the 1993 Sommersby looked like a real dog, and perhaps it was, enjoyed playing dead for an anticipated treat. Richard Gere and Jodie Foster are known quantities by this time, 22 years ago. Mature blooms, certainly not harried by small felines who need to take two hours to cajole beleaguered wheelchair users to watch them eat, then complain, as small carnivores will, wishing to be what they are, but have their cake in the caretaker, a simultaneous desire, which, when all is said and done, remains a contradiction, unless a feral state beckons. Would you adopt cats?

Sommersby is about identity and who we want to be, a not uncommon conceit in historical dramas, where a coward grows into an extraordinary gesture of courage, even if he cannot pick sides in the amorphous spectrum between the blue and the gray. One moment Foster epitomizes the regal widow, and the next she is the tomboy those of my generation grew up with, to become such a conflicted childhood celebrity whose coming out was a mumble.

Foster was confusing because her persona is complex, as veracity is complex. As far as I know, she never played a butch onscreen outright, and this was too her benefit as such a remarkable performance artist we're not likely to see again, as we ossify orientation with identity, and though I am not God, and that is a good thing-- I'd break the covenant with Noah and rain the apocalypse on our hoary pates-- I think Foster is in conflict about her femininity. She certainly wants to be viewed as sexually attractive to men in a good portion of her films, especially The Brave One, 2007, which is necessarily intense, to justify its brutality, full circle back to Taxi Driver (eh). Her ambidextrous duality is intriguing at its most challenging, and yet, there is a certain trigger, hostile to the fact she settles for simulation of intercourse, dildos, kitten tricks for comfort. Is it due to vulnerability, the dark side of Hinckley's claim of susceptibility? Her publicist would never let me wrap her in shrink wrap like this, but she is a deconstruction, the boy girl imprint of my adolescence, and all things being equal, however she bankrolled her economic security for her gentle dimming down as the marquee A-list superstar, she'll outlive me, barring I painlessly replace the hated indolence of my flesh, the complexity of her translation of difference not so easily grasped, by identity militants, by moderates, by her fans. I'd wrote, in archive, that I'd give her a pass, and my study of her in media is still indicative of that, but I'd push her, if I ever figure out my contention and its motif. I'd pry, not to get at her responsibility for deranged assassins, since she has none, but for her responsibility to womanhood, her conflicted signaling within her pliant strength, determination, fuzzy metaphysical conclusions.