Not a real Stepford Wife in the bunch
The Edmonton Journal
Jay Stone
CanWest News Service
Photo: Laura Farr
(Bette at the Stepford Wives Premiere in Los Angeles)
Put Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Glenn Close and Faith Hill — the stars of the new film The Stepford Wives — into the same room, and you wind up with a snapshot of what some celebrities are thinking about the issues of the day. And as it turns out, it doesn’t sound much different from what women and mothers around the world are saying. Here’s a sample:
– Midler on the changing world: “Things are so wacky. I never thought I’d see the day that you’d see a reality show based on plastic surgery. It’s so hard to absorb, if you’re a certain age, there’s so many things that are so odd. Amongst them this war, but we won’t go into that, will we?”
– Hill on sex and the media: “My husband and I have a seven-year-old, a five-year-old and a two-year old, so watching the reality television shows, they just don’t. It’s not allowed. Actually it’s very difficult to let them watch television because even the commercials are sometimes suggestive.”
– Kidman on sex in the media: “You find out that your kids went to someone’s house and watched a DVD, and you call up the mother and say, ‘Hey, hold on, that was R-rated.’ I mean, you’re constantly all over them. And it’s hard to get information out of a 12-year-old.”
– Midler on sex in the media: “I never thought that I would see the day that someone could make a pornographic film and survive it … Pam Anderson, she did it accidentally, and Paris Hilton, these girls were basically scammed, but still the point is that this stuff got out. I remember when if you were arrested for marijuana, you would never have a life.”
– Close on the responsibilities of getting dressed up in public: “It’s absolutely the burden of my existence. It’s an absolute horror. When I have to go somewhere I say, ‘What am I going to wear and who’s going to criticize it?'”
– Kidman on privacy and her children: “I never take them to premieres, they’ve never been photographed for magazines, nothing. I’m absolutely a maniac about that … my job is to be their mother, and just because their mother is famous does not mean they are.”
– Midler on activism: “Advertisers and the media see kids younger and younger as a source of revenue. They don’t really care. That thing where you were going to protect your children has pretty much gone out the window, and I really, really resent it. And I’m sorry that people don’t make a fuss about it. Something has happened in the last 20 years. People are sheep. People used to march, people used to scream, and they don’t do it anymore.”
– Midler on makeover reality TV shows: “It assumes you’re going to be a happy person because you look OK. You’ll be happy for a while, but eventually gravity will take its toll once again and you’ll have to be back under the knife again. So it’s best for you to make some sort of peace at some point.”
