Kristen Stewart, torn between Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner in David Slade’s upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, graces the cover of the July issue of Elle UK, which came out on Wednesday, June 2.
While interviewed for the magazine, Stewart made the mistake of speaking her mind. Worse: she made the grievous faux pas of comparing fame to rape. The Internet — the gossip buzzards are ever ready — has been teeming with articles berating the actress for her “unfortunate,” un-p.c. analogy and “poor choice of words.”
Here’s what she said, via The Huffington Post:
On the media:
“It really bothers me when people write nasty shit about me and the perception is that I don’t give a fuck. It could not be further from the truth. Your little persona is made up of all the places that people have seen you and what has been said about you, and usually the places that I am are so overwhelming in the moment and fleeting for me like one second where I’ve said something stupid, that’s me, forever.” On the paparazzi:
“What you don’t see are the cameras shoved in my face and the bizarre intrusive questions being asked, or the people falling over themselves, screaming and taunting to get a reaction. The photos are so … I feel like I’m looking at someone being raped. A lot of the time I can’t handle it. It’s fucked. I never expected that this would be my life.”
I may be one of the few who found Stewart’s fame/rape analogy both intelligent and graphically to the point. I’ve seen the paparazzi at work. It’s both frightening and repulsive. Those criticizing Stewart have been twisting her words, making the 20-year-old actress sound insensitive and immature. Actually, what she said is anything but.
Unfortunately, most people don’t have the mental capability (or the willingness) to understand either metaphors or the fact that one can be emotionally and psychologically raped, insisting that the word be used only when relating to vaginas or anuses. Those people are incapable of grasping that rape — painful intrusion, invasion, aggression, disrespect — can and do occur all the time in ways that have nothing to do with sex. Much like the most obscene forms of behavior occur when people are fully dressed. And I’m not referring to kinky sex here.
Bankers didn’t take their clothes off when they raped the world economy (and the livelihood of millions of people) not that long ago. The Gulf of Mexico is being raped by British Petroleum’s oil geyser People can have their psyche raped by, say, religious dogma — just try growing up gay while attending a traditional, say, Christian or Muslim school.
As a result of the popularity of some of Alt Film Guide’s posts on Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, and the Twilight Saga, I’ve been reading more about those actors. The more I learn about both Stewart and Pattinson, the better I like them and I gotta say, the more I wish them luck in their careers.
Unlike other successful young performers, they come across as unaffected, intelligent, and (mostly) honest. (See “The Pattinson-Stewart Affair.”) Also, considering the anti-Twilight backlash out there — the likes of which I’ve never seen before against any successful movie franchise, no matter how rotten — I root for them the way I almost invariably root for the underdog. (Admittedly, those are rich, good-looking, pampered underdogs.)
Source: ALT FG
