This post originally appeared on Vogue.
Way back at the 2013 Golden Globes, Jodie Foster turned her acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award into an opportunity to publicly address long-standing rumors about her sexuality. “I hope you’re not disappointed that there won’t be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the Stone Age,” she said.
At the 2021 Globes on Sunday, Foster quietly accepted her award for best supporting actress in a motion picture via Zoom with her wife and dog by her side. And while the normalcy of that shouldn’t even register in 2021 (they’re a married couple supporting each other, just like any number of straight couples on the awards-show circuit!), we live in an era in which a newly out JoJo Siwa is forced to defend herself against homophobic trolls. In other words, as much as we’d like to think we’re past the era where an A-list female actor marrying a woman matters, it still feels meaningful to see queer partnerships normalized in Hollywood (especially in the COVID-19 pandemic era, when the time we spend at home—and who we choose to spend it with—matters more than ever).
Last night’s Globes proceedings were as disjointed and, at times, confusing as one might expect a hybrid-virtual awards show to be. But they offered one significant advantage over the formality and pomp of more typical years—we were given the privilege of seeing celebrities in their natural habitats, surrounded by their loved ones without the smile-and-wave tradition of an in-person ceremony. In the case of Foster and her wife, photographer Alexandra Hedison, that meant witnessing the sheer ordinariness of two women sitting on their couch with their dog and celebrating.
One of the most difficult aspects of navigating life as a queer person is the lack of societal scripts for what your life might actually look like in 5, 10, or 20 years, which makes it particularly meaningful to see a star of Foster’s level provide a window into what her everyday home life looks like, stripped of all Hollywood glamour. It’s worth noting that the queer families we do see onscreen often resemble Foster’s in terms of being white and cis; and until that paradigm shifts and queer people of all races, ethnicities, and gender expressions are given the opportunity to be seen as relatable, there’s still work to be done. Nevertheless, seeing Foster kiss her wife with their dog cuddled between them felt major. As energizing as a politically themed awards-show speech can be, it’s nothing quite like the simple act of offering up queer love to the public eye.
As Variety critic Daniel D’Addario noted on Twitter, only eight years elapsed between Foster’s Cecil B. DeMille Award speech and her acceptance of a Globe with her wife at her side. Hopefully, eight years from now, a whole new generation of LGBTQ+ actors will be able to excel—and be recognized at an event like the Golden Globes—while sharing their joy and excitement with whoever they love.
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