Jody Foster and Mel Gibson

The Atlantic Wire:

Aside from some of the weird rambling and the kinda sorta coming out, one of the more mysterious things about Jodie Foster's big Golden Globes speech last weekend was her intensity about her friendship with Mel Gibson. The two were seated next to each other all night, and when on stage, Foster said something along the lines of, "You save me, too." They are clearly very close, but now some folks are wondering exactly how close. The rumor right now is that Gibson, already the father of eight children, is the biological father of Foster's two sons. Yes, people think that Gibson donated sperm to Foster and her then-partner Cydney Bernard and that's how a baby, or rather two babies, were made. Which would be strange! Maybe even stranger than the whole Melissa Etheridge/David Crosby thing? Yes, possibly even stranger than that. But how real is this? Well, let Page Six tell you: "'The kids look like him [Gibson] but blonder,' said one amateur genealogist."

I have no opinion about the biological paternity of Jody Foster's children and I don't care about it. What is interesting to me is that Mel Gibson is an ultra-traditional Catholic, probably a sedevacantist. Certainly donating sperm would be forbidden for him, and the wrongness would be compounded by donating sperm to a lesbian couple. And yet we wouldn't consider it beyond the realm of possibility that he donated sperm to Foster, who is one of his closest friends, if not his closest friend.

And then there is Jody Foster who also has what seems a most unlikely friendship with an ultraconservative Catholic man who's been accused of beating women and has been recorded in drunken, sexist, anti-Semitic rages.

All of this goes to show that our minds and our relationships are not appropriately dissected on a rational-motivation basis. We can love deeply damaged, deeply flawed people. We can love people who don't share our values. And others can love us with all of our flaws and differences. That's probably not a bug. More likely, it's a feature, and IMO, a good feature.

I'm reminded of a long ago post in which I quoted a psychologist friend:

With infatuation, the quirks and habits that were endearing in the beginning are irritating in the end.  With mature love, the quirks and habits that were irritating in the beginning are endearing in the end.

This is a sentiment with which I agree wholeheartedly based on observation and personal experience. And perhaps it should be extended to include not just irritating quirks and habits, but to personal struggles with serious flaws.

Comments

[blue girl]

Wonderful.