The Queen

I just got the October/November issue of one of my favorite publications-BUST magazine. No, don’t let the name fool you, it’s a women’s magazine written from a feminist perspective. If you’re sick of reading magazines that have “articles” on things like “learn to cheat-proof your relationship by giving a better blowjob and losing twenty pounds!”  (cough, cough…Cosmo), then I recommend you read BUST.

The best part about this issue? The cover! Who was on it you ask? Oh, just the ever-fantastic Helen Mirren. Now, I had always considered myself a fan of Helen Mirren, but after reading this article my love for her has increased immensely. For starters, look at the way she handles the douchebagery that is this interview:

First off, this Parkinson guy is a complete ass, that’s obvious. But more importantly is the way Mirren handles the situation. She has complete control over the situation at all times and refused to give in to his nonsense. That was back in 1975 when Helen was just hitting it big in the entertainment business. Since then she has been defying gender roles in the industry by taking parts that celebrate the diversity of females. She has played everything from an alcoholic, to a queen, to an adulterous wife who feeds her lover to her husband after he has died (I don’t know if I’m going to say that celebrates the diversity of women, though, it’s really just creepy), to her most recent role as Prospera in a modern production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. If you’ve never read (or had to read) The Tempest, the role of “Prospera” doesn’t exist in the original production of the play, the lead is Prospero, a male role, but the female director of the film, Julie Taymor, switched the gender to give her rendition of the play a different (and some say more natural) point of view.

Not only does Mirren try to defy typical gender roles in Hollywood, she is genuinely enthusiastic about women holding more technical jobs in the industry such as working as camerapersons. She is quoted in BUST saying: “I’ve worked with female directors, great, but to see women have roles on the technical side is really, really exciting.” She’s referring to the fact that for the first time on a movie set she encountered a completely female camera crew. How refreshing to hear a woman in Hollywood speaking up about something like this! Just think, if more women work behind the scenes in Hollywood, the male-centered portrayal of what is and is not entertaining could morph into something universally appealing to men and women that doesn’t serve to exploit women’s bodies and make them look like stupid, beautiful, empty vessels.

The most important aspect of all of this: Helen Mirren is an actual role model in a day and age where girls and women have very few people to look up to. Not only is she an incredible and articulate actress, she has described herself as a feminist and as a woman who grew up knowing that she would always be able to take care of herself and would not need to find a man to “define” her. She lived on a kibbutz (a traditional Israeli village based on a high level of social and economical sharing and equality), traveled through Africa with a theater troupe that acted only through sound and gesture to avoid language barriers, and has never been reluctant to speak her mind or felt uncomfortable about her sexuality.

When this is now the norm for celebrity interaction with their female fans:

(Why is this woman famous and why the fuck would I care what she eats every day?)

It is truly invigorating to hear a female celebrity talk about her career, her passions and her beliefs and not about how many calories she ate that day, the next 30-day “cleanse” she’s on, or the best tricks she has for making her ass look less fat. Hopefully Helen Mirren’s intelligence, grace, and timelessness will become the latest trend and more women in Hollywood will follow her lead.