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‘The Most Important Role of My Life’

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 32 Comments

Sunday night, when Natalie Portman accepted her Oscar, the radiantly pregnant actress concluded her acceptance speech by thanking “my beautiful love,” dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, for giving her the “most important role of my life.”

As Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com reports, Portman’s maternal joy rankled some viewers. Lizzie Skurnick Tweeted:

Like, my garbageman could give you your greatest role in life, too, lady.

Perhaps you will be surprised that Skurnick’s blog is called “The Old Hag.” Perhaps not. But Skurnick’s catty putdown of Portman evidently prompted an entire column at Salon by Mary Elizabeth Williams railing against Portman’s assertion of the greater importance of motherhood:

Why, at the pinnacle of one’s professional career, would a person feel the need to undercut it by announcing that there’s something else even more important? Even if you feel that way, why downplay your achievement? Why compare the two, as if a grueling acting role and being a parent were somehow in competition? And remind me — when was the last time a male star gave an acceptance speech calling fatherhood his biggest role?

It’s always something with these ax-grinders, you see? They can’t be content to let Portman have her moment, and celebrate with her the double joy of winning an Oscar and being pregnant, because the ax-grinders can’t stand to see anyone contented and joyful.

Ertelt quoted Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America: “The selflessness of motherhood is the antithesis of Hollywood narcissism.” Maybe that’s why Portman and other actresses — Hollywood’s had something of a “baby boom” in recent years — relish motherhood: It’s so unlike the selfish superficiality of show business.

But you don’t have to be in Hollywood, or be a mother, to appreciate this. The famous social critic Christopher Lasch once wrote a provocative book about family life called Haven in a Heartless World, the title of which summarizes what the family should be — a loving refuge from the cruelty of a world that has no reason to love us the way our own flesh-and-blood love us. Yet it is anathema to the ax-grinders for any woman to acknowledge a fondness for hearth and home because (at least in the ax-grinders’ disordered minds) a home-loving woman is undermining the feminist sisterhood’s crusade for career equality.

So obviously, when one of the world’s most famous and admired young women gets pregnant, then tearfully thanks the father of her child for giving her the “most important role” of her glamorous life . . . well, yeah, that really required a pushback from the ax-grinders. They’re not happy and they don’t want anyone else to be happy, either.


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Category: Celebrities

Comments

  • http://twitter.com/johnbday John Day

    Also, Portman is a noted liberal; the importance of motherhood is something that transcends ideology.

    Funny how the gatekeepers of who’s a “real woman” are the ones who are the most eager to force women to act like men.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1385852725 Richard Mcenroe

    Just one thing I hope, when she has the kid she has the good sense to get the hell out of this town. Hollywood and its fringe elements are absolutely toxic to the kids of celebrities.

  • Anonymous

    Well, she may be a “noted liberal” in the sense that nearly everyone in Hollywood toes the line, but she isn’t one of those obnoxious loudmouth idiots like Sean Penn or Janeane Garofalo.

  • Anonymous

    What awful bitter harpies those people are who want to hate on those who recognize the importance of motherhood and family. Good for Ms. Portman, may she discover the indescribable transcendent bliss that a new mom feels when with her heart filled with love, she gets lost in her baby’s eyes. There is nothing in the world that can compare to it.

  • Charlie Sheen

    Whatever do you mean by that?

  • http://kingshamus.wordpress.com/ KingShamus

    Natalie is a liberal. There’s no getting around it.

    At this point though, it doesn’t matter. She’s stoked to be a mom. That’s good enough for me.

    Screw the feminist hater bitches. Congrats to Natalie Portman on being a mother.

  • Anonymous

    “Breeder” as an insult is the most damning self-indictment one can utter.

    Good for her.

  • FenelonSpoke

    That’a wonderful that she’e excited to be a mom. Too bad she and her boyfriend decided to hop in the sack and this make motherhood possible while he was still with another woman. Still, I hope they are happy.

  • Joe

    Congratulations Natalie. On both your achievements.

  • http://www.marfdrat.net marfdrat

    You know what’s great, though? In another generation or so, the “breeder” haters will fulfill their own destiny, and – fail to breed anymore of themselves.

  • http://athenesword.posterous.com/ ThePaganTemple

    What’s worse for them, Portman is a vegan, which means they have a right to expect her to be as loony a leftist as you can find anywhere. I guess this was the equivalent of throwing ice-cold water on a wet dream. Or Dennis Kucinich announcing we should declare war on Libya.

  • http://athenesword.posterous.com/ ThePaganTemple

    I just watched this, and noticed she also thanked her parents for giving her her life, and for being good parents to her. Uh-oh, that can’t be good. It might actually encourage others to want to have kids and raise them, therefore usurping the rightful role of government social services in their constitutionally mandate duty of child-rearing and instruction. Things like that could cause children to feel conflicted.

    And wasn’t her character in the film a lesbian? Shouldn’t she have given an obligatory acknowledgment of support for LGBT issues? Does she have no sense of empathy towards the entitlement of others?

  • johnl

    The entertainment business can be very hard on families. Good on NP for trying to work around that.

  • Taxpayer

    Props to Natalie Portman for gaining some real, human perspective on what’s really important.

    I got my graduate degree a few weeks before I had my daughter. I don’t remember squat about the graduation; but I remember every detail of my first look at my girl’s beautiful face.

    I can lay money on what Natalie will remember best.

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  • Nomen

    I heartily agree with Portman that being a mother is more important than winning an Oscar.

    But to be fair to Skurnick, she may simply be following your Rule 4 advice: draw attention to yourself by criticizing someone who has a higher profile. As much as I disagree with Skurnick, I feel your criticism would carry more weight if you hadn’t made inventing such quibbles a by-law of your professional life.

  • http://ak4mc.us/2c/2011/ McGehee

    That’ll teach me for clicking “Like” before I finish reading the comment.

  • Anonymous

    Portman and Palin both begin with P. Coincidence???

    Sully will be asking questions….

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  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    It’s like the response to Sarah Palin: gorgeous successful woman, succeeding in a man’s world, who loves being a mom. The liberals went on their search-and-destroy mission.

    Eh, Portman will eventually wonder why people hate her for having success and a baby, and will wonder why it’s the “feminists” who think that women are either barren career bitches or knitting at home with a slew of kids and a vacant look in her eyes.

  • Freyja

    So says a woman at 30 (or above?) who is neither a successful career woman nor someone who has found anyone yet to raise a family with. But a bitch with an yearning look in her eyes, she certainly is.

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    Was that directed at me?

  • Anonymous

    Plus, Mary Elizabeth Williams’ limited grasp of logic probably says more about herself than Portman:

    1. Portman saying that motherhood is her most important role in life does not “undercut” her professional career or “downplay her achievement.” Hypothetically, on a scale of 1-10, Portman might value her career as a 9 in importance, but motherhood as a 10. Whereas Williams has such a low regard for motherhood that anything below it must be quite low in value. To extend the logic, Williams’ attitude would seem to preclude religious faith because a believer would consider her role as a child of God as vastly more important than her career no matter how much she valued her career.

    2. Who says Portman was “comparing” motherhood and career, or sees the two as “in competition”? Again, that is coming from Williams. Maybe Portman thinks that’s the case – and maybe career and motherhood really are in competition – but Portman’s comments do not support Williams’ statements.

  • Anonymous

    I sure hope it wasn’t directed at you, and I doubt it, because you don’t look a day over 25.

    I suspect (hope) Freyja meant Williams, but even then, her comments were maybe just a tad excessive.

  • http://www.haemet.blogivists.com Roxeanne de Luca

    I could see “most important” as a comparative thing, but I don’t see how uplifting and honouring one part of one’s life diminishes another, unless we assume that intangibles (love, respect, and joy) are subject to the rules of a zero-sum game.

  • Faggod

    Was that directed at me?

    I hope it was. I also think Freyja might be wrong about the age. I think you are on the wrong side of 25 but mayn’t have reached 30 yet.

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