The XX Factor: What women really think.

Old Spice

Susannah. The headline here is actually kind of worse than “Julia Roberts is OLD.” The headline—or subhed—is the coy suggestion that “Julia Roberts is a superstar, but her box-office reign might be over.” Then the piece is packed with arguments (as Dana points out, without any actual evidence) about how Roberts is old. I suppose you could read this piece as a comment on the punishing standards of beauty and youth in Hollywood. If, say, you skipped every other sentence. But I read it as a faux-defense, not unlike Maureen Dowd’s efforts to both celebrate and send up Michelle Obama this past weekend. Maybe this is some new form of double-lutz ironic journalism, in which we pretend to bemoan some appalling societal trend (strong arms, shallow Hollywood ageism ... ) while still wallowing in its every last cliché.

One Wedding, Three Children and ... a Funeral?

More for Susannah on Julia Roberts: I don't think either Dahlia or I were motivated to tear into that Newsweek piece on her by our undying love for America's sweetheart. Rather, we were struck by the article's disingenuousness, what I called its "eyelash-batting" quality. I get that by using the phrase "Hollywood ancient," the author is distancing himself from the assertion that the 41-year-old Roberts is hopelessly superannuated. But by never refuting, or indeed questioning, that assertion, he winds up simply reinforcing it, while also getting to wipe away a tear for JR's poor lost career.

Your comparison of Roberts' "comeback" with Mickey Rourke's is telling, in terms of what it reveals about our (unconscious?) presumptions about women, children, and work. On the one hand, there's Rourke, who made horribly self-destructive choices, alienated every director he worked with, then spent 10 to 15 years spiraling into addiction and despair before resurrecting his career with The Wrestler. Then there's Roberts, who took a planned five-year break at the height of her career to raise a pair of twins and a younger son. Mind you, this is no attack on Rourke, whom I love as both an actor and a public personality—I was delighted to welcome him back from obscurity, I wish he'd won the Oscar, and I'd far rather hang out with him than with Julia Roberts. But to compare his decade of darkness with Roberts' extended maternity leave—hey, they both stopped working, then started again!—is to reinforce the belief (held at a semiconscious level by many working mothers, including, at times, me) that opting out of the work force for a time is somehow a source of shame.

That's Hollywood Ancient

Count me out on crying "sexism!" when it comes to Newsweek's characterization of Julia Roberts as "Hollywood ancient." And that's exactly what the author said—Hollywood ancient—and you know what? He's absolutely right. By the response here, you'd think he'd written a headline that read:"Julia Roberts is OLD!!!" But that's not what he wrote. He stated the truth when he proclaimed that at 41, Roberts is old for a leading lady—by Hollywood standards. I guess you can call it sexist, but in Hollywood, it's a reality. And I'd beg to differ with those who see a poke at her taking years off to raise her kids is sexist, too. We heard more about Mickey Rourke's so-called comeback than his acting chops after he got nominated for an Academy Award. Living in Hollywood, you kind of come to understand the movie industry has its own version of dog years, and you learn that men and women have it equally rough when it comes to getting ahead in the business. It's not like guys get a free pass. Me? I've never liked Roberts. I've always found her gummy grin more fake than endearing, and the tales I've heard from those reporters who've interviewed her suggest she's more viper in the grass than girl next door. Here's to her comeback flop.

Pretty (Old) Woman

Yuck. Like Dahlia, I hate the way this Newsweek article on Julia Roberts perpetuates sexist assumptions—41-year-old women are "ancient"! Time off to raise children = career suicide!—while batting its eyelashes innocently. The author is effectively saying, gee, what a shame that people might think Roberts was a washed-up old hag ... just because I'm publishing a Newsweek article to that effect! Dahlia points to a few actors exactly Roberts' age, all of whose careers are currently at their white-hot peak: Jamie Foxx, Benicio del Toro, Philip Seymour Hoffman. And what about Clive "Methuselah" Owen, who's cast opposite Roberts in next week's Duplicity? He's 47, poor thing, just like our enfeebled, half-senile new president.

There are other, non-gender-related things that bug me about this article—for example, calling Roberts' massive, toothy grin a "Mona Lisa smile" seems simply off. Isn't the whole point of a Mona Lisa smile that it's the subtlest of expressions, almost not a smile at all? Then there's the fact that the author resignedly eulogizes Roberts' career without having yet seen her new movie. Duplicity, a corporate-spy thriller that's the second film from exciting new director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) stands an excellent chance of being both a critical and box-office success, and even if it's not, both Roberts and Owen have survived other flops. Before we declare Julia Roberts' "comeback" a failure, can we let her actually come back?

Hollywood Ancient

Jamie Foxx. Paul Giamatti. Benicio Del Toro. Liev Schreiber. Guy Pearce. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Pretty safe bet that if any one of these 41-year-old actors had been the subject of this Newsweek piece they wouldn’t have been run through the gender double-standard meat grinder—the one that permits Julia Roberts to be declared “Hollywood ancient” at the advanced age of 41. Oh, and those five years she took off to raise her kids? An unfortunate  “dry spell.”

I’m thinking it’s a pretty safe bet that if it was Philip Seymour Hoffman who had taken five years off in his mid-30s—even if it was to work on his rare African beetle collection—he’d be acclaimed upon his return as fresher, younger, and crackling with new energy.

She's Still Got It

Privacy Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Bad juju? The National Enquirer lived down to its tabloid expectations and gave the press a sweetheart of a bone to chew in the weeks before the political conventions. Mickey’s MSM should send them a thank-you note. Rachael is right. The Edwards’ personal privacy is a non-starter. I am always amazed at the different places various journalists draw lines over where or how they will pursue a story that invades someone’s privacy.  The truth is, we all have our own comfort zones and it varies from story to story.

As a private investigator in the '80s, my clients, leading lawyers of the day, would ask my partner and me if we would be conducting surveillance on, say, a CEO principal in a corporate takeover. “Of course not (how sleazy!),” we’d say (and think). We were professionals who did interviews, looked at public archives and wrote detailed, footnoted reports with tabbed attachments. By the mid-'90s, however, I had become an investigative producer for ABC News and soon found myself sitting in a rented windowless van with a camera crew waiting to catch a small-time Miami clinic owner involved in Medicare fraud. Another producer inside wore a hidden camera in her cap. It got worse. A couple years later, I persuaded the mother of an 11-year-old boy who had recently ambushed and killed several fourth-grade classmates to (exclusively!) share her raw feelings about the tragedy with the viewers of 20/20. She had another son in the school system and needed to remain in their small Arkansas town. I told her it was a way to tell her neighbors how sorry her family was for their loss. Melinda, I shamelessly enjoyed the byline but I still hope that mother was right to trust me.

John Edwards' humiliating dénouement and yes, Elizabeth Edwards' penchant for oversharing will make us all voyeurs to the couple's very bad summer, and I do sympathize. Their situation recalled for me the 1998 tearjerker Stepmom with Susan Sarandon, as a "terminally ill mother who has to settle on the new woman," (played by Julia Roberts) in her ex-husband's life. Ed Harris plays the movie triangle husband. After some bad blood in the beginning, the three come to an understanding about the future of Sarandon’s children.  I am able to picture a falsely cheery Sarandon portraying Elizabeth Edwards in my conflated version and can see Ed Harris as the southern senator. I can even imagine a Brockoviched  Reille Hunter but I cannot envision a frank meeting among the three (as a private eye, I never worked domestic cases). Maybe the adults in this mess will remember there are three small children affected and be able to convene such a civilized gathering. Should they pull it off, unfortunately, we can count on the National Enquirer to provide pictures.