Charlize Theron covers the May issue of Elle Magazine to promote her latest film, Tully. Tully is the latest collaboration between Charlize, Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman. I thought their last film, Young Adult, was extremely underrated. Charlize gave an incredible and often-understated performance which was worthy of awards, in my opinion. I don’t know what to think of Tully – will it be awards-baity, or will it be shunned because it’s a “lighter” film? I don’t know. But Charlize did do a big transformation for it – she put on a great deal of weight to make herself look like a character who had just given birth to her third kid. So… maybe? The Academy does love a dramatic transformation. As for the Elle piece… it was conducted by Chelsea Handler. Ugh. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
How gaining weight for ‘Tully’ was so different: “Yeah. I filmed Monster when I was 27, and I just stopped snacking for three weeks and was back to my normal weight. This time it really hit me hard. I was constantly f–king eating. And I love carbs. But I sort of plateaued on carbs. So I started eating and drinking a lot of sugar. It really messed with my head. I had depression for the first time in my life shooting this film. I felt like I was in a dark cloud. Getting back to normal took a long time
On her career: “If you look at my career, I have done more work in realism than the glamour stuff. It’s what I wanted to build my career on and why I fought so hard to not just play the ingénue or the girlfriend.”
On co-parenting with her mom, Gerta: “I knew that I would have to have my mom help me if I was going to do this as a single parent. To not acknowledge her coparenting my children would be a lie.”
On the adoption process: “I struggled mentally through the adoption process. Some of my lowest points in my life were dealing with the first time I filed; it really took an emotional toll. There were so many situations that didn’t work out, and you’d get attached and have all your hopes up and then just get crushed.”
On raising two black children: “They need to know where they come from and be proud of that. But they’re going to have to know that it’s a different climate for them than it is for me, and how unfair that is. If I can do something about that, of course I’m going to.”
On racism in the US: “I don’t even know how to talk about the last year under our new administration. But racism is much more alive and well than people thought. We can’t deny it anymore. We have to be vocal. There are places in this country where, if I got a job, I wouldn’t take it. I wouldn’t travel with my kids to some parts of America, and that’s really problematic.”
“There are places in this country where, if I got a job, I wouldn’t take it.” I don’t mean to nitpick, but is she generalizing about the South? She’s not specific there, which I understand, but I have to say – the Klan is active everywhere now. White supremacists have crawled out from underneath every rock in this country. There is no one state in America that doesn’t have some kind of issue, whether it’s with the black community or the brown community. Anyway, I like how she acknowledges her mom’s role in all of this – Charlize’s mom lives with her and truly does coparent August (“Auggie”) and Jackson.
Photos courtesy of Mario Sorrenti for Elle Magazine, from Hearst promotional email.
I don’t like this photo shoot at all
@Meg
Odd how much Charlize looks like Sienna Miller in this photo shoot. A lot of photoshopping involved.
On a superficial note: all the photos have the sun behind her head. One was enough riiiigght?
I’m not American nor black so I’ll let others comment on what she says.
Oh, the irony of it all. Theron is (rightfully) complaining about racism in the States to a white woman who oncle called a black little girl a “monkey” and tried to hijack Lupita’s big Ocsar night with her neverending slew of racist “jokes”.
I feel sorry and I am worried for all the black and brown kids who are being raised by white parents who loved them with all their hearts but are completely clueless in terms of race relations.
Agree completely – you are the company you keep.
Unfortunately for those kids, I suspect Theron and Handler are not that different kind of cool blonde white girl “woke” type for whom only aggressive and blatant racism is racism. I had to google Handler’s tweets on Lupita and fell into a rabbit hole of bad humour and jokes one would hear in the 50’s and 60’s about “Africans” and “Muslims”.
@kate
+1 You hit nail on head.
Sorry, Theron has always struck me as a bit of a fraud with issues. I go back to an early people story on her, complaining that she had to leave South Africa because apartheid was over and so, bummer, no more cool opportunities for her there. Blacks suddenly got human rights, so she’s moving on. It was a tone deaf interview. Maybe her youth could be blamed, and perhaps she’d never say something so insensitive now at 42 and as a mom to black children, but it’s always colored my perception of her.
Also, and I’ll just say this…as a black woman, I side eye some white women who *only* adopt black kids (looking at you too Sandra Jesse James Bullock). With Theron, I get the feeling she’s using them for ‘practice’ or it’s that they somehow think their black kids won’t pull a mommy dearest on them as they’ll be so grateful and love them too much to betray them. There’s just something bothersome about these two ‘moms’ that I can’t put my finger on, but them pal’ing around with racist Handler really brings it home (who recently told a joke that Angelina could keep her two asian boys and Brad would take the China…because why would ‘Brad Pitt’ want his non white kids?).
Ugh is right Kaiser.
I worked with her on Mad Max in Namibia, she is vile piece of work. She treated all the crew like absolute s** (and we were a large crew of predominantly black South Africans) Behaved like a total diva 24/7… but … the Travel Production Coordinator did share her real age with a few of us, so that always makes me feel a bit better
@ComeON, before I start, let me just acknowledge my own privilege as a white woman who works in child welfare. I recognize that I don’t have your experiences, and they would likely alter my opinions as well.
Some families specify race because they’re aware that it’s harder to place black children (in particular boys), and they want to adopt a child who would otherwise not be adopted in their mind. It’s not the greatest logic as babies get adopted period, but for families looking to adopt older kids (by which I mean 3 and up), race is a serious barrier.
However, in my experience, many families don’t start out trying to adopt transracially. They’re open to it, but they don’t specify race. If they end up with a child of a different race, they then may specify race in the future so the child is not the only black child in a white family.
And, in fairness, some families specify race because they’ve got a particular aesthetic in mind, so that absolutely does happen, and it’s gross and wrong. I just hope it’s not the case with Sandra Bullock because her adoption brought publicity to public adoptions in the US, and that’s a good thing for kids in foster care waiting for a permanent home.
Y’all seem to feel the same way about Charlize as I do about most bourgeois white liberals. If someone’s life revolves around conspicuous consumption you can guarantee their ‘wokeness’ is just another pose.
@ComeON
Basically none of what you’ve said is right.
Charlize didn’t leave South Africa because “apartheid was over”, there’s nothing she’s said to even imply that. She left because she won a modelling contract in Europe as a teenager after studying at a school of ballet in South Africa. After she damaged her knee and couldn’t dance any more she went to LA to do something else creative and got picked up by an agent in line at a bank.
She’s been outspokenly anti-apartheid since her teens and met with Nelson Mandela, who she supported, on several occasions. In 2008 she set up a charity called CTOP which supports a lot of black charities in South Africa with large grants that focus on HIV education and protecting vulnerable black girls and women from abuse.
On adoption, what insertpunhere said is correct. When you are looking to adopt, you have the option to specify if you’d like the child to be the same race as you. If you have no preference you will be given the first child suitable to your situation. There are proportionally far more black children in the adoption system than white, so you are statistically more likely to end up adopting a black child. Charlize’s kids are both adopted from SA, so this statistic is even higher.
So celebrities don’t set out to adopt a black children on purpose. An adoption agency won’t let a white person come along and just demand to have only black babies, that’s not the way it works. It’s just that celebrities are far more likely to not specify race, because they have less to worry about in terms of social issues that could come up for them later on. They have the luxury of being able to do that.
@Hair & Make Up Artist
Ahaha! Are you kidding!? I was working as a prop technician on that very set and for literally the entire shoot and that is unequivocally not true. There was a lot of on set bickering and even fighting that I saw. A lot of frayed tempers and people unsure of what was happening from day to day sometimes. But a lot of what I observed was between Hardy and Miller/the assistant director and some of the other crew.
Theron wasn’t awful to the crew at all. Not that I observed. And neither was Hardy. I can’t with these people pretending to have worked somewhere just to try and rag on an actor they hate. It’s bizarre.
Lol. Yeah I thought that claim was fishy too. Like they’re implying that Theron is lying about her age, but she’s been working in Hollywood since she was what? Like 19? So her DoB has been out there since the 90’s, and why would a teenager lie about her age? Just on the off chance she happened to have a 20 year long career?
Doubt it.
I can’t find any source on Chelsea Handler ever saying that racist stuff. Where are you getting this information from?
Don’t know why you’d be blaming Theron for Handler’s screw ups anyway, even if it was true.
I liked San Diego!
I agree with Charlize.
As a person in a multi ethnic relationship and having children , I can tell you the racist comments from some people when we travel is disgusting, Charlize is right.
There are also parts of SA where it’s not safe to be white right now. I don’t say that to detract from her comments about America. The world is in a real pickle.
How is that comment not detracting from her comments? It’s not an either or situation. Also your comment is not put into historical context. For 100s of years it was not safe to be black ANYWHERE in SA….
Boom and +1 @Jess
Thank you.
thank you. so true. =\
you MUST be joking. there are places in SA where it is not safe to visibly be a “have” as you will be targeted. to be a have that got your haves by basically killing people off their land and oppressing them, they may take extra pleasure in dealing with you but NO you are not more of a target. what a mess some people are. i mean, what kind of all lives matter BS is this? you know what, let those white folks take asylum in trump country and be gone; SA won’t miss them.
Oh, we have forgotten who lost their land in the USA?
Native Americans said ‘when the white man came he made many promises but only kept one, that he would take our land’
Have you all thought about segregation in the South, separate toilets, shopping entrances, water fountains, schools, etc etc
You mean the land redistribution? The people whose land was stolen probably still have living family members, so it’s not comparable. Frankly, Mandela was exceedingly kind in the aftermath of apartheid not to take more substantial measures. The fact that they’re complaining about STOLEN PROPERTY being returned to the original owners is the definition of white privilege.
Or do you mean the woman arrested for being racist? She threw down racial slurs over fifty times against two officers who came to HELP her, then proceeded to threaten to kill them with her car. She got what she deserved.
@Suki girl stop lying. White people are not being targeted in SA. I swear White people love being victims so much. Yall busy crying because we are finally gonna get our STOLEN land back.. I suggest yall go live in Trumps America. You will not be missed
You know America is also stolen land? Where they gonna go? They won’t fit back in England now.
White people ARE being targeted in SA. Why lie about it? Why be ignorant about it?
Oh well. SA can enjoy seeing these famlands turn into fields of rock. It’ll be the next Zimbabwe when the drive the white farmers out.
Get a clue. Read the news.
Baby girl, you need to worry more about your children of color hanging around Chelsea Handler.
I mean..I completely agree that racism is everywhere but I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t feel like taking her kids to deep red Trump territory.
Remember that she’s not *just* a white woman with two black children, she’s a famous white celebrity with two black children. I could be wrong but my instinct is that she’d be an easy target for Deplorable Nation.
Considering she grew up in *Apartheid South Africa her comments should fill Americans with disquiet.
* i know she left age 16yrs old, and officially Apartheid stopped in 1994, but it’s not as if the effects of the system and cultural attitudes stopped overnight.
That was my thought when she adopted her first child.
Very good point, LAK.
She should travel more, outside of her little celebrity bubble. Racism outside of the states of much uglier than what we see in America. People are VERy tolerant here.
She’s free to act like a racial victim, but once she leaves the western countries she’s in for a real treat as far as racism goes.
She should try starting a farm down in South Africa if she wants to experience real racism.
I think the point is that “Deplorable Nation” isn’t a place, it’s everywhere. These divisions are not along obvious geographical lines.
IDK….where I live, I know VERY few people who voted for Trump. When I went to Texas recently, I met MANY people who voted for Trump–and that was in Austin.
I think the electoral map is a good indicator of areas where Trump support is stronger.
I get your greater point that Trumpsters are everywhere, but I’m also not gonna criticize her for not rushing out to work or vacation in a red state right now.
Oh, sure there are few Minute Maid Mao voters in blue states but that does not mean they aren’t plenty of racist white folks among HRC voters, Bernie voters, third party voters, etc.
It’s not really as simple as that though. I live in the deep south now and have actually come in contact with very few Trump supporters here, although I know quite a few back up north in my home swing state and my husband’s traditionally blue home state. I have a feeling she’s talking about places like where I live now when she says this, but it’s not really a north/south divide these days.
I get what she’s saying, I just think the okay places are maybe not as okay as she thinks they are.
Well to be fair, we don’t know exactly where she meant because she didn’t specify. But if we go by hate crimes alone, the states that are most racist are: https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/11-most-racist-states-ranked-by-hate-crimes-353960/?singlepage=1
So while I get that racism is everywhere, I also understand a mother being incredibly protective of her children and maybe not wanting to temp fate. Doesn’t mean that her family wouldn’t be the target of racism elsewhere, but maybe it gives her a sense of control if she feels like she can minimize her chances by avoiding certain areas. *shrugs*
If I had her money I probably wouldn’t be going to Oklahoma or Missouri right now anyway. After the winter we just had in New England, I’d be headed off to Aruba.
Ahhhhh, dream, dream….. 😉
That isn’t exactly true. Montana, Idaho, and parts of the Northwest would give me pause. Parts of Vermont and Maine are a no Thank You too. I would pass on West Virginia.
Racism is everywhere, but at least in some places, a person can blend in without a problem.
I am used to diversity, so it is stark when it is missing. I went to Jackson Hole with my in laws years ago, and I remember thinking there wasn’t a single black person in the entire town. At least that first time we visited, but it felt strange. I can’t imagine what that feels like for a person of color.
Charlize isn’t wrong to consider that. I don’t blame her.
True in a way. I now live in upstate NY, Trump country, and it is racist, sexist and homophobic. I grew up in NYC and when I return, I’m always amazed at how I, a white blonde woman, am in the minority’s most places. I think her kids would be much more accepted in NYC than upstate NY. I know I feel safer with so many diverse people who all live near each other in relative harmony and peace!
The Electoral Map is a terrible indicator. The scale is misleading. Broken down by county, almost every area is purple. Racists are everywhere, even in the precious megalopolis.
I think there is a difference between “racists are everywhere” and racism being **acceptable** everywhere.
Yes, there are racists even in blue areas, but that racism is less likely to be supported, encouraged, legislated, and accepted by the communities. In my bf’s hometown, which is far out in the middle of the country, people walk around wearing “white power” patches. There is no outrage or reaction to it. If someone wore that in public in Los Angeles, they certainly would get a negative reaction.
There are definitely areas where it is more acceptable to be racist and bigoted.
This is very similar to my husband’s view. We live in Canada in a large liberal city but I have family in the deep south/Trump loving states. I have visited them and never had an issue but my husband refuse to ever go with me and refuse to let our daughter travel with me as well. He is mixed race (hispanic/black) and has a very thick Spanish accent, I used to argue with him all the time about how ridiculous he’s being and how I’ve never had one bad experience there, but you know what, I now realize how naive I was being. My experience as a tall, thin, super pale, blonde hair green eyed woman in the deep south is 100% different then what he and my daughter would experience and I just can’t believe I was so foolish to think otherwise.
@Lela
I live in the south, and not once have I seen anyone with a “white power” sticker or patch, have never heard even a whisper about the “klan”.
My children go to a very large private school with children of all races, their friends are very diverse, and not once has there been a problem with race at their school.
We are white, belong to a Country Club where race or religion has never been an issue. We are a very diverse area, an upper-class area where doctors and other professionals of every race and religion reside happily side by side.
Maybe our area is not what many think of when they think of south of the Mason Dixon line, but it’s all I or my family have ever known. I cannot speak for other more rural areas, but that seems to be the case in the entire US. The first time I saw racism firsthand was when we started vacationing in the Hamptons. I was stunned, I thought everyone in the North was supposedly liberal, I guess I was wrong. Unfortunately, racism, intolerance, and ignorance can be anywhere.
I agree – it’s everywhere, but there are areas where their chances of experiencing it are higher than others. And I can’t blame her for being protective of her kids.
It’s true that it’s everywhere, I’ve seen confederate flags in Canada.
This this this.
I am a black woman, with a Caucasian husband, and I had to explain this to him just a few weeks ago. Again.
Yes racism is everywhere. Everywhere. It’s just veiled or frowned upon in some areas more than others.
From my personal experience, the places I’ve seen it occur the most (in frequency and blatant nerve) have been the south where I lived for over a decade.
Because of that, there are places I won’t go unless I’m visiting family. Even when we did the bourbon trail in KY, and the moonshine tours in TN, some places would openly ignore the two of us. Why my husband’s memory is so selective, is beyond me.
From Confederate and Nazi flags to condescension (south) and hostility (my niece in NY was attacked) it’s definitely more open in places where racists are likely to be surrounded by like minded people.
I don’t get the vehement denial from people that live in the former Confederate states, or in the original 13 colonies, either.
Come on. Seriously.
The jig is up (yet another phrase that SHOCKINGLY began in the racist South, as it refers to the lynching of slaves and African Americans).
I don’t think you have to be concerned about deportation when you can just be concerned about your kids being exposed to racist speech. I imagine she’s worried what people will yell at them in some places.
Yes, she was a blast in the pitch-black Young Adult.
She was brilliant in that film. I think that people had trouble with it because is was promoted as a comedy and it most certainly was not. Patton was great in it also.
Has anyone else been reflecting again on the dangers of transracial adoption after the murder of the beautiful Hart children by their parents and the horrifying realization of their abuse? I feel like I see red flags everywhere now.
YES. I fell down the rabbit hole reading about that story a couple weeks ago. What is the latest development? They were still claiming it was an accident last I read about it…
But yeah their deaths is SO disturbing and alarming and most of all, incredibly heart-breaking.
ETA: Never mind just Googled and I see more evidence of abuse has come to light.
I know this is probably the least terrible thing they did but even just reading that they are homeschooled was alarming to me. These kids should be encouraged to find their community, which is likely OUTSIDE of a white-parent household. I mean, yes they had each other but that is simply not enough. From an outsider looking in, it seems like they deliberately isolated their children from others.
These kids never stood a chance. So very sad.
Law enforcement is now saying it was intentional.
It’s no longer considered an accident. They examined the tracks of the car and determined that it had accelerated as it went over.
Wow yeah…they originally said there were no skid marks so…wow. So horrific.
In general, I am wary of homeschooling in adoption cases simply because it is often used as a way of covering up abuse. That’s obviously not always the case, but it’s happened often enough for me to worry.
You might like the book The Child Catchers (Kathryn Joyce) if you were interested in the Hart kids. It’s primarily about international adoption, but it really sheds light on some pretty terrible post adoption stories and the way we fail adopted children. I couldn’t put it down.
I think there is a lot of evidence that the children were abused. Two different neighbors had kids knocking on their doors in the middle of the night to say they were being mistreated, and BOTH neighbors just turned the kids right back over to their parents. Child services visited the night before they left in the car, but no one answered the door. They moved many times, etc.
That being said…I have reservations about being certain that they went over the cliff intentionally. A lot of new cars have toggle stick shifts. It can be easy to think you put the car in drive, when really it was in reverse (and vice versa). A lack of brake/skid marks isn’t conclusive to me. It concerns me when investigators speak as if something has been proven as fact, when it is actually only likely or possible.
Not really. It is clear that they were horrible abusive parents and I’m not sure it would have been different with adopted kids of their own ethnicity. Some people should not be parents at all,
You could be right, The (initial) public reaction was insane (and predictable) though: basically blaming the kids for their parents abuse. SMDH.
That isn’t wrong and clearly they shouldn’t have had any kids, but there is an aspect of this where narcissists in the adoption community often want children of another race to show how “good” they are.
Do we know for sure that they were abused because of their race? It seems that those ladies were abusive and mentally unstable regarding children and their education. Soon enough people will be saying that lesbians or gays shouldn’t adopt etc. I think the adoption process is always a very difficult path regardless of ethnicity. If ethnicity is involved there are mandatory actions of information and involvement in said communities: friends of mine adopted Chinese girls and they still have to take them to these gatherings where they are informed of their backgrounds and hang out with other Chinese people. It seemed quite awkward to me but I’m not one to judge. anything is good to try to make kids safe. And the Hart family is a really good example of how hard it is to evaluate people’s intentions. On paper they seemed ideal: two women out to save the world. In fact they were deranged idealists who evidently could not cope with the realities of child education. I imagine that when the kids did not behave like their ideal notion of grateful adopted children those two monsters got nasty.
I listen to arguments against ethnic mixes in adoptions but I refuse to believe that we cannot be good parents to other human beings and be there for them. In how many ways do we twist our lives to adapt to things there are foreign to us just to embrace our kids? Queerness, for instance, feeling like a girl in the body of a boy etc… we are not equipped many times to deal with a lot of issues and yet we seek help. I wonder if it would be healthier to consider that in some respect all kids are “adopted” in the sense that they are their own little world and it’s not because we made them that they will be our mirrors and immediately understandable.
No we definitely don’t know for sure.
But that story did get me thinking about the Pods I’ve listened to where WoC shared their experiences growing up with white parents. I wasn’t trying to speak for PoC, but I was reminded of these women’s stories and how their black identities and experiences were essentially erased by white parents.
But both you and Merritt are right that we don’t know if it would have been any different had they adopted white kids.
@Kitten, Of course, I am not either – I have the perspective of the white parent and friend of white parents who adopted children of another ethnicity.
I know what you are referring to and these Podcasts and documentaries – or people’s commentaries here – gave me pause for thought too. But it led me to the conclusion that just like a biological dad will reject his daughter’s queerness and refuse to engage in her identity and consequent lifestyle – sometimes even kicking her out (and going unchallenged in this choice by the authorities btw), parents of kids of other ethnicities will reject their identity as a POC – or not. Adopted or biological, some people have crappy parents that are sometimes hard to spot.
On a more idealistic level, it just pains me that we have come to this. I think that these rejections of someone’s culture and identity say a lot about our society’s poor ability to be representative and informative.
I also have been reflecting on these points Kitten. It’s just heartbreaking but I do see a lot of racism in how these kids were ignored when they dared to speak up (everyone listened to the moms’ explanation of- they were born in the ghetto, you know so they’re lying). And how could people not have seen how undernourished they were? I totally agree about the homeschooling- we see more and more stories about how it’s just a way to isolat and abuse kids. I used to support people who made that choice but I’m starting to wonder.
@Slowsnow you can always count on someone to ask if it is really about race when the fact that it is about race is as clear as day. But people always have to question and quietly derail when it comes to uncomfortable truths
I know you probably don’t mean any harm by it but tbh it is just so irritating to read. I am tired of that mantra and there is so much I would like to say about a lot of things regarding the adoption of black children by whites and the harm a lot of them do trying to push the post racial narrative but I am simply too exhausted to get into it.
Not everyone who adopts transracially is obligated to receive any type of specialized education. Technically, in the US, federal and state adoption laws prevent us from requiring foster and adoptive parents from taking additional classes simply because they plan to parent transracially (with the exception of children who are part of a federally recognized Native tribe).
It’s a law that was created with the best of intentions (helping more children be placed in safe and loving homes), but it has created a situation where people really don’t know what they’re doing on either a micro (skin and hair care) and macro (systemic racism and its impact) level.
Wow. I just read about that. It’s horrifying. It sounds like the women needed to reach out for help. I’m so sad for the kids!!!
I believe their race was a factor for different reasons. Minority and disabled children are the easiest to adopt and the least monitored. There aren’t enough homes for them, so they are more likely to be endangered because of the inherent racism in the foster care system.
My brother and sister in law just adopted black siblings after a roundabout long story, but it had nothing to do with proving something to society. They bonded to the children before and didn’t want them lost in the system and were asked by their mother. We have biracial cousins and people of color in our lives and racial sensitivities, so there was a solid foundation already in place. They are our family, and we love them unconditionally, but it means being thoughtful and not pretending they are white. It means facing blind spots or checking our own privilege and realizing it doesn’t automatically extend to them. It has worked out wonderfully but not without some adjustments and learning.
However, I don’t think it is something that everyone should try to do. If a white family has no contact with minority communities, live in a place with few minorities and think love is colorblind then maybe they need to do some life adjusting before even considering it. There are stories of Asian children being adopted and growing up in an all white small town and suffering because of it. They had good intentions, but the results can be devastating. It isn’t romantic or some idealistic plot of a movie. I have seen black children that need some help with their hair because the white family doesn’t seem to understand their child is different.
The story of the Hart children is a tragedy that was avoidable. So many people failed those children, and I hope changes will be made as a result. There aren’t words worthy enough to articulate everything wrong with what happened.
@Magnoliarose, I hear your arguments and they make sense. But I cannot help but think about the way things are told and what one chooses to tell. In the name of recognizing difference, we are effacing difference: because some white folks cannot understand black hair, we will assume that white people cannot be good parents to KOC. It’s hard to swallow although understandable.
But if a white dad looses his black wife and ends up with a mixed race kid with Afro hair and say, none of the wife’s family members around, what is he to do? Give the kid up? Why not do things the other way round and promote information socially and within adoption processes?
Also, kids pick up on anything. The tall girl will be the giraffe, the one with the big boobs will be IDK what etc. Are we also going to move to enlightened neighborhoods when our kids have a disability or a particulalry ugly (societally) feature? Or force them into plastic surgery? I think dialogue and information are too easily discarded nowadays.
I am not in the USA and I know that things are getting pretty terrible there but I still cannot wrap my mind about the negativity about the idea providing any kid a good home instead of leaving them in orphanages – what if there is no black family for a black kid? Is he not to be adopted? IDK. Society is not ideal and having a home is sometimes the border between having a screwed up life and having a chance at life.
I agree slowsnow. A loving home is always preferable than a life in the system, and I think people should be allowed to adopt children of different races. I think there should be additional screening methods and extra support in place to make certain the family has access to information and help. They should be connected to other families in similar situations.
It can work out and does quite often, but it is something that has to be considered and addressed adequately. That doesn’t mean the children shouldn’t be adopted. Only there needs to be approached differently and with sensitivity.
Ugh this was a tragedy. Those kids were so malnourished they looked way younger than they were supposed to be. The teens still weighed in the double digit range. For me where race factors in is with child services. If their adoptive parents had been woc, the children would’ve been taken away from them a long time ago. Where as poc would lose their kids over nothing. A black woman lost was arrested last year for “abandoning her child.” She left him at a playground and went to a store across the street, but to the white woman who called the cops on her it was reckless endangerment.
Her concerns are legit for her black kids…however as someone who also reads the urburn blogs commentaters constantly accuse her of forcing her son to dress up as a girl and that is a form of some fetish abuse.
I don’t think she forced the kid, but I think she’s a weak parent, possibly as a result of a number of psychological unresolved issues both from her and her kid. The kid seems to have her wrapped around his little finger and be pretty manipulating with tantrums to get his way. I think also the crossdressing started clearly right after Penn left them which is pretty telling of the damage that can be done by introducing a guy into their life, a father figure to the kid too soon just to see him walk away and mess up that poor kid’s already messed up situation. the kid must have suffer from that, specially adding he’s not only adopted but also from a different race than his mother. Too many issues to add an unstable, volatile and unreliable guy like Penn into their lives.
You are really reaching.
Many parents (celebs and non celebs,adoptive and biological,white and black) have little boys who were girls clothes.
+mannori
Curious, did you think the same of Angelina Jolie and how Shiloh is ALWAYS dressed like a boy?… No? Didn’t think so.
I don’t know whether Charlize is a weak parent or not but I do think it is fairly obvious from her constantly contradictory statements that she is dealing with a number of unresolved issues and her life is not nearly as perfect as she likes to pass it off as in interviews. Sean never acted in a way with her and Jackson that could be considered volatile as far as I am aware. We know now how burnt out he is on film making and the rigors of Hollywood in general, which explains pretty much everything you need to know about The Last Face. Hopefully Charlize didn’t dump him under the belief he was hurting her career but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was one of the driving factors that finished off their romance (at least in public).
@elizabeth rose Yes, I do, so hold it a min before speaking on my behalf. Actually I think Angelina’s reasons might be even intentionally and deliberate and I’m so strongly negatively opinionated about it that I prefer to keep it to myself, specially here where the Angie fans will jump to my jugular.
Are we actually having this conversation in 2018?!
There are actually people who YOU are apparently taking serious who can’t grasp the concept of a gender creative kid who enjoys wearing dresses? Maybe the kid will grow up to be transgender, maybe he’ll like drag, or maybe it’s just a phase BECAUSE HE’S A KID!!
But you’ve seriously never seen or heard of another boy who likes wearing dresses? I give up on this world. LBGTQ black youth need to be protected by supportive parents who will let them grow to be the person they want to be. Theron doing that for her kid is admirable. Please educate yourself.
As a black person in the US I’ve always felt that way. I know there are certain places in this country where I am not welcome or in some cases, in danger.
Yep, same here! There are places I have no desire to visit for this very reason.
This reality makes me so sad. As a kid I really thought our country was moving in the right direction, but as an adult I am constantly disappointed in my fellow Americans. You don’t deserve to feel unwelcome or endangered because of your race.
I’ve traveled in the South, the Midwest, and the West Coast. The worst racism I ever faced was at a Pennsylvania rest stop fifty miles from my home. Truly scary—a McDonalds full of white folks celebrating a high school football win took issue with me and my brother coming in to eat. And they didn’t much like my leather jacket, either. The manager had to give us our food to go.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. People think its just the south & midwest but the suburbs in the northeast and out west can be just as bad. These are filled with the people who left the cities during the great migration so they wouldn’t have to live next to black people or send their kids to the same schools as them.
And the McDonalds thing happened only a few years ago.
That Pennsylvania is notoriously racist outside of MAYBE Philadelphia is known to most of us who live here. There’s a long, ugly history of economic segregation in Pittsburgh especially, and outside of the cities, the state is filled with impoverished, isolated rural white communities.
When I moved up here from Virginia, I was honestly shocked at how openly racist people were here. I had spent most of my childhood in schools that were highly diverse. Here the high school classes had maybe one student, if that.
She was smart not to mention the South specifically, but it does feel like that’s what’s implied.
she looks like a complete different person. In some photos I see Melanie Laurent, not Charlize Theron. As for the interview I love what she says about acknowledge her mother’s job at coparenting. Not many people recognize how much grandparents make a difference actually raising their grandchildren. Specially in single parents situations.
I was hoping someone would ask her about the transgender dressing of her son, I’d like to hear her take on that. Also about Sean Penn and how she introduced that monster into her kid’s life so soon just to had him removed shortly after, possibly causing great damage to that kid. Calling him the love of her life and splitting just weeks after? I don’t buy the ghosting stuff I think something big and ugly happened there.
What is this story that keeps resurfacing oh Theron forcing her boy to dress like a girl? I’m not a big fan of hers (although I like her as an actress in cranky roles) but do we know it’s not his own volition? My boy wanted to wear dresses and my older boy painted his nails and wore lots of colourful hair stuff when he was little because of his sister.
Give me the dirt please!
There are different schools of thought on that, but I am not sure of the whole story.
I have a son who loves to copy his sister, so he likes his hair long like hers, and they went dressed alike for Halloween. He wears his beret as she does. We don’t have any hang ups about gender or sexuality, so we allow our children to explore and decide what they like. We had to make sure extended family understood our stance, and if they didn’t then, they wouldn’t be welcome until they did. Our children’s well being and happiness is first before anyone’s hurt feelings or opinions.
@magnoliarose, yep, that was basically our situation. The older one outgrew this and the younger one is more of a free spirit who still oves make-up to this day. Family just has to roll with it! 😉
I’ve never said she is forcing the kid, I don’t even believe that. I’m just curious about her stance and her reasoning about it. Personally I think a kid his age is too young to simply let him decide for himself about gender. Is not just that he just occasionally wears girls clothes: is way more than that, he had his school uniform changed to girls’ uniform among other things. I do believe that she has some trouble parenting and too many issues to deal with: the race of her kids, the fact that she’s single, the absence of a father figure, the absence of a same race figure, her own problematic childhood and the psychological aspect of it, the introduction of Penn in her kid’s life only to have him out of it after having the kid calling him daddy, as it was reported. And the fact that raising kids in Hollywood is no joke. For all the privilege and wealth there are so many other negative issues that comes with it that it must be pretty difficult for any famous parent, let alone one in her circumstances.
Still friends with Chelsea Handler I see… And I’m sure they all see themselves as feminist but I guess feminism really is for white women.
I wouldn’t expose my kids to Sean Penn.
Nor would I expose them to the likes of Chelsea Handler. Worrying about visiting racist states is good butb how about worrying about those who are in your own home, Charlize?
totally agree.
Get a grip, girl.
Charlize needs to travel more, let her children see and experience their version of the US. I’m from the deepest south, worked with some very poor populations and her white privilege should protect her children. They could fall prey to some other societal issue, however, due to that exact privilege, sometimes you just can’t win.
How deeply naive for you think Charlize’s whiteness will protect her sons’ blackness. It won’t protect them once they are adult and out in the world on their own. And what if they are just walking around a neighborhood without her nearby? They could be mistaken for something else. There are areas of the US that as a white person I wouldn’t even go so I can’t imagine what it would be like for a POC.
Oh c’mon, it’ll be just like when my sister dated a black guy and people would stop to call him the N-word and her an “N-word lover.” Nobody got lynched, so it was no big deal, right??
9_9
Racial violence is more than murder and abuse. It’s also all the psychological violence of being treated like the “Other” in a culture that goes with it.
I’m white with a black son and I live in Kansas. It doesn’t need to be the south to be racist, trust me on that one! I’d like to say her comments are scandalous but truth be told, they aren’t. As a mother I am sometimes hyper aware of that.
I agree that racism is everywhere, but I know exactly what she means when she says there are places in the US that she would avoid. I have two Asian kids by adoption and we have gotten glares when traveling in certain states. One MAGA family gave us a look like we were diseased. I guess we rocked their safe little white bred world. I’ve learned to keep our travels to blue cities mostly and just try to get in and out of the red ones quickly.
I live in Charlottesville,VA-yes that city roiled by actions of the racist violence that killed an anti nazi/ anti racist activist-you can have racial violence explode anywhere there is hate. My city is an uber liberal college town but we still had evill strike because of extremists. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and spent majority of my childhood in the south-saw countless instances of racism from both white and black. It bothers me to no end to see people disparage whole regions of a nation when in truth there are good people who live there-even if they vote differently than you. I think cultural stereotyping is a huge problem
Racism will always exist. However, by the time her kids are older and ready to enter the world, hopefully the Trump administration will be long gone. Someone more ‘woke’ will be in office. A lot of these hateful racists like David Duke will be dead from old age, or ‘whatever.’
Being in a military family, I have lived in many different areas of the US and traveled through most states and the most bigoted area I have ever been in is Western New York. I grew up there and I am still disgusted and shocked by the ignorance and hate there. Yet, I have been in the South and many people are very welcoming. There are areas everywhere where bigotry is. It’s not always where one automatically thinks.