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Why I don't like Sharon Stone

by Barbara Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 05:35:12 AM EST

I'm sure you've seen the poster for Basic Instinct 2, displayed for the public eye in the wake of the "Oh-I-Can't-Wait-To-See-Sharon-15-Years-Later-Playing-The-Same-Crappy-Role" premiere. She sits on a black chair, a caricature of the most notorious spread-eagle of the world she herself coined in her "masterpiece." The back of the chair covers the area that made the "BI 1" investigators ooze sweat from their eyebrows, as if to say: If you come and see the movie, I will turn around... Despite her lascivious pose, perhaps due to her limp, greenish-blonde hair that's dark at the roots (spending too much time at the pool?), she looks a bit tired. She exudes the air of a been-there, done-that attitude that, at least in my eyes, would extinguish any potential spark of interest or enticement a viewer might feel.

Don't get me wrong. I think she looks pretty amazing... especially considering the fact she'll be fifty in two years. It's good Michael Douglas decided to spare himself the embarrassment... he was already a bit saggy in the first film and it's only wise he reserves his "goodies" for Catherine these days. (Mind you, I don't have anything against older men nude on the screen, but I do mind when they are stylized into the role of a sex god).

But the fact that Sharon's doing a sequel to a movie that celebrated and mystified the worst in man is not the main reason for my antipathies. I have a much more personal reason. One of my fellow interpreters that I met in January works each as an organizer of the Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. She was there also last year, when Sharon Stone was invited to represent the film Broken Flowers. The place was packed, naturally. Sharon Stone entered the stage. The visitors held their breath. She took the microphone and began her speech. In English, of course. She talked and talked. The interpreter stood nearby, dutifully writing down notes. Ten minutes later she finished. The interpreter stepped forward, clearing his throat. But Miss Stone said: "Why, there's no need to interpret...everyone here understands English, right?" She chased the dumbfounded interpreter away and went to sit down. Shortly thereafter, the Broken Flowers began. Without subtitles.

Hollywood stars are usually not known for their good manners. But to come to a country that welcomes you with open arms, and then not allow an interpreter to do his job so people can understand, and consequently force the audience to sit through two hours of reading nothing but body language, is the ultimate insult. Not only to the interpreter, not only to the audience, but to our entire country. It sends a clear message: Sharon Stone feels superior to us mere mortals not only because she is a celebrity; she also feels superior to us Czechs because she is an American. Her country is so much more important that it is our DUTY to know English. She represents the ugliest side of the superpower's way of thinking, the kind of attitude that gives Americans a bad reputation around the world.

Just imagine what memory of this show the audience would have brought home had Sharon Stone let the interpreter do his work, and then maybe added a "Thank-you" in Czech. The visitors would have left content, and maybe, out of solidarity, would go and see Basic Instinct 2, although they'd know it would be a waste of time. Now, however, I think that every time they see two-dimensional Sharon with her greenish, trashy locks and a steely number 2 between her thighs, their basic instinct urges them to scream the ever so popular four-letter English word, which even the Czechs know.


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A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 07:18:30 AM EST
Talking of movie reviews...reading this made me go to iTunes and look up the new Pink Panther movie...
The old Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers are perfect.  WHY did Hollywood decide that The Pink Panther needed remaking???
Another one I won't be going to see.  I'll stick to my box set of the Peter Sellers originals!


We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde
by Sam on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 04:38:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
This is just great ! Thank you for posting this Barbara. Perhaps I will dare and give it a try as well, encouraged by you.
Just to put her looks into perspective, keep in mind that good-looking belongs to her business competences, so to say, and she has a personal trainer/coach + loads of plastic surgery at hand to keep in good shape.

When through hell, just keep going. W. Churchill
by Agnes a Paris on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 07:25:02 AM EST
I thought she looked slightly scary in the trailer ... not quite human in a "I've had a touch too much plastic surgery" sort of way.

But I don't get out much: maybe that's considered sexy these days.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 07:37:43 AM EST
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I remain posted on these earthy matters, thanks to my sister-in-law who is very much into movie gossip. There is a huge and passionate debate going on in Hollywood on the topic : "did she have some work done or not ? "


When through hell, just keep going. W. Churchill
by Agnes a Paris on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 07:51:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Do Hollywood surgeons sign non-disclosure agreements?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 07:54:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I guess they should sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement so they can then contribute to unauthorised biographies :)

When through hell, just keep going. W. Churchill
by Agnes a Paris on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 08:13:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe Sharon Stone's behaviour reflects the limited experience she got with Czech people after Prague became a permanent back-up studio for Hollywood.

As a contrast to what she did, I shall mention that the Queen's first concert in Hungary remains legendary not only because it was the first by a (then) international top act, but because Freddie Mercury learnt a whole Hungarian folk song and delivered it flawlessly.

As an example of something similarly worse: Someone got me a Franz Ferdinand DVD as Christmas present, on the DVD, there is what could be called a "concert tour documentary", and it includes takes at a band interview in MTV's New York studio. And they repeatedly got these ignorantly superiorist questions, to which they barely found the diplomatic words to reply - e.g. ask whether they'll start writing songs once the US tour is over (as if there'd be no concerts in the rest of the world), ask whether they came to the US to become famous (they just flew over from a raging-success Paris concert...) and so on...

As for the film: I didn't even watch the first, won't bother with the second.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 08:58:31 AM EST
That makes 2 of us.  I think I saw 3 minutes of the 1st one while wandering through a room where it was on the TV.  I will NOT be going to see the 2nd.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde
by Sam on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 03:53:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That makes 3 of us!
by Fran on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 04:15:07 PM EST
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Oh, but you two are women, I guess not the intended audience like me...

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 04:51:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't think B or M will be going to see it either...

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Mar 31st, 2006 at 01:01:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Since Prague is the capital of the Czech province of Hungary so I can understand the excitment in Budapest of Freddy Mercury learning a folk song.  

Swedish is very difficult to pronounce.

Run away!  Run away!

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 10:33:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I saw a web news clip of her in Israel - and I thought she was shrill, totally out of touch, and verging on the hysterical.

In the days when I watched TV, I watched her with Ruby Wax doing an amusing interview - Stone came off OK. Tom Hanks did the same show and came off much better.

I now wouldn't watch a movie with her as the star if you paid me.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 10:44:22 AM EST
Broken Flowers was good. That's about it.
by Upstate NY on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 09:31:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Barbara, interesting story. I read that Sharon is considered to have a very high IQ. Well, it seems that does not include good manners and consideration for others.
by Fran on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 10:51:17 AM EST
For someone with such a great 'IQ' she appears to need to mention her famous scene at every chance she can get...as if anyone (whether they saw it or not) needs reminding.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde
by Sam on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 03:55:45 PM EST
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IQ is overrated. The Mismeasure of Man should be required reading.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Mar 31st, 2006 at 01:02:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You are probably too young to know or remember the huge film at it's time, "Moana" of the South Seas, which was a very early "seminal image," if you will excuse the pun, of the same type as Sharon Stone's.  It was a sensual, sexual image that lingered in the minds of men and their concepts and images of sexual longing for many decades and even today is an image that the Polynesian woman is branded with in the cultural "uber conciousness" (is there such a word?).

The filmmaker, Flaherty, showed Moana's breasts as she oiled the body of a man dancer as she and he did a dance of a polynesia. AS well, she spent much of the film topless.  The film was touted as a "documentary," but Flaherty rigged the odds by setting up the scenes and such.  This image still persists and permeates western conciousness today.

Similarly, Stone has a similar place in the western conciouness taunting and enticing and teasing the image of her c word behind the chair.  See how far the public images have come in these five or six decades?

What's next, a glass chair?

alohapolitics.com

by Keone Michaels on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 11:29:44 AM EST
If it's any consolation, she's rude and crazy here as well.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
by Izzy (izzy at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 12:26:18 PM EST
That's exactly what I was thinking. Can't hold it against a crazy person, can you? She's batshit crazy.

That being said, she has used some of her craziness to perform good deeds. Last year (and I don't know how she got invited to this) she was on a stage with some of the world's most powerful leaders and foreign ministers discussing African debt relief.

A FM from an African country (I forgot which) got up and told a story about how the country had run out of vaccines and that children were dying. He begged for the leaders to contribute vaccines and money to solve the problem. The world leaders were not too moved. Until....Sharon Stone stood up and yelled (with arm raise high like a school girl) "I'll pledge $50,000. All of us will pledge to bring vaccines to your country."

She literally shamed them into sending vaccines. These old crusty men were literally dragged into donating by her.

by Upstate NY on Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 09:29:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It happened at the Davos annual meeting. And it was not for vaccines, but for insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets against malaria.

And I hate this kind of spectacular charity: the very same people who give 10 000 $ to Sharon Stone will fight hard to maintain their patents (and high fees) on drugs that are badly needed in these countries.

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

by Melanchthon on Fri Mar 31st, 2006 at 03:19:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, I hate to say this, but maybe the 3rd talk I gave in front of a really large audience was to a crowd that didn't speak Engish, (bahasa in  this case).  and I was more than a little nervous, and just rattled on, when luckily for me the interpretter came up to me, caught my attention, and explained that she couldn't interpret unless I paused.  <red faced, felt like a total idiot>, but I don't have a huge ego, the interretter was great, the crowd caught on and laughed, and I did too.  From then on I talked, paused, and it was fine.  From then on I learned a few phrases to help with the crowd.

I didn't read everything you wrote about sharon stone.  and maybe she had no respect for her audience.  but actually I did, have a ton of respect for my audience, but just had messed up.  But I visited this plant often, and somehow they knew I meant no disrespect.  I had a wonderful three years with that group.  I know there are big ego people that screw that up and dont' care, but there are also normal people like you and I that mess up, and hopefully it gets covered, by us, or for us.

by wchurchill on Fri Mar 31st, 2006 at 04:29:59 AM EST
Speaking as Hollywood "insider", I hate to break it to you but most movie stars are bossy and self-centered and virtually oblivious to anything and everything but themselves.

Sharon Stone is actually -- believe it or not -- better than most, because most of the time she is civil, meaning she doesn't scream obscenities or hurl objects at anyone daring to question him/her. She also isn't petty. I know stars that would have had (or try to have) your friend fired.

This is not news, and not America-centric. My limited experience with Hispanic Stars would indicate they're just the same.

There are exceptions, I could name a few, but not that many.

by Lupin on Sat Apr 1st, 2006 at 01:07:41 AM EST
Hispanic they may be, but Hollywoodians all the same.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Apr 1st, 2006 at 06:54:32 AM EST
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