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Actress Susan Sarandon participates in pacifist and environmental campaigns, defends the rights of women and sexual minorities. And she is sure that gender roles prevent us from being ourselves.
“I am extremely encouraged that these days gender boundaries are not so rigid anymore. After all, so much energy goes into protecting them! exclaims Susan Sarandon. – Gender is like a cage in which we are locked. I think the time will come when this division will disappear, and so many interesting things will open up to us … We will finally be able to see what our personality is like as such. The actress explored these boundaries, for example, in the film “Cloud Atlas”, where the action is transferred from one era to another.1 “That’s exactly what is interesting there – everyone plays everything: they change race, gender, historical time. And we can assume that a person’s personality is much more than its wrapping, she explains. “I like that way of looking at things.”
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- New gender order
It seems that such representations are now becoming commonplace. “I see this more and more, it manifests itself in the way people dress (or, conversely, in how they don’t want to dress), in the fact that we no longer have strict and four definitions of sexual orientation. And even in what it means for us now to be a woman.”
Sarandon has three children, and she would like the children not to have to obey gender stereotypes that prescribe different rules for boys and girls. Such, for example, as the prohibition of boys to show tenderness.
“Socialization for boys is a very painful process. I know this very well from the example of my two sons,” she says. “Even when there are seemingly reasonable adults next to them, guys are not allowed to show feelings, they are forbidden to cry … all this is literally beaten out of them.”
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- “I have a very tender boy growing up”
But in fact, even adult men cannot do without emotions and even without tears. “How is it possible to suppress this most important, emotional side of personality in little boys from childhood?”
That’s why she likes the world of show business so much, where professions are not divided into male and female. “Women with tools on their belts, pulling a cable or operating a camera, while men paint the scenery – it’s so cool!” This is an inspiring and attractive atmosphere, the actress believes. “In my opinion, such a world is much more interesting – where there are no blinders that prevent people from seeing their opportunities. We will definitely come to this, it cannot be otherwise.”
Susan Sarandon on gender, children and the future in Oprah Winfrey’s “Master Class”
Susan Sarandon was born in 1946. She played her most famous roles after 40 years. In the early 1990s, she was repeatedly nominated for an Oscar and received it in 1992 for the film Dead Man Walking, directed by her common-law husband Tim Robbins. She actively participates in various civil actions, where she was detained by the police more than once. Sarandon has three children: daughter Eva (1985) with director Franco Amurri and two sons Jack Henry (1989) and Miles (1992) with actor and director Tim Robbins.
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- What role do you play in the film of your life?
1 Cloud Atlas directed by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, 2012.