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ailuronymy · 3 years

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do you think every disabled character in wc is handled poorly? i understand theres def some cases of ableism but at the same time when i hear ppl say that its usually bc the disabled cat wasnt able to become a warrior due to their disability. and i feel like ppl forget, that not everyone irl CAN do what they want after they become disabled. ex. someone wants to be an athlete, but their legs have to be amputated. a cat like briarlight esp i feel is p realistic and could be a source of comfort

Hello there, thank you for writing in. I’m going to reply to this question with a series of questions I think are a bit more useful, given what you’re trying to ask me. I hope that’ll clarify what is a deeply complex, multilayered issue.

Do I think Erin Hunter handles anything in the series “well”? Not really. I don’t have a high opinion of the work of the collective and, broadly speaking, I think every right note they play, metaphorically speaking, is an instance of chance rather than effort, skill, or intention. Stopped clocks are right twice a day, mediocre writers will sometimes do something cool by accident, similar principle. That’s not to say Erin Hunter hasn’t ever done anything on purpose--just that overall the underlying drive of the series isn’t so much quality as it is quantity, and speed of production, and it shows.

Do I think Erin Hunter puts any significant research into how they portray disability? No. I do not think it is a priority for this series. They’re not trying to make a meaningful work of literature, or capture a realistic experience of disability, or tell especially impactful or thoughtful stories, or even make a particularly good or coherent fantasy world. Warriors is a specifically commercial product that was commissioned by HarperCollins to appeal to a particular demographic of drama-loving, cat-loving kids. It’s not really trying to do anything but sell books, because it’s a business, so the text in many ways reflects that. They’re not going for disability representation, in my opinion. They’re including disability in many cases as a plot-point or an obstacle.

Do I think this means that people can’t connect to these characters and narratives in meaningful ways? No. Often I say that a work is completed only when it is read. Before that point, it doesn’t have a meaning: a reader finishes the work through the act of reading, and interpretation, and filling in the spaces and resonance of the story with their own values and experiences. When people talk about subjectivity, this is what they are talking about. What this means in the context of disabled characters in Warriors is that these characters and their stories can be multiple, conflicting, even mutually exclusive things at the same time, to different people, for different reasons.

Do I think characters have to be “good” to be significant to someone? No. I think genuinely “bad” (i.e., not researched or poorly researched, cliche, thoughtlessly written, problematic, etc. etc.) characters can be deeply meaningful, and often are. Ditto above: for many people, and especially marginalised or stigmatised people, reading is almost always an act of translation, wherein the person is reading against the creative work of the dominant culture in a way that the author likely didn’t intend or didn’t even imagine. There’s a long documented history of this in queer culture, but it’s true for just about everyone who is rarely (or unfairly) represented in media. Disabled people often have to read deeply imperfect works of fiction featuring disability and reinterpret them in the process--whether to relate to a kind of disability they don’t experience themselves but which is the closest they’re offered to something familiar, or to turn positive and meaningful what is intended as narrative punishment, or simply to create what’s commonly called headcanon about “non-disabled” characters who echo their personal experiences.

Do I think everyone has to agree? Extremely no. As I said before, people will actually always disagree, because all people have different needs and different experiences. What can be interpreted as empowering to one person might be very othering and painful for another. There is no “right” answer, because, again, that is how subjectivity works. This is especially true because marginalised communities are often many different kinds of people with different lives and needs brought together over a trait or traits they share due to the need for solidarity as protection and power--but only in a broad sense. It’s why there is often intracommunity fighting over representation: there isn’t enough, there’s only scraps, and so each person’s personal interpretation can feel threatening to people whose needs are different. You can see examples of this especially when it comes to arguments over character sexuality: a queer female character might be interpreted as bisexual by bisexual people who relate to her and want her to be, while being interpreted as lesbian by lesbians who also relate to her and want her to be like them. Who is correct? Often these different interpretations based on different needs are presented as if one interpretation is theft from the other, when in fact the situation is indicative of the huge dearth of options for queer people. It becomes increasingly more intense when it comes to “canon” representations, because of the long history of having to read against the grain I mentioned above: there’s novelty and, for some people, validation in “canon” certainty. And again, all of this is also true for disabled people and other stigmatised groups.

Do I think this is a problem? Not exactly. It is what it is. It is the expected effect of the circumstances. Enforced scarcity creates both the need for community organising and solidarity and the oppressive pressure to prioritise one’s self first and leave everyone else in the dust (or else it might happen to you). The system will always pit suppressed people against each other constantly, because it actively benefits from intracommunity fighting. Who needs enemies when you have friends like these, and so on. A solution is absolutely for everyone in community to hold space for these different needs and values, and to uplift and support despite these differences, but it’s not anyone’s fault for feeling threatened or upset when you don’t have much and feel like the thing that you do have is being taken away. It’s a normal, if not really helpful, human response. But until people learn and internalised that the media is multifaceted and able to be many things at once, without any of those things being untrue or impacting your truth of the text, then there will be fighting.

Do I think my opinion on disability on Warriors is all that important? No, not really. I can relate to some characters in some moment through that translation, but my opinion on, say, Jayfeather is nowhere near as worthy of consideration than that of someone who is blind. I don’t have that experience and it’s not something I can bring meaningful thinking about, really. That’s true for all these characters. If you want to learn about disability, prioritise reading work about disabled rights and activism that is done by disabled people, and literary criticism from disabled people. And as I mentioned above, remember that community isn’t a monolith: it’s a survival tactic, that brings together many different people with disparate experiences of the world. So research widely.

Finally--do I think there’s only one kind of disabled narrative worth telling? No. For some people, a disabled character achieving a specific, ability-focused dream is a good story. For other people, a story that acknowledges and deals with the realities, and limitations, of disability is a good story. The same person might want both of those stories at different times, depending on their mood. That’s okay. Sometimes there’s power and delight in a fantasy of overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles and defying all expectations. Sometimes there’s value and catharsis in a narrative that delves into the challenges and grief and oppression experienced because of disability. There’s no one truth.

To round all this off, I’m going to give my favourite example of this, which is Cinderella. I think it’s a great and useful tool, since for many it’s familiar and it’s very simple. Not much happens. In the story, she is bullied and tormented, until a fairy godmother gifts her over several nights with the opportunity to go to a royal ball, where she dances with a prince. The prince eventually is able to find Cinderella, due to a shoe left behind, and they are married. In some versions, the family that mistreated her are killed. In others, they’re forgiven.

Some people hate the story of Cinderella, because she is seen as passive. She tolerates the bullying and never fights back. She does every chore she’s told. She is given an opportunity by a fairy godmother, and she doesn’t help herself go to the ball. She runs from the prince and he does the work to find her again. Eventually, she’s married and the prince, presumably, keeps her in happiness and comfort for the rest of her life.

For some, this story is infuriating, because Cinderella doesn’t “save herself”: she is largely saved by external forces. She is seen as a quintessential damsel-in-distress, and especially for people who have been bullied, infantalised, or made to feel less capable or weak, that can be a real point of personal pain and discomfort.

However, for some others, Cinderella is a figure of strength, because she is able to endure such hostile environments and terrible people and never gives up her gentle nature or her hope. She never becomes cruel, or bitter. She is brave in daring to go outside her tiny, trapped world, and she is brave to let the prince find her. She doesn’t have to fight or struggle to earn her reward of happiness and prove her worth, because she was always deserving of love and kindness. The prince recognises at once, narratively speaking, her goodness and virtue, and stops at nothing to deliver her a better life.

Depending on the version, the wicked family disfigure themselves for their own greed--or are punished, which for some is a revenge fantasy; or Cinderella forgives them and once again shows her tenacious kindness, which for others is a different revenge fantasy.

The point? Cinderella is the same character in the same story, but these are almost unrecognisable readings when you put them side-by-side. Which one is right? Which one is better? In my opinion, those are the wrong questions. I hope this (long, sorry) reply is a set of more useful ones.

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juni-ravenhall · 3 years

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my opinions on mistfall!

under a cut bc spoilers and/or not everyone wants to read :D

overall experience:

its fun that there IS a sso cartoon now even if its not exactly amazing quality, and im happy to see if there will be more series or movies after this. it was fun to watch and see sso things in cartoon form too and i wish that we had more already (of sso animation in general). imagine if there had been a ssl cartoon? i also kept thinking throughout this, that it wouldn’t be hard for me myself to make an animated series with around the same length episodes and in a similar quality to this (aside from voice acting and music production), which made me feel a little inspired.

favourite scene:

skye taking photos of blaze and hanging out

positive points:

i like the background art a lot, i think the style of it, and the colour schemes, helps give the series a specific vibe that fits for an sso series in my opinion.

i like the concept art (i assume) illustrations which we saw in the recipes and other posts on sso ig, i think it looks a lot better than the characters in the series, but thats normal for concept art!!

the music is really good quality (whether or not its your taste, the quality is good) which is ofc bc its sso - theres already good music and not something they only did for the cartoon but something they care about in all of the starstable media.

i think skye is a nice character (despite the series’ overall low quality writing) and i like her design. i also think rania’s cartoon design (visually) is cute.

skye and rania being a teensy bit gay (minus points for sso if they dont end up really gay in later canon)

i like that blaze wasnt actually like... mean or anything to skye, and i like that shes a mare since typical stories like this usually have stallions. but i just like that there wasnt really any “ooh difficult horse” things between skye and blaze in the current time of the story, blaze actually was sweet to her most the time. blaze seemed pretty charming whenever there wasnt “omg fire” drama.

the animation itself (not meaning the details of the drawings or scene timing, just the actual frame by frame / puppet movements) was fine! not amazing, but absolutely fine.

points i have constructive criticism for, which doesn’t mean that i expected more from the series, but that we’re all allowed to discuss the quality and our opinions of media regardless of the target audience, budget, etc:

the writing was childish and rushed - this is not to be rude, but a matter that affects a lot of “media for girls / kids”, and a topic talked a lot about by Lauren Faust (creator of the FiM reboot of MLP) who wanted to show that a show about rainbow ponies “for little girls” didn’t have to be badly written, and could be engaging and interesting. if you watch the older MLP cartoons and compare to the first season of FiM (where Faust was still on the team) you can see a huge difference in quality of the storytelling, characterisation, etc. Mistfall, so far, did not subvert any expectation in the quality of what typical “cartoons for girls” are like, and is reminiscent of stuff like “The Ranch” (french horse cartoon) which imo is so bad that its hard to watch. (and ofc... that goes for a lot of “cartoons for girls / kids”, but doesn’t have to be like that.) in order to improve on this, the writer has to study more on storytelling and study from better writers.

on the topic of being rushed: no, it’s not an excuse that the episodes are short: - you have to ADAPT your storytelling and writing to the length of the episodes, not do a bad job and blame the episode length. being able to adapt to different types of media is a necessary skill if that’s what you work with. this comes down to proper planning and structuring the story and writing in a way that works for the length of the episodes. i don’t think that was overall done well here (at times it was okay), and bc of that, it feels rushed and has exposition thrown in your face instead of being shown through better storytelling. the classic thing with exposition is “show, don’t tell”. this is what the writers/directors should study, or pay more attention to.

the timing (length of shots, length of scenes, or parts of shots, etc) was rly bad at times and overall unimpressive - this comes down to the skill of directors and editors. to improve this they have to study more on the topic. bad timing and pacing can really ruin a good scene or a good story and make it feel disconnected and hard to immerse in for the audience.

the artstyle of characters and horses is fine at times, but appears very low quality at others (skye’s childhood scene really bothered me bc her kid-self had really badly drawn eyes in my opinion). this, like everything else on this list, is ofc something that appears in almost every single “cartoon for girls” that ever existed. to improve on this, most likely it’s not a problem with the artists but with the budget and the production timeline (allowing the artists more time to produce better quality art and animation), and it can also be a problem with the art direction, if the art directors aren’t very skilled or experienced (i don’t say that they aren’t, im just giving examples of what could cause these problems.)

the character design for all characters that aren’t skye, rania, or blaze was very lacking. none of the not-main-3 characters looked interesting or fun to look at, they looked very dull and like the most boring NPCs you could think of. even though its understandable that the mainest-main characters would have the most interesting designs, that doesn’t mean everyone else has to look that boring. this is an issue with art direction or character design. i think most likely there was just very little time (equals money) put into designing the other characters.

the horse design could be improved for a cartoon that focuses on horses this much. like, horses are a big part of the selling point here, so make sure that their designs and art/animation is good. at times even blaze looked awkward and uninteresting, as did the other horses.

“alonso” looks nothing like sso alonso and i don’t like that they used his character if it’s not going to have anything to do with him. they should have given this character a different name if they wouldn’t make him seem like he had anything to do with the sso character aside from being a male ranger. (also in the game he’s like 22 or something, skye is 15...?)

why did they add a “he’s cute” dumbass fucking stupid hetero comment for literally no reason other than adding a dumbass fucking stupid hetero comment?

considering that they “can’t confirm whether a sequel is happening or not”, it seemed very meh to throw in druid cult magic stuff and not really connect to it and now the series ended? you would have expected to find out more about the cloaked people, the runes, the magic that the ranger guy did, and blaze’s magic in general, and skye herself, why her mom is “a witch”.... thats a lot to throw in while saying that you can’t say if there’s a sequel coming to answer all those questions. (it wouldn’t have been a criticism from me if they said “we’re working on season 2″ or “there will be a comic book that continues the story” or anything that told us that these questions, in this particular iteration of a story in jorvik, will actually be answered. - and i assume they ARE working on the continuation of the story, but i dont agree with that they’re not upfront about it, when they left so many questions unanswered.)

at times rania’s blindness was handled stupidly and i think they should have gotten more consultation from actual people with visual impairment, but i think its still good to HAVE a blind character in the main cast and that it’s not a big dramatic story thing but just an everyday thing. at some points it was fine though; and i personally don’t think the scene with rania being able to see blaze was necessarily a problem - because - a lot of blind ppl can see sharp contrasts in light and dark, and this seemed relatively realistic to me when blaze is on fire. (however, the way it was drawn as if she could see the whole shape of blaze and skye could be criticised for sure, and makes it feel more like “i can see because of magic” and not “i can see bc THIS MARE IS ON FIRE”).

personal opinion which i said before, but i don’t think rania’s voice fits her at all, and it’s not the voice actor’s fault (i’m sure they’re lovely) but the casting and the directors. from the sso character, rania would seem a lot more lively, quick and adventurous, and not as calm and gentle as she appeared here. she seemed a lot too sort of motherly or just adult, instead of an adventurous teen who runs off on her own to do whatever she feels like. compare in-game rania going “MC, thats a jorvik wild!!!” and alonso going “stop talking nonsense” (paraphrased), to Mistfall rania going “jorvik wilds are really rare...” (calm, sort of disinterested, doesnt seem like she cares that much about adventures)

the voice acting overall was meh. i see this as a direction problem, not an individual voice actor problem (and the writing didnt help - it’s hard to provide good quality acting with a poor script unless you can just toss the script aside and improv, if you have good actors). it felt childish and uninteresting at most points and generic low quality for “cartoons for girls”. from a voice acting perspective i think skye had the best result. anyway, the way to improve this is for the director in charge of voice acting to not direct the actors to perform in this childish manner. (again, refer to cartoons with better writing and better voice acting, that have a very similar target audience.)

ok, i think that was everything that i wanted to write about for now, might think of more later lol

#star stable mistfall #opinion #text post #long post

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smol-lonely-bean · 5 years

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Right now im typing after just crying my eyes dry. my cheeks are soaked with tears and my head is killing me. why im like this is because my parents just showed me an article on Gen Z written by a 40 year old white (probably straight) man.

as soon as they said his age i knew that the article would be very wrong, and i said as much, my parents kept saying that i should read it and that it was interesting and that id be surprised how acurate it was. that it explained how our generation was very opinonitive but didnt like hearing others opinions, that we were super sensitive. my parents said that this was true. when i argued that the reason why we were sensitive and didnt like hearing others opinions was because they always were judgemental against us and that things have changed.

my parents said “case in point” because i was getting offened over this.

my sISTER A FELLOW GEN Z SAID “CASE IN POINT” because she defineately isnt like this and that she was against our parents she was agreeing with them.

i took the article and started to read it, as soon as i sat down behind the couch i let out the tears that i was holding back. and you have no idea how much it got worse when i started to read.

the first paragraph literaly said that we would call the fucking police if there was a mouse in our house first that is incredibly rude and that why the actual fuck would we call the fucking police about a mouse? they have better things to be doing and its just a fucking mouse, also remember fucking anxiety to.

my mum came and i told her that i wouldnt call the police over this, and she was like “i know that you wont”

more things envoled that all we cared about was likes on social media and so on so forth, that our generation had super high suicide rates and depersion and stuff (which is true) but it never mentioned that it was school that was the problem, in fact, it stated that it was bad that we were getting upset about school. the fuck.

one true thing that it said (one of the only true things that i could find that related to my knowledge of gen z) was that we were hugely against race, gender and sexuality discrimination.

the entire article was a fucking mess. it started with people saying how messed up our generation was blah blah blah, that we were dangerous to younger people because apartenly its our fault that anxiety is so fucking everywhere. and then it would end with saying that we needed help, that they agreed with us. what the fuck? that just makes you sound even worse, it doesnt tie any cape to your shoulders.

when i went back into the kitchen, i confronted my parents about this (something i very rarely do because i actually care about their feelings and dont want to offend them) they started saying that this was only one persons opinion, that i wasnt messed up, that the article was wrong etc. when 10-20 mins earlier they were agreeing with it. they had suddenly changed their opinions on the topic because i was crying, they were saying that it didnt relate to me, which sounded to me like they thought i was ok but not everyone else.

every time i tried to debate this my parents shut me down before i could get any further.

when i asked my sister why she was defending them she said that it was good to actually listen to people. but i will only listen to people when they start listening to us.

i have been told multiple times in the last half hour to “let it go”

i cant fucking let this go.

i felt this on a personal level because i take in everyones emotions to account, i saw behavour similar to my parents in this article, i am messed up.

this artcile could also be seen to account for millenials.

i do want to state that i do care about my parents and i wouldnt normally say things like this to other people but i thought that it affected others and i want people to know. despite caring for my parents i do not massively rely on them (the article stated that we did, that we would be lost without them)

i want to also say that this is based off of my opinion, that i may have misread somethings and i did write some things down differently to how they had been said because that was how i saw them.

this was just very difficult for me to read and hear about...

im really sorry if i got things wrong and if i offend people this is just what i thought.

here is the article of question if you would like to read it and gather your own opinion

#gen z #gen z culture #gen z problems #magazine #family #opinion #mental health #anxitey #social media #lgbtq #modern #gen x vs gen z #milenial #gen x #gen xers

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trendingnewsb · 6 years

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Glenn Close: You lose power if you get angry

From vengeful mistress to Agatha Christie matriarch: the actor talks about Harvey Weinstein, mental illness and growing up in a cult

Glenn Close and I sit at the corner of a large boardroom table in an intimidatingly minimalist office on the 14th floor of a Los Angeles talent agency. Its the kind of environment in which Patty Hewes, the ruthless lawyer Close played in Damages for five seasons, would feel at home and Im almost waiting for her to stand up, slam both hands on the table and shout, Ill rip your face off or any of the other terrifying put-downs that defined her double Emmy award-winning performance.

But Close is in high spirits and radiates such warmth I barely notice the chill from the tower blocks air-con. After we fiddle with the settings on our swivel chairs, which are so high they make anyone under six foot kick their legs like a child on a swing, the 70-year-old, six-time Oscar nominee and star of stage, television and film starts telling me about her dreams. I have had a lot recently, full of this wonderful love for a younger man. The dreams just keep coming and I wake up thinking, that was wonderful! It wasnt necessarily us doing the sexual act, just the feeling of love.

With her white hair cut to a sharp crop, and wearing a relaxed navy blazer, chinos and black scarf on account of the arctic corporate temperature, she looks stylish and fit. I have never felt better in my life, and I am, like, 70, she says. Im really a late bloomer.

She says she feels a disconnect between how she sees herself and how people may view me when I walk down the street, like: Theres an old lady. You know, there is now this cult of the model. Everyone on the red carpet is made into a model. That is very hard to not play into I have a bit of podge I am trying to get rid of, but its hard. I just think, Oh fuck, Ive been doing this my whole life! But the irony is, you just get better and better with age. You dont feel less alive or less sexy.

In Agatha Christies Crooked House. Photograph: Nick Wall

We are here to talk about Crooked House, the Agatha Christie adaptation debuting on Channel 5, before its theatrical release, in which Close plays Lady Edith, a matriarch of a very dysfunctional family. Close says, Christies grandson came to the set and he validated the fact that it was her favourite book, and the one that had never been adapted. He said when she handed it to the publisher, she was told she had to change the ending, because it was too upsetting and controversial. She refused. Its still pretty controversial.

This production, co-written by Julian Fellowes, might not be as spendy as Kenneth Branaghs $55m Murder On The Orient Express, but the ensemble cast is equally starry: joining Close are Gillian Anderson, Max Irons, Terence Stamp and Christina Hendricks. Close presides over her co-stars with gravitas and grace, in an understated performance that finds the humour in an otherwise bleak setup. But youd expect nothing less from the actor whose 40 years in the business started with star turns in Broadway productions (she won a Best Actress Tony in 1983 for Tom Stoppards The Real Thing). Her first film role, at the age of 35, was with Robin Williams in The World According To Garp, for which she received an Oscar nomination as she did for her supporting roles in The Big Chill and The Natural. Her performances in Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and Albert Nobbs, about the life of a transgender butler in late 19th century Ireland, which she also co-wrote, racked up further Oscar nominations but still no win. This is seen by many as a travesty: Close brings a precision to her film work, honed through her years on stage. She has that rare taut quality Jack Nicholson also has it where you believe that beneath the steely control she is capable of snapping at any moment.

It was this that led Andrew Lloyd Webber to cast her in 1993 as the tragic silent movie star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. Close reprised the role 23 years later, getting her old costumes out of storage (she has kept all her costumes and recently donated the collection to a university in Indiana) for its revival in Londons West End.

As Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction: Clearly she had mental health issues. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

But it was her Oscar-nominated turn as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction in 1987 that proved career-defining. Thirty years on, Close still counts Forrest as the character of whom she feels most fond; she has admitted to fighting tooth and nail against the films eventual denouement, which turned the character into a bunny-boiling psychopath and Close into the casting directors go-to woman on the verge for years afterwards. Now we have the vocabulary to talk about these things, clearly she had mental health issues, she says.

Close sits regally still as she speaks, emphasising her points by leaning forward and locking eyes. Shes comfortable with silences and often takes a theatrical beat or two before answering questions. Shes all poise and control, but does she ever lose her temper?

I express my feelings quietly. I am not afraid of confrontation, but I am not particularly good at it. If I get attacked, I am not good at attacking back. There is fight, flight and freeze and I tend to freeze. That is not a strength of mine. I love the fact that my daughter Annie [Starke, an actor] is more of a fighter than I am. She doesnt let people get away with shit. While she agrees that women have a harder time being angry, publicly, than men, she says, I have played a lot of characters, and actually anger makes you lose power. Patty Hewes [in Damages] she hardly ever lost her temper, but when she did, it was very specific. I have always felt you lose power if you get that angry.

The collective outpouring of anger among women in Hollywood right now is something of which Close is acutely aware. She says that sexism in the industry has shifted more slowly than it should have done throughout her career: It took Harvey Weinstein and someone calling him out [for real change to happen]. I know Harvey, and he has never done that to me, but people would say he was a pig. I never knew that it was that bad and I dont personally know anybody who has endured that. I would like to think that I would have done something about it.

We discuss whether its possible to separate the work from the personalities involved in it. News has just broken that House Of Cards will be back for another series without Kevin Spacey, after it was originally canned because of harassment claims brought against its leading man. Close wraps her scarf around her chest and fixes me with her electric eyes. Artists, to make a huge generality, walk on a very thin line. Sometimes, like my beloved friend Robin Williams, who was one step away from madness, whatever makes them a great artist also makes them very complicated human beings. Again, that doesnt mean they can prey on and abuse people.

With Harvey Weinstein in 2013. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

At the root of the problem of sexism in Hollywood right now is, Close says, biology. I think the way men have treated women, from the beginning of time, is because they have different brains to women. So I am not surprised by it at all. I say to a guy, Tell me the truth, if you see a woman walk into a room, what is the first thought that goes through your head? His answer, always, is, Would I fuck her? It doesnt mean they act on it. If you can evolve into a society where men know that they should not always act on it then there has been a positive revolution. But you cant just say that theyre not going to have the thought that is ridiculous. It also has to be the women, who are not powerful, to be OK to say no and leave the room. I think its unrealistic to say were going to change but we have to evolve.

I ask Close who she thinks is a great man today. She is silent, thinking, for what feels like a full 60 seconds in which I am so tempted to throw out some options: Barack Obama, the Pope, the friendly security guard on reception who let us in

Nelson Mandela, is her final answer, but Im not sure shes convinced. I guess for me, she says, greatness is taking your humanity and still doing the good thing. Its sad to say that there are very few men, who are leaders, who have some sort of moral code that they dont deviate from because of popular opinion.

She thinks we are undergoing a crisis of masculinity: In the public mind, yes. I was outraged when I heard that there was a war against men I was like, are you joking? What do you think has been happening against women for centuries?

Close knows all too well about the misuse of power, because her own upbringing was, as she puts it, complicated. When she was seven, her parents joined a cult. Moral Re-Armament or MRA was a modern, nondenominational movement founded by an American evangelical fundamentalist which extolled the four absolutes: honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Her father, a physician working in the Congo, sent Close with her brother and two sisters from the family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, to live at the MRA HQ in Caux, Switzerland (Closes mother, Bettine, was a socialite).

She is vague on the details but clear on the impact this experience had on her as a teenager: I was repressed, clueless and guilt-ridden. The timeline is patchy, but Close travelled with MRA in the 60s as a member of their musical groups, and spent time back in Connecticut at an elite boarding school. I had a wonderful time at Rosemary Hall, a girls school, she says. I was in a renegade singing group called the Fingernails: A Group With Polish. But she remained, as she calls it clueless. A lot of my friends knew boys youd have these horrendous dances with boys schools and they would get the guys they wanted and I would just stay with the person I was with.

As Patty Hewes in Damages. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

She was briefly married before going to university. It is a complicated story for me. I was married before college, and kind of in an arranged marriage when you look back on it, and my marriage broke up when I went to college, as it should have. I was 22. But my liberal arts school had a wonderful theatre that was my training, my acting school.

Was that where she finally learned about sex, popular culture, the ways of the world? Not really, she says. I still am learning.

Close has two sisters, Tina the eldest, and Jessie her younger sister; and two brothers, Alexander, and Tambu Misoki, who was adopted by Closes parents while living in Africa. At the age of 50, Jessie spent time in a psychiatric hospital and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a weight that had been hanging over the family, undiscussed, for years. Talking about mental illness just wasnt done, Close says. You dont have a vocabulary for it and youre also very aware of appearances. You dont want to appear a crazy family.

In 2010 Close founded Bring Change to Mind, a charity that aims to end the stigma around mental illness by talking openly about it and its effect on families. It was my nephew who was first diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. This is basically schizophrenia with an ingredient of bipolar. And when that happened, it was like, What? My sister Jessie, his mother, didnt know what was wrong. He went to the hospital for two years and that saved his life. Then Jessie was, finally, correctly diagnosed herself.

With sister Jessie in 2009. Photograph: Getty Images

Close felt a duty to her family to give them a high-profile person who is not afraid to talk about it publicly. It affects the whole family. We always knew my grandmother and mother had depression my sister does, I do to a certain extent. But I didnt know my great-uncle had schizophrenia. I knew my half-uncle died by suicide. There was a lot of alcoholism addiction, self-medication. Nobody ever talked about it. I knew my grandmother was depressed, but at first I thought she lived in a hotel, not a hospital, because she always said how good the food was.

Close says she and her siblings are of one mind politically, but admits she does have members of her family who voted for Trump. I tried to understand that. Theyre not crazy people who have been brainwashed by Fox News, but I try to understand the anger, because I think that has been building up ever since Watergate. It was watching that scandal unfold that made her realise Americans have always been naive, we just take for granted what we have, and we always thought of our leaders as good people. With Watergate, people became cynical about government.

Today, she says, Washington is a bunch of self-serving She searches for an expletive and after a second settles on men. She says, Its hard to believe that people are so out for themselves. It goes against what you would like to believe about your country. I feel eloquence is incredibly important for a leader, and we had that with Barack Obama, who made his initial impact because he gave that incredibly eloquent speech, but he lost his eloquence in his presidency. We always need someone to say, I hear you, someone who can put their words into unity and hope and we dont have that. I think the last person may have been Robert Kennedy.

And now you have Trump tweeting nonsense.

Its devastating. Social networks are now like our nervous system, and if you keep pumping that kind of crap into the nervous system, it is going to have an effect on a population.

With Kevin Kline in The Big Chill. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Close doesnt talk politics with her friends because she doesnt really have many friends. I have always forced myself into situations I am not comfortable in. I am an introvert, and I was painfully shy as a child. I think I still have a big dollop of that in my persona. I read a book called Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Cant Stop Talking and it was a real comfort to me I realised I was that person I had always been. And it was at that point I told myself to stop pushing myself into situations that I dont enjoy. I dread cocktail parties.

She tells me shes pretty reclusive and can count her closest friends on two fingers. I ask if shes still good friends with Meryl Streep.

I have never been close friends with Meryl. We have huge respect for each other, but I have only done one thing with her, The House Of The Spirits.

I apologise for assuming they were pals, being of a similar age and stature in Hollywood, and admit this negates my next question: Who would win in an arm wrestle, you or Meryl?

Close laughs. Oh, I would, because I am very strong.

***

The tightest bond Close has is with her only daughter Annie, 29. Annies father is the film producer John Starke whom Close dated for four years from 1987, but never married. Annie was never a door-slamming, difficult teenager. Close tells me: When my Annie was three, she looked at me, and said, I want you. I knew what she meant. I, at the time, was a single working parent, sometimes even when I was home, working or producing something, I was there and not there.

With daughter Annie Starke in 2010. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

She doesnt think its any easier for working mothers today and acknowledges, I had it easy because I could afford to have help think of the women who cant afford it and have to put their child in some shaky childcare centre. No, I think it is incredibly hard for women. Any person, in any profession, feels that tug [of guilt]. We discuss the intimacy of the single-parent, only-child bond. Once, I went to vacuum Annies car seat as we were moving house, and a lot of life had happened there, so I was crying. She said, Mummy, are you OK? I said, Yeah, Im OK. And she said, Here I am.

She was married to businessman James Marlas from 1984 to 1987 and then, following other relationships, including that with Starke, she married again, in 2006, to venture capitalist David Evans Shaw, divorcing him nine years later.

Would she marry again?

I dont know.

Does she think marriage is important?

I think it is a positive evolutionary component that we are better with a partner. I think to have a partner that you can go through life with, creating a history with, that you can find a comfort with, have children with there is nothing better. This is an opinion I have come to very late in life, at an ironic moment, where I dont have any of that. I dont know if I will again. But I do think its a basic human need to be connected.

Despite this, shes happy on her own right now. This is a good time in life. I do think, what would it be like to have a partner again? But it would have to be very different from what I had before. Then I have that great dream and wake up happy.

Crooked House is on Channel 5 at 9pm on 17 December.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/16/glenn-close-harvey-weinstein-mental-illness-cult-fatal-attraction

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