Posted on 01/29/2003 7:44:14 PM PST by Pokey78
In the film the Banger Sisters, Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn play women whose friendship works despite their differences. This seems to be true of them personally. The movie was shot two years ago, which Sarandon says feels like a lifetime. "Really?" says Hawn, absent-mindedly scrunching up a fistful of hair. They are in full battle- dress for a day of TV interviews: boots and bangles and hard, sheer varnish. "A lifetime? It doesn't feel like that to me. I mean, I have a very vague appreciation of time. I've realised that recently. I never notice time passing." "Like Richard Gere when he gave that speech at the Globes," drawls Sarandon.
"Oh, God, yeah," screeches Hawn. "It was like, 'Wrap it up wrap it up!'" They pitch forward in their seats and hoot with laughter.
This is how we imagine them to be from their films: Sarandon, nasal and New York, sarcastic and business-like, all gorgeous buggy eyes and gravitas; and Hawn, the Californian, shrewd disguised as dippy, her head perennially cocked to one side and laughing. During the interview she periodically levitates from the sofa on wild fits of enthusiasm. Sarandon could stand for office; Hawn is like a radio dial travelling through frequencies, catching the occasional station, or a gecko, pretending to be asleep until its whip-like tongue flies out to eat a passing fly. "My daughter had just turned 16," Sarandon continues, "days before we started the shoot. Remember? And now she's turning 18."
" Oh my God!" says Hawn.
"Remember?" says Sarandon.
"Un-be-lievable!" says Hawn, and collapses into the sofa, seemingly astonished.
As it turns out, the women's differences are mainly superficial - both are smart and liberal and have resisted the worst excesses of the industry they work in - although a forced comparison like this is a weird way of measuring them. Still, they have a surprising amount in common. Hawn, 56, and Sarandon, a year younger, both have two sons and a daughter, of which both daughters are actresses (Hawn's daughter Kate Hudson, Sarandon's Eva Amurri). They are both, in Sarandon's words, married to "jocks, masculine guys, who are in the business" (she to Tim Robbins, Hawn to Kurt Russell). "We came of age at the same time, a time of music and drugs and spirituality and searching, and empowerment. That really was an area where you felt that you could make a difference as a person. We both went to college in DC, we hit New York at about the same time and we both married early."
"And our first husbands were both Greek," says Hawn. "Weird, huh?"
"What else?" says Sarandon.
"Ice hockey," says Hawn. "We're both into ice hockey."
This is a neat tie-in with the Banger Sisters, in which, beneath the beige trouser suit, Sarandon's uptight mom is spiritually kindred with Hawn's ageing but still crazy rock chick. The synopsis of the film makes it sound terrible - two former rock groupies are reunited for one last journey of self-discovery - but it is actually very funny. There is one false note, a yukky high school graduation speech at the end, which includes an entreaty from the teenage valededictorian to "do true". Both actresses pull faces. "I know," says Sarandon. "Initially the speech was longer," says Hawn, drily. "You were spared."
They talk about their kids a lot, about how, in a perverse way, they owe the success of their careers to the fact that work never took priority over family. Both took years off work to bring up the kids, both insist they are too secure to be competitive. "Every time I took a year off I thought there was a good chance that I wouldn't work again," says Sarandon. "But I had more important things in my life. And you figure, you can always do something. You have to be ready to let it go. Maybe a lack of desperation has helped our careers."
A lack of desperation, of course, is easy to cultivate when there is no financial necessity to work. Both women were aware of the danger that they would turn out nasty Hollywood brats. "You know, raising my children in Los Angeles has had a lot to do with just really, seriously, being present," says Hawn. "I always threatened to move them out of town if they behaved like spoilt, blah blah, I won't name the type of children. So it's really how you raise them and not where. That's not the real deal."
"I'm not interested in normalcy," says Sarnadon. "I think it's highly overated, and I wouldn't pretend to my kids that they're not privileged. But my approach is to tell them that they are privileged, and let them take responsibility for it.
So far, apart from diverging over the passage of time, the two women have been overtly keen to endorse each other's views. On the subject of politics, however, they go their own ways. Sarandon is never so fluent or engaged as on the subject of the coming war with Iraq. Hawn, is never so bored. This gap is exemplified best by the brushes each woman has had with the law: Sarandon and her husband Robbins were very publicly arrested four years ago during a demo in New York against police brutality. Hawn has also been arrested, at the age of 14, for the less activist pursuit of joyriding through a graveyard. "I was in the back seat. I had no control, I was saying, 'Get me out of here, this is terrible.' I was crying. Finally we were pulled over by the police, and you know, I'm Jewish, but I was saying Hail Marys, and they pressed charges."
"Really?" says Sarandon, mouth open. "What, for vandalising it?"
"I guess, for desecration, which was a terrible thing to do. Well the irony of it is that I buried my mother exactly in that same cemetery."
"How awful."
There is a short pause. We talk about the principles behind Sarandon's arrest. "It's difficult to be political in the United States," she says. "It was made very clear in the beginning that you're either with us or against us and if you have a different opinion, or you even have questions, you're anti-American. The emotions surrounding the 11th have been hijacked by this administration for their own agenda."
Hawn leans back into the sofa and ostentatiuosly closes her eyes.
"Hundreds and thousands of people have been turning out [against the war]. But the problem is you don't really have, ah ..."
"Coverage," murmurs Hawn.
"TV," says Sarandon, "has turned into a PR firm for the administration. So a lot of Americans don't have the information to make the decision."
I tell Goldie there's a man waiting outside who wants her to sign his anti-war in Iraq petition.
"A what?" she says, opening one eye.
A petition. Against the war. Will she sign it?
"No." She languidly draws herself up to a sitting position. What are her thoughts on the conflict? Hawn scrunches her hair again, and angles her head to one side. "Well, I have my own private views." She sniffs. "I don't really care to ... I mean, I'm an actress and a mother and a citizen, but I don't want to be identified as a political figure." But then she changes her mind and says, "I think there definitely should not be a war. I think Saddam should be taken out, as I think Hitler should've been taken out. I mean, Saddam Hussein has the same psychological profile as Hitler. The same kind of family, same kind of lack of love, a father who left him. He's damaged. What do you do with that? We shouldn't do anything unless they find weapons of mass destruction."
Sarandon looks diplomatically at the wall. "Well, we gave it to them in the first place. All we have to do is look at the receipt."
"Yeah," says Hawn. "But we also gave to Afghanistan. We've made a lot of mistakes. And so has everybody else. We're right now, trying to work out, how to make a safe world for our children. We're at a crossroads right now."
"Mmm," says Sarandon. "Well, it's interesting, because after Saddam Hussein gassed his own people, our vice president was in there making deals with him. Why now? What is the urge to get in there so quickly? I can't wait to find out what the secret information is that's coming in on the 5th and why they've waited so long to give us this information. It's like some kind of new reality TV show that they're spacing out. And if they do find something, I don't see why you have to go to war to remove it. The Cuban missile crisis, when we knew they had weapons, we didn't go in and bomb them. We know there are cells in Canada, we're not going to bomb Canada. You have to come up with a new, more intelligent way to solve these problems. You can't go around using violence ..."
"Well, that's just the question, I mean you look at a child-"
"- North Korea!" says Sarandon.
"- so you want to elliminate weapons of mass destruction, with weapons of mass destruction, it's a very odd equation."
"I'd like a regime change in the United States," says Sarandon, "but I would really resent Iraq coming in, throwing out Bush and then telling us who to have. If we react unilaterally, I think it's going to set a very bad precedent. We have to go through the legal system. We have to have an international body that governs the world. I worry about the destabilisation of the world with this invasion."
Hawn's eyes are shut again. "There's a lot of repression going on and I don't like it," she says. "It's scarey." She opens them and winks at me. Sarandon smiles indulgently.
Susan has feelings.
I wonder how each would feel about Washington taking an activist role in telling Hollywood how to run its business.
She's an idiot. We threatened them with bombing, and then they backed down.
I'm surprised Goldie is more reasonable; however, just how does she think Saddam should be "taken out"?
In her dreams! Tim Robbins is a proto-fag!
I call this the Frigidaire Syndrome.
Yeah, Sarandon, that's just what we need, isn't it?
Who should be king of the world then? Clinton? Sure, sounds just peachy.
"It's difficult to be political in the United States," (Sarondon) says.
If she did what she did in Saddam's 'paradise', going against the wishes of the leader, her behind would've been in the hoosecow taking electric prods while standing in water.
We have to have an international body that governs the world.Yeah, Sarandon, that's just what we need, isn't it?
Who should be king of the world then? Clinton? Sure, sounds just peachy.
I'm sure that Goldie Hawn's husband would beg to differ with Ms. Sarandon.
The ultimate check and balance of freedom is sovereignty.
If you can immigrate to a nation that is not under rule by another, then you can escape persecution and denial of freedoms. Getting there may not be easy but at least an option to opt out would exist. An outside ruling body could not dictate to you how to live.
Those who would hope for one world rule hope that they could be a part of the protected elite in that scenario (rich/famous enough to do what they want).
A planet under one ruling authority would not be a world free of wars or persecution. Look at how the world looks at Jews and Israel. And consider "civil wars".
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