Neigh & Winnie
Winona Ryder: Genre babe of the week #23
Winona Ryder has been called many things over the course of her career: a beautiful woman, a talented actress, occasionally "Wanna Ride Her", and once something very objectionable by disgraced superstar Mel "Worse Than OJ Simpson" Gibson. It was a comment that put Winona ahead of the curve on what sort of fellow Gibson is, and the sort of comment that he was later to become infamous for.
Allie Macabre
This all began back about 15 years ago. It was a simpler and more innocent day when Robert Downey jr. was still on the skids, or worse doing Allie MacBeal (she's some good feel!). Back then Mel was the most popular leading actor in Hollywood, next to fellow superhunk Tom Cruise. Winona still had a thriving career as a pretty and talented leading lady in character type roles. Her melancholy good looks and screen presence had put her on the upswing in Hollywood. Within a short time she would be starring opposite Angelina Jolie in Girl Interrupted, and then go on to get caught with sticky fingers in a series of embarrassing shoplifting cases (Winona has issues ranging from prescription drug abuse to kleptomania). Next stop would be obscurity. At the time of the incident that train wreck had yet to leave the station. Winona still had a viable career presence in Hollywood. Viable enough to get into some A List mega parties. Parties like the one where she crossed paths with Archie Bunker on Methamphetamine Mad Mel Gibson!
"You ain't all that and a bag of chips!"
As Winona recalls in a recent GQ interview she was at one of those mega parties with a gay friend of hers when who should she run into but Mel all drunk and belligerent like. Mel opens his yap an immediately makes some kind of anti gay slur. Winona thinks to herself "OMG" - or whatever people at the time thought of instead of OMG - "This guy's anti gay". She still goes right on talking though cause this is Hollywood, the guy is Mel Gibson, and gay acceptance is still waiting for Will & Grace to carry the cause over the mainstream threshold.
Mad to the Max
So Winona bravely disregards the feelings of her gay friend and keeps chatting away with Gibson (there's no folk like show folk). Some where between the jigs and the reels it slips out that Winona is Jewish. Her actual last name is Horowitz. Everyone knows how Mel is about the Chosen People. They set him off like a Jihadist at a Koran burning. So Mel, liquored up, makes a remark to Ms. Horowitz about her being an "oven dodger".
"Are they like the LA Dodgers or something?"
The 'oven dodger' crack takes a little while to register on Winnie. Maybe at first she thought it had something to do with her escaping a life of domestic servitude and drudgery. Probably she was much to out of it for anything to register on her right away. Then slowly 2 and 2 come together and she realizes that she's been called something a lot more offensive than "Sugartits". No word on whether or not Ms. Ryder continued the small talk after that remark, but she does go on to say something like 'I knew he was a racist homophobe 15 years before any of you and no one would believe me just because I was a fucked up mess!'He has swastika underpants - we get it!
It's not like Winnie rated high on the creditability scale. She was to rate rock bottom on it in a short time and some shop lifting sprees later. You have to give her credit: even a stopped clock is right twice a day! Also you have to ask "Why speak up now if you knew for 15 years?" Part of the reason was the no one was ready to listen. The more important reason is that the 39 year old Ryder has finally managed to claw her way back from Sean Young like obscurity to a supporting role in the new Natalie Portman flick Black Swan. Ryder plays a washed up ballerina in that and is anxious for it to do well so that she can stop playing a washed up actress in real life! She can also get back to boosting from LA's finer boutiques.
leave Mel alone?
Since Mel is a magnet for publicity these days dragging him into it might help her film in some way that only Winnie's pilled out unstable brain can fathom. It ain't gonna do anything for Mel's Beaver film. Then again Mel has been done for a while now. At worst this is only the final nail in the career coffin. As for Winnie she working and
