Salon.com > Melissa Leo

Why are women scared to call themselves feminists?

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:21:00 +0000

It's a glorious time to be a declared non-feminist. This weekend, Katy Perry accepted Billboard Woman of the Year award by announcing to the world, "I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women." Way to take home a prize for womankind there, Perry. And last month, the former supermodel/first lady of France Carla Bruni-Sarkozy declared in a magazine interview that "I'm not at all an active feminist. On the contrary, I'm a bourgeois. I love family life, I love doing the same thing every day." Because you can't be bourgeois, love your family, or value stability and be a feminist. It's in the manifesto.

Bruni-Sarkozy added, "We don't need to be feminist in my generation." As a member of Bruni-Sarkozy's generation, let me address that. Ha! HA HA HA! No, we don't need feminism at all! Women over 40 are too valued and respected for that! They don't have their looks scrutinized and mocked; they don't face skepticism that they're too old to do their jobs; they aren't the punch lines of garish jokes about predatory cougars. Ha ha ha!

“Louie’s” women problem

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:10:00 +0000

Why are all of the women on "Louie" crazy?

Over the course of its critically acclaimed third season, "Louie" has brought in a slew of recognizable and talented actresses, but the women are consistently and cartoonishly messed up -- deranged to the point where watching them elicits no empathy.

Louie, for his part, mostly stands off to the side and watches this parade of deficiency: Delores (Maria Dizzia), who freaks out at Ikea; Laurie (Melissa Leo), who threatens him with violence if he doesn't perform oral sex on her; Maria Bamford, who plays herself as a neurotic iceberg; and Nancy (Nancy Shayne), who feeds her son raw beef. Even bookstore clerk Liz, played brilliantly by Parker Posey over two episodes, doesn't make the kind of impact she might have if her character was less spastic.

That the women are exaggerated isn't the issue; the show has always been hyperbolic. The female characters in previous seasons were damaged, but often ultimately relatable. Pamela had her issues — just like Louie — but she was a real person with normal, human-style emotions. It was easy to imagine her living next door to you, and it was possible to see why Louie liked her.

Melissa Leo: “I’m no feminist”

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 19:58:00 +0000

Melissa Leo says she doesn’t want to be known as a feminist or a pioneer, but it’s difficult to know what other words to use. While many actresses who play leading roles in their 20s and early 30s find that the parts disappear as they draw near to middle age, Leo’s career has gone in precisely the opposite direction. In 1993, Leo was a little-known 33-year-old whose principal career accomplishment was a Daytime Emmy nomination for her role on “All My Children.” Then she was cast as Detective Sgt. Kay Howard on the breakthrough cop series “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” and everything changed.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Kay was probably the butchest female character ever seen on TV to that point, and thereafter Leo – a Manhattan native whose father was an editor at Grove Press – followed an unprecedented star trajectory, playing a series of strong, independent, unconventional women. She moved into independent film in her 40s, at an age when many actresses feel themselves driven out of the movies, getting her first Academy Award nomination in 2008, for a memorable performance as a struggling single mom in “Frozen River.” She took home the supporting-actress Oscar two years later, for her hilarious, terrifying and riveting turn as Mark Wahlberg’s immensely flawed but loving mother in David O. Russell’s “The Fighter.” (And later had to apologize for her off-the-cuff acceptance speech: “When I watched Kate [Winslet] two years ago, it looked so fucking easy!”)

Is Louis C.K. even a comedian?

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:49:00 +0000

In the fantastic new season of “Louie,” FX’s gut-punching, experimental sitcom-in-name-only, created, written by and starring Louis C.K., Louie does a stand-up bit about his 7-year-old daughter’s jokes. He loves her jokes, because unlike almost every other joke he -- a joke expert -- hears, Louie has no idea where these are going. The example he riffs on begins with a totally original setup: “Who didn't let the gorilla into the ballet?” It ends with the totally original punch line, “Just the people who are in charge of that decision.” Louie fills out the scene, describing how he can imagine the gorilla trying to sneak into the theater, keeping his head down and texting, until a ballet employee calls the gorilla out of the crowd and explains he isn’t allowed in. Gorillas usually can’t stay calm through the second act. Sorry, gorilla.

On stage, C.K. puts over just how tickled he is by the unconventionality of the joke, and it's a joy that suffuses "Louie" as well, an entirely unconventional sitcom. "Louie" is like the gorilla trying to go to the ballet, idiosyncratic and grounded, an oddity acting normally, a show simultaneously strange and utterly believable.