Yes, you guessed it, Emma Thompson has a birthday today. She turns 60, and so back into her archives I went, turning up a lot of crazy outfits and an unexpected penchant for fur stoles. (I wonder if they’re faux, or if some of them are actually the same single fur stole; if not, I’m surprised PETA hasn’t banged on her door with a bucket of red paint.) It’s complicated to talk about people nowadays, because I can’t keep up with the speed of information anymore; I found out the other day, after writing that post, that apparently Rosario Dawson has been accused of being a party to a transphobic assault?!? Fortunately, there’s nothing like THAT in Emma’s past, though she did sign that terrible petition sticking up for Roman Polanski in 2009. She had her name removed from it shortly after she signed it, and acknowledged that she was blinded by his filmmaking and didn’t give it proper thought until she was woken up by some classmates of her child’s — honesty that I appreciate. It’s hard to acknowledge mistakes, possibly even harder to walk back on something when you’re famous; she’s one of a dismayingly small handful of people who did, and it seems as though she used that for some self-reflection, as in 2019 she penned a stern letter to Pixar about John Lasseter. And she’s also a passionate environmentalist from what I can tell? Or maybe I’m blinded by her talent, and the fact that I like her and I want to like her. I don’t know. Guys, Garbage Island is getting FULL. We are RUNNING OUT OF ROOM THERE. So I certainly hope she is as she seems: a good egg, ever trying to do better. And I wish her many happy returns.
