Pretty Useless
Julia Roberts, our favorite ingénue.

By Andrew Stuttaford, a writer living in New York
March 24-25, 2001

ulia Roberts wants you to know that, so far as she is concerned, George W. Bush is not the President of the

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United States. Prematurely showing the modesty and grasp of reality that we have come to expect from an Oscar winner, she has, according to the Drudge Report, been telling friends that George W. Bush is "not my president. He will never be my president." In her view, apparently, he is "embarrassing."

Well, as the star of Mary Reilly, Hook, and Dying Young, Julia Roberts probably knows a thing or two about embarrassment, and it is clear that she wants to give the rest of us the benefit of her expertise.

Julia Roberts, you see, is a celebrity, one of this country's new nobility, an individual who rose to prominence on the back of long legs, wide eyes, and a way with other people's words. She is the Heartland's darling, and now, it seems, she wants to be its philosopher too. And why not? Whether it is Rosie O'Donnell on guns, Alicia Silverstone on animals, or Susan Sarandon on everything, the actress-activist has become a Hollywood cliché, and like most Hollywood clichés, it's an idea that sells well. Not only that, in the absence of any real talent, a spot of activism — left-wing, of course — is a lovely way to build up the sort of "serious" reputation that is essential for an actress if her career is to endure beyond the miniskirt years. There can be no doubt that Julia Roberts feels she's up to the challenge. As the actress once explained, she is "tall and really very smart." She has "lots of ideas" and, most generously, is "willing to share them" with us peasants.

But where do these "ideas" of hers come from? Not from college — she never went. In a recent biography she is quoted as having explained that higher education was not for her. "I couldn't see bolting out of bed at 8 a.m. to be ten minutes late for some f***ing class with some f***ing guy who's just gonna stick it to me again."

Nor, disappointingly, is her old friend Susan Sarandon to blame. "I can be inspired by what [Sarandon] does and I can believe in what she does, and I can support what she does, [but] that's not going to make me do or not do something."

Oh, whatever, Julia, whatever.

No, it appears that her ideas come from reference books. And we are not talking Cliff Notes. When she turns to the tomes, Julia Roberts chooses the chunkiest. She's a dictionary diva, a Webster's woman, a Britannica babe. Speaking at a Gore/Lieberman fundraiser last September the glossy autodidact revealed, "Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant." Strictly speaking, that is not true (they are about as close to "Republican" as the words "demobilize" and "démodé" are to "Democrat"), but we get the point. The Pretty Woman's next discovery in the much-thumbed wordbook occurred, allegedly, when she looked up "Democrat." Apparently, the definition is "of the people, by the people, for the people."

After comments like that, our heroine was clearly going to find it difficult to accept that Gore ("Dung, feces, dirt of any kind, slime, mucus, blood in the thickened state that follows effusion" — O.E.D.) had lost the election. Nevertheless the reason that she gave for rejecting Bush was interesting. Remember that she was, she said, "embarrassed." But, when it comes to White-House politics, by what exactly? As a supporter of the last administration we can only assume that she is not embarrassed by semen-spotted dresses, crack pipes on Christmas trees, the Rodham family, accusations of rape, dodgy commodities deals, perjury, Janet Reno, fundraising monks, fraudulent claims to inventing the Internet, pardoned billionaires, bombed-out aspirin factories, and expositions on the meaning of the word "is." Besides, George W. has not had the time to get himself into that sort of trouble even if he wanted to.

No, to be embarrassed so early on in the Bush administration must imply embarrassment not so much with what W. has done, but with what he is. It is the sneer of the snob, shuddering at the thought of that cowboy-booted boob who is now claiming to run her country, her domain. It is also, of course, a good career move, a carefully timed nod to Oscar's electorate, a reminder that she is one of them — socially, culturally, and politically. For years Hollywood has been a town where the conventional pieties are liberal. It does no harm for Julia Roberts to pay her respects to them, especially when they could be seen as adding supposedly intellectual heft to what is already a carefully crafted, oh-so-serious, humanitarian image.

It's an image that has needed some work over the years. Perhaps this was inevitable. There has always been a contradiction at the core of the very notion of "Julia Roberts," the ingénue who became America's sweetheart by playing a prostitute, and it is a contradiction that carries over into real life. She is this country's impossibly idealized girl next door — yet we revel in her own "embarrassing" romantic history. On the screen, meanwhile, she woos her audience with softness, vulnerability, and a great goofy laugh. On the set, however, she can be difficult, temperamental, and a nightmare for her crew.

Fortunately, Julia Roberts's charitable causes have presented her fans with a sunnier picture. There has been the help for worthwhile medical causes. More than that, she has been a campaigner for deserving unfortunates across the globe, missions that have, strangely, proved most effective when the objects of her attention were of a different species. Orangutans in Asia went over well, as did the wild horses of Mongolia. Even the endangered redwoods of California seemed grateful in a stolid sort of way.

Humans have proved trickier. A 1995 expedition to see slum children in Haiti ended in some rancor. There were suggestions that the trip was more about the star than the starving. A more recent crusade, in support of asylum for a Ms. Adelaide Abankwah, has also backfired. Supposedly the "queen mother" of a village in Ghana, Ms. Abankwah claimed that she faced the prospect of genital mutilation if she were returned home. With the help of Ms. Roberts and others, Adelaide was granted refuge in the U.S. Social-Register types will be dismayed, however, to hear that the INS now says that Ms. Abankwah is not of royal blood. In fact she is not of Abankwah blood either. She is, apparently, a Ghanaian hotel worker named Regina Norman Danson, whose only connection with Adelaide Abankwah is a stolen passport. She had never been in any danger of any genital mutilation.

Oh well.

With this track record, it is clear that Julia Roberts and Erin Brockovich were made for each other. The story may, as Michael Fumento has shown, be a pack of Abankwahs, but in Hollywood, the home of Oliver Stone, no one will worry too much about that. To film folk, Erin Brockovich was a profitable venture with just the sort of PC message that America wants to hear. Corporations are bad, trial lawyers are good. So, who cares about the truth? Besides, this was a movie that had another agenda far more important than mere accuracy. It was going to be the latest stage in the transformation of Julia Roberts into the sort of serious actress that she would so like to be. In a way it succeeds. For once, Ms. Roberts was given the opportunity to play a character that was rather more of a stretch than her usual role (which is, in essence, to play herself). As an added bonus, it was a role that somehow managed to bring yet more luster to the humanitarian image of Julia Roberts, star, stateswoman, and generally serious individual. It may only have been a paid performance, but in an age when our notions of reality are blurred, it did the trick. The actress emerged from Erin Brockovich $20 million richer and a few steps closer to sainthood.

And for that, at least, she really does deserve an Oscar.