Jodie Foster, for some reason, seems to attract a less than stable following in some of her fans. John Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate President Reagan, claimed he was doing so for her. Now another man is under arrest for making bomb threats.
I have never really been one who understands "celebrity worship." Personally, I like the actors and actresses I like in the roles that I like them in, or the musicians that I listen to for the music they perform, but to sit and dwell on them and what they do with their lives? I've got more going on in my own life to keep up with than to try and keep up with Britney and her latest head shaving, Paris giving crotch shots as she gets out of a car, so forth and so on. It frankly baffled me the predatory way that Princess Dianna was hounded by the media and those who couldn't get enough of her.
We won't, however, discuss my all time favorite song bird Carly Simon...
Ahem.
Jodie Foster is, in my opinion, a fantastic actress. She's one of those rare individuals who managed to actually survive the stigma of having been a child actress and turned her career into exactly that; a career. An Oscar winning career.
But for some reason, she also has the capacity, twice at least, now, to garner the attentions of the criminally insane, as is evidenced by this latest situation in which she is the center of attention of a man who has been arrested after writing letters threatening to bomb the Van Nuys, California, airport.
Smegal's attention to Foster first came to light around October 2004, when she began receiving letters and packages, one containing a prepaid cell phone with a request that she call a particular number. Instead, a federal agent called and spoke to Smegal, who then sent pictures of himself and his dog via phone.
In an August 2005 interview, Smegal admitted to sending the letters and packages to Foster and promised to stop. DNA samples on the first letters matched the DNA samples taken from the more recent wave of letters. Almost identical letters were found in Smegal's home in January. He claims that he mailed the threatening letters to airports because he believed the Screen Actors Guild had made disparaging remarks about Foster and that they were located at some of the airports.
Smegal. Wasn't that the critter from the Lord of the Rings series? Does he see Jodie Foster as "the Precious?" A curious thought.
Smegal faces up to ten years in prison if convicted, along with three years of supervision and $250,000 in fines. Quite a hefty price for wanting to impress Ms. Foster. Personally, I think that there could be other ways that he could have done something to attract her interest. He's already sent her letters, including pictures of himself and his dog. Presidential assassination didn't work out so well for Hinckley, so I'm guessing he scratched that off the list fairly quickly. Maybe he should have mailed himself to her, instead of just a picture? Of course, with that would come the possibility of the package being lost in transit, and winding up being shipped to Tasmania, as they used to do in the Bugs Bunny movies.
Honestly, I'm not trying to make light of the man's infatuation with Ms. Foster and the lengths he was willing to go to in order to gain her eye. In my mind, he has serious problems that need to be addressed in a serious manner, by qualified professionals who can decypher his issues and help him to resolve them.
That being said, as I am not going to be one of those in the position to be treating this man for those problems, don't you wonder how many air holes he would have needed to ship himself to her?
Just a thought.
And no, I have no intentions of mailing myself to Carly Simon. I ponder this sort of thing merely out of curiosity, not because I have any intention of practical applications...
Just random thoughts, I promise...
Once and Always, an American Fighting Man
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