It is one of the most talked about and striking myths of recent Hollywood. The Oscar love curse, as it was coined a decade ago by different media, refers to the different cases in which an actress wins a statuette and accompanies that triumph, after a short period of time, with a sentimental breakup in the form of separation or divorce. A mystical, simplistic and, at times, purely misogynistic consideration – the woman who puts her career before her husband, the woman as the victim of a curse due to her talent – but one that has managed to penetrate the public debate. To the point that, to find out if there was any basis for the speculations, researchers from the universities of Toronto and Carnegie Mellon carried out a study in which they analyzed the cases of the 751 performers nominated for the Oscar in the categories of best actor and best actress from 1936 to 2010. Their conclusion? Award winners were 63% more likely than other nominees to have their romantic relationships end. Now, two actresses have fueled the legend with first-person confessions.
“When the gala arrived he was not a good guy and made it clear that he was not going to accompany me.” Two-time Oscar winner Sally Field has revealed in the book 50 Oscar Nights (Dave Karger) that his partner at that time, the also famous actor Burt Reynolds, “was not happy” when his name began to be heard to win his first statuette. Field had a five-year relationship with the late actor, which began to crack when he won the award in 1980 for her work in the film Norma Rae. Before that, Reynolds had also refused to travel with her to the film's presentation at the Cannes festival. “He told me: 'You don't think you're going to win anything, do you?'” recalls the 77-year-old actress.
The interpreter, known for films like CODA, Marlee Matlin. On the night of March 30, 1987, Matlin made history by becoming the first deaf actress—and one of the youngest in history, at 21 years old—to win an Oscar for her role in the romantic drama Children of a minor god. His co-star in the film, William Hurt, was also her romantic partner at the time, but he did not get the statuette. “When I found out he hadn't taken her, my heart sank. I was afraid to think about how he was going to react when we returned home since I had won and he didn't,” she explains in 50 Oscar Nights. Matlin remembers that Hurt was very quiet and thoughtful on the way back until he broke his silence with a rebuke. He “He said to me, 'What makes you think you deserve the award?' I looked at him as if to say what he was referring to and he replied, 'Many people work for many years, especially those who were nominated with you, to achieve what you have achieved with a single film.' I was stunned, but he made me stronger. “It was my moment, my night and the beginning of my career.” Matlin broke up with him just a few months later.
For Carlos García, coach and specialist in couples therapy, these types of reactions and behaviors hollywood They can be extrapolated to the rest of us and are more common than it may seem. Marked by the cultural stereotypes inherent to the most classic—or stale—masculinity, such as power, leadership, protection or strength, these types of men may feel offended and incapable of managing that their woman has more success and social recognition than them. . “This is what happens to Hollywood actresses,” she explains, “whose husbands and boyfriends flee the relationship because they are not capable of playing the role of savior prince that they had studied so much and seen others play so many times. They call it 'the love curse of the Oscars' and it happens at all levels: I have seen men offended because their name appears in second place in the mailbox at home.”
The list of Oscar winners who have seen their best professional moment accompanied by a sentimental drama is long. Helen Hunt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Hilary Swank, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Hudson… Sometimes it is a matter of pure vanity, as in the case of Kate Winslet, who saw her award for The Reader created tension with her husband at the time, Sam Mendes – known by the British press as Mr. Ego – and who was also competing in that edition with Revolutionary Road. Other times, professional jealousy and the wage gap are alluded to, as was written about Reese Witherspoon (On the tightrope) and Ryan Phillipe. The couple who presented the Oscar for best makeup together in 2002 starred in an unscripted moment in which Phillipe said in full live that he did not read the winner because he was not paid enough: “You do it, since they pay you more than my”. With the years, Whitherspoon confessed which was a moment that left her completely disconcerted because her ex-husband had never told her that he would say something like that and she added: “No woman should ever feel ashamed for earning a lot of money.”
In these sentimental dramas related to the Oscars, third parties also come into play, as happened to Sandra Bullock or Halle Berry, who praised their respective partners on the stage of the Kodak Theater while the tabloids prepared the exclusives that they were unfaithful. . Especially cruel was what Bullock experienced, who went from being a brilliant Oscar winner to A possible dream to see how her husband's lover told all the details about the infidelity on the cover of a magazine in just 10 days.
In recent years, the curse seems to have eased its power among the nominees, perhaps also due to the economic and cultural changes, such as the rise of the new feminist wave, experienced by society. The number of marriages in which the woman is the main breadwinner for the family has tripled in the last 50 years, thus having a decisive impact on the fate of romantic relationships and in calming this historical stigma. According to him Wall Street Journal, in the sixties and seventies, when the wife earned more than the husband there was a 70% greater chance of divorce than in the opposite case. That figure, decades later, has dropped to 4%.
However, the feeling that female success is still perceived as a threat to men is still alive in the entertainment field. This year, there have been two high-profile examples in the cases of pop stars of the caliber of Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. According to sources close to the singers, the inability of their then respective partners, Joe Alwyn and Dalton Grande, to manage their impact, schedule and fame were key at the time of the breakup. This is what Swift suggested in her hit Midnight Rain: ''He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain / He wanted a bride, I was making my own name'. '(He wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain / He wanted a girlfriend, I wanted to make my own name)”. Just a few days ago, fellow vocalist Kelly Clarkson confessed that her now ex-husband, Brandon Blackstock, had discouraged her from accepting a chair as coach from the American edition of the program The voice for not being “enough” sexy”.
In conclusion, Carlos García hopes that in the coming times new proposals about what we understand by masculinity will be confirmed in order to see real change. “Perhaps a somewhat more tolerant approach, more egalitarian in roles that allows us to understand people regardless of their gender. The world has already lost many centuries of literature or philosophical reflection by women, and men have lost the opportunity to live some of their emotions more intensely.” Also the opportunity to celebrate, as one should, the Oscar of a loved one.
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