By Andrea Banda
Assistant Opinions Editor
I don’t think I will ever be able to watch “Little Women” the same way again.
Winona Ryder, once one of my favorite actresses, shocked the American public with her shoplifting spree last December. Her stealing $5,500 worth of merchandise from a store that a day of her work could buy is very disheartening.
What is even more disturbing, however, is that although the jury convicted her in two of three charges, grand theft and vandalism, Ryder is being pitied by her colleagues and they are predicting that her conviction will not harm her image in Hollywood — in fact, it may boost her image.
“The town is behind her,” John Srednicki of Bestrop/McCarthy Casting said in a Nov. 6 article in USA Today. “She’s even more sought after now.”
What is the world coming to?
Matthew Barry, casting director for “John Q.” said she looked “fantastic.”
“She’s talented,” he said. “I think people will feel sorry for her. In Hollywood, talent is always rewarded. If you have talent, you get away with a lot.”
While there is no doubt that Ryder is a talented actress, she needs to be held accountable for her actions, which thankfully, a Beverly Hills jury also realized. It is doubtful that she will serve jail time, so essentially she gets a slap on the hand. But hopefully the probation or community service the district attorney is seeking will be enough to teach her a lesson.
It is disturbing that the American public can feel sorry for someone who has committed not one, but two felonies for shoplifting merely because of her Hollywood resume. Why should we pity someone who has no rationale to steal other than greed? It isn’t as though she stole food from the grocery store because she was starving.
I would assume the Saks merchandise she stole falls under the category of wants, not needs. Her salary for one movie alone could quite possibly bring a Third World nation out of poverty. Surely she is aware of the balance in her checkbook, yet she chose to steal items she easily could have paid for.
What the public needs to do is open its eyes and realize that while actors and actresses are paid to pretend they are someone else, their behavior in real life should not be ignored because of their acting talent. This sympathy and ignorance isn’t extended to the recent corporate criminals. No one has felt sorry for them and is willing to ignore their behavior because of their status. They too make millions of dollars yet continue to steal in order to obtain more. Hasn’t Ryder behaved in a similar manner?
The values and morals of this country seem to be at an all-time low.
In May, Ryder appeared on the cover of W Magazine wearing a “Free Winona” T-shirt. Her willingness to wear this shirt for the entire American public to see doesn’t make me pity her at all. Her sense of sarcasm toward the entire event doesn’t seem to show that she is at all sorry for what she has done. She definitely deserves the public scrutiny and criticism for her cavalier attitude toward the felony charges.
One would hope that the conviction would be an eye-opener to Ryder. However, the praise she receives from Hollywood seems to make that idea false. The fact that Hollywood is willing to accept her behavior and praise her for the way she presented herself throughout the trial shows that character isn’t such a highly sought after characteristic when it comes to show biz.
I think that maybe I’ll wait awhile before I try to watch “Little Women” again.
November 14, 2002