In a refreshing twist on the lady mag staple “I’m not a feminist, but” quote, wide-eyed divorcée Zooey Deschanel confessed to Glamour that she is, indeed, a feminist.
“I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a f–king feminist and wear a f–king Peter Pan collar. So f–king what?”
It actually sounds a lot like the speech Deschanel’s New Girl character, Jess, gave last season to defend herself against her feminist foil Julia, played by Lizzy Caplan:
“I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children, and I find it fundamentally strange that you’re not a dessert person. That’s just weird and it freaks me out. And I’m sorry I don’t talk like Murphy Brown, and I hate your pantsuit and I wish it had ribbons on it to make it slightly cute. And that doesn’t mean I’m not smart and tough and strong.”
I was about to be all, “we should all be so lucky to have New Girl creator Liz Meriwether drafting our lines,” because, what can I say, her self-infantilizing (She wears saddle shoes!) still bugs me. But then I read the full interview (in print only) in which Deschanel pushes back on interviewer Logan Hill’s gendered line of questioning in an awesome way.
Glamour: Do you want to have kids?
ZD: That is so personal, and it’s my pet peeve when people press you on it. And it’s always women who get asked! Is anybody saying that to George Clooney?
Here I was, expecting her to go into her Muppet voice and claim not to know how babies were made. But then, Deschanel has this to say about snarky blog haters like me:
“If you are tearing down somebody who has forged her own path just for wearing a tiara, rethink your priorities. I never stop myself from doing something because I’m afraid of what people might think. I remember I was with Loretta Lynn last summer, and she said, ‘They say I’m not a feminist.’ And she’s the best role model you can think of. In the sixties and seventies, she was writing songs about the birth control pill and being a strong woman, and people still criticized her. So I always think about that. The thing about the Internet is that people can sit in a dark room and criticize other people and no one can see them.”
Except, of course, on Deschanel’s own site, Hello Giggles, a ray of Internet sunshine where if you don’t have anything nice to say on such controversial topics as Treats, Cuteness, and Moms, you don’t say anything at all.