Liberal actress Maggie Gyllenhaal talked to Time magazine for the August 18 issue and complained about Barack Obama. After writer Belinda Luscombe noted that "you've said President Obama has broken your heart," the actress derided, "I really believed in him, and I’m not sure what he believes in anymore."
Asked why, she added, "The way he’s handled the NSA stuff...I hope for a leader who will stand up and be unpopular." Offered an opportunity to take a position on the Israel/Gaza conflict (one that could be unpopular), Gyllenhall dodged, "What I’ve been doing is trying to read as much as I can and to think and feel each day what my position is." The Time journalist chided, "You don’t worry that, as Desmond Tutu says, the neutral have chosen the side of the oppressor?"
Why do you think actresses younger than you decline to call themselves feminists?
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t call yourself a feminist. But I sometimes take issue with the kind of old-school feminism that cuts out the complicated gray areas. I believe every woman has the right to have an abortion. But sometimes the style in which that message is put out there, I have a hard time with.
Gyllenhaal complained, "The ways in which I feel there’s an inequality are subtler. For example, if I don’t agree with something that a director suggests on a job, or if I have my own ideas, I feel like I’m considered difficult as opposed to an exciting collaborator.
