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Isabella Rossellini: Age, Looks Used Against Women

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Quote:

" You know, as long as you are thin, tall and young you

can have your freedom. ...

Otherwise, if you're ugly, forget it, you're old,

forget it.

That's the No. 1 discrimination for women. "

---------------------------

ABC: Nightline

Isabella Rossellini: Age, Looks Used Against Women

The Style Icon Creates a Film Tribute to Her Father,

the Legendary Director

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1950847 & page=1

May 11, 2006 — - After five decades in the limelight,

Isabella Rossellini isn't done.

The daughter of Ingrid Bergman, the legendary Swedish

actress, Rossellini turns 54 next month. More than 10

years after she was dropped as the face of Lancôme for

being " too old, " Rossellini remains firm in her

convictions and has no shame about her appearance.

" I don't look 20. I mean it's obvious, " Rossellini

said. " You know, as long as you are thin, tall and

young you can have your freedom. ... Otherwise, if

you're ugly, forget it, you're old, forget it. That's

the No. 1 discrimination for women. "

A Weapon of Oppression

" I often think of how they told black people that

their hair was not right and they'd straighten it. The

humiliation of a group is done through their physical

characteristics, " she said. " I see this insistence on

women, youth and weight and standards that are

unattainable to be a weapon of oppression that we have

to fight. "

Rossellini admits she has felt the pressure on older

women to undergo plastic surgery. But she has resisted

the call to go under the knife.

" I haven't done it because I think it has become so --

it's like Chinese feet binding, you know? " she said.

" Some morning, I wake up and say let's do it. But I

think most of all, I think right now I'm not going to

do it because it really is more to make women feel bad

about themselves. They have to become an ideal that

they're not. "

After a long career as a model and actress, Rossellini

remains wary of the pressures placed on women, even as

her daughter, now a model, follows in her footsteps.

" I understand my daughter wanting to be a model and

having a wardrobe, and we play a lot with clothes, "

Rossellini said. " But I hope she is not victimized by

the weight. "

An Exercise in Devotion

Rossellini's latest project is a 17-minute tribute to

her father, Italian film director o Rossellini,

to celebrate the centennial of his birth. In " My Dad

Is 100 Years Old, " a surreal black-and-white film,

Rossellini plays all the roles-- including her mother,

father and legendary directors like Hitchock and

Fellini -- with the exception of the main character: a

human belly that fills the entire screen.

" My father was quite fat. He had a big belly. And all

throughout his life, people would say, 'You have to

lose weight, o, you have to lose weight,' "

Rossellini said. " My dad would always say, 'Oh, I have

the belly because I want so much to be pregnant. I

wish I had had you babies.' He was a very maternal

father. "

Though loving, the Rossellini family suffered for its

art. Bergman was censured by the U.S. Senate after

having a child out of wedlock and was kept out of the

United States; the family's furniture was confiscated

when Rossellini's father fell in to debt.

" Artists pay a very high price to stay faithful to

their art, and to follow their independent mind, " she

said.

Though " My Dad Is 100 Years Old " was produced by the

Documentary Channel, Rossellini says it is not a

documentary.

" I really tried not to make a documentary or a film

that was about the memoir of them, but it is the way

it is in my brain, " she said. " It is the way I absorb

it, and the conflict of being a daughter that

preserves their works but also a daughter who loves

them and wants to hang on to their memory. And that's

what the film is about. "

In the film's final moment, Rossellini embraces the

giant belly, which fills the entire screen, and says,

" I don't know if you're a genius or not, Dad, but I

love you. "

" At the end, " she says, " Love is the only thing I know

for sure. "

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

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