by Monica A.
This week I’d like to talk about someone who not a lot of people recognize anymore. Winona Ryder. She is a woman who is recognized far less than other celebrities and has never taken it to heart.
Winona Ryder is known for playing some very strong female lead characters as a Hollywood actress. More recently she struck gold in her role in Stranger Things, the Netflix series that yanks on 80’s nostalgia.
Before that, she rang in as the 80’s pop culture queen. Taking the movie scene by storm, Ryder was offered just about every grunge scene queen lead role that existed in Hollywood. But everything changed when Ryder hit a dry spell. From the late 90’s to early 2000’s her job market trickled down. In 1990, she checked herself into a psychiatric ward for her anxiety. In 2002, she was caught shoplifting. This nearly destroyed her career. Many of her fans raised HELL because while this controversy was going around, men in the industry were coming into rape allegations, and they were still receiving job offers. Meanwhile, Ryder was accused and convicted of a misdemeanor and shunned from pop-culture society.
The gender based degree at which the accused were separated really opened Winona’s eyes to the problems at hand. She cleaned herself up, and re-branded herself. Making a point to use her platform to promote things important to her, and to many people! She has become an advocate for mental health awareness and support. She is adamant about human life being about choices, and everyone has a right to their own choices. With stances like that, it is hard not to recognize her as the feminist that she presently is.