Prisoner of Cool: Chloë Sevigny, Alternative Stardom and Image Management

Abstract

Chloë Sevigny made her first feature film appearance in Larry Clarke’s highly controversial Kids (1995), a film condemned in some quarters as an immoral depiction of teenagers engaged in sexual activities, drug consumption and violence. Her character in Kids, Jennie, discovers early in the film that she has caught AIDS from Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) and — after attempting to track down Telly and confront him — eventually suffers the ignominy of being raped by Casper (Justin Pierce) while in a semicomatose state. Sevigny’s connections to both controversial films and filmmakers, and her tendency to portray victims (as well as outsiders), have subsequently become crucial features of her star persona and contribute to her status as a cult film star as opposed to a more widely known, mainstream star.¹ Sevigny fits into the broad distinction made by Paul McDonald, who argues that if actors associated with independent cinema ‘are not as widely known as blockbuster stars, then distinctions need to be drawn between “popular” stars and “cult” stars’ (1998: 199). While Sevigny has appeared in a few Hollywood movies, the majority of her acting appearances have been within independent films, in both lower- and higher-budgeted varieties. These include appearances in Steve Buscemi’s debut feature Trees Lounge (1996), Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco (1997) and an Oscar-nominated performance in Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999). She also has connections to controversial directors both from the American independent scene and European art-house cinema: the former include appearances in former partner Harmony Korine’s films Gummo (1997) and Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), and Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (2003); the latter include roles in Olivier Assayas’s Demonlover (2002), Lars Von Trier’s Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005), and Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Have Ye done? (2009).