The women in River Phoenix’s life After all this years being a fan of River and many other people, I was able to observe a certain behaviour that always bothered me but I never addressed properly: the way people treat and judge the women whose had a relationship with a famous man they admire. This happens way before the internet, we can see this behaviour with Yoko Ono. The woman is an incredible conceptual and performatic artist way before she met John Lennon but for what is she most famous? For ending The Beatles. Which, of course, it’s not true. It doesn’t need much research to see that Paul, John, George and Ringo weren’t having a good relationship and were diverging in interests and in what direction they should carry on their songs, sound and careers. The band was already doomed to end soon with or without Yoko, Paul already said himself. Plus, I think racism has a lot to do with the way people still ridicularize Yoko, I don’t think she would be attacked and called witch that much even today if she was a pretty and blonde white woman. Another famous situation of blaming and judging the women for the wrong things that happened to the men: Courtney Love. Courtney, a very good rock musician, was already attacked moral and verbally by Nirvana fans when Kurt Cobain was still alive, he even talked about how fans should be nice to her in a concert. And, of course, after his suicide people started to blame Courtney. They keep attacking her and trying to discredit her in any possible way, either if it’s in her personal or professional life. The fact that Courtney is not an model of perfect woman and has a very rebelious and agressive attitude (kind of like Kurt) doesn’t help either, women are always judged when they don’t have a good and proper ladylike behaviour, it’s like men are allowed to be rebelious rockstars but not women. It doesn’t need much effort to see it, there’s ALWAYS gonna be someone attacking her after more than 20 years. We can also see a terrible and sexist behaviour when young fans attack the new girlfriends of some teen idol either for saying she is too ugly for them or not good or talented (if she’s also an artist) enough. I realized after this cases and many more that the women will always be blamed by the general public and with River’s public wouldn’t be different: We have his first girlfriend, Martha Plimpton Martha and River dated from 1985 to 1989 and kept being friends until River’s death. Both of them said they started a relationship because they had a lot in common, but what I most heard about Martha is how she is not pretty enough to date River. Which is a shallow thing to say specially being fan of River and knowing how he despised all this. I also heard how maybe it wasn’t “true love” since she left him and didn’t save him, and that she maybe dated him for his sucess. And honestly… 1) She started dating him before Stand By Me was even out, he wasn’t sucessful back then. 2) It’s not hard to imagine yourself in Martha’s situation at all. Imagine being a teenager, being with someone you love whose alcohol and drug problems have increased, you kept insisting he should stop with all that for almost 4 years but he doesn’t listen. What would you do? She has her own life to take care and she has the right to move on, like Martha said he needed to want to change for himself. And I honestly would do the same if this happened to me. After Martha we have Sue Solgot We don’t know much about her since she’s not in the entertaiment business. We only know some little things that are said in River’s interviews at that time and biographies. We know she went to college in the city where River lived, we know she had a girlband in that college and she met River in a local concert, River first said he wasn’t River Phoenix like he always used to but then he said the truth to her and asked her for a date. Shortly after, they started living together. What bothers me the most in Sue’s case is how people say she was only with him because of his fame and how they talk about the fact that River helped her by paying her college education like is a bad thing. I mean, we don’t even know much about her, she doesn’t even accompained River in any of his movie premieres or in Hollywood (it really seems like River didn’t want this part of his life involved with the business), how we can assume this without considering other reasons? Remember we don’t know much about her. Plus, I don’t know about you but if I dated and lived with someone and this person was having trouble at paying their college education and I had the money I would help. There’s also the fact that River told Peter Bogdanovich, the director of The Thing Called Love, that they broke up because River cheated Sue, she found out and cheated him. But River himself told Peter he understood her actions, that this was the way she found to protect herself. It’s honestly ridiculous to blame only Sue for the break up since both of them made their mistakes for things to end this way and River admited it. Sue also said River was having more problems with drugs, that he was changing a lot and didn’t want anyone nagging him about it. After Sue we have Samantha Mathis Samatha may be the one most judged and blamed and we all know why. People always say she dated him for his fame, they keep judging her for not doing enough to save him the night he died or even pointing out that she “acted suspicious” for not knowing what to do and just start to cry and bang her head in the wall the moment River started to collapse. They also judge her for supposedly date someone else in the next year after River’s death. She met River in 1992 on the set of The Thing Called Love, Samantha was dating someone else and Peter Bogdanovich said how interested River was in Samantha and how he was flirting with her on set anytime he had the chance. River already had two long relationships ended because he didn’t want to change and look for a way to end his problems with drugs. Again, it’s just a way to put yourself in her place and it’s not hard: Imagine being a young woman in a place where drugs are common between young people, you meet a cool guy who happens to have some problems with drugs and start to date him. You know him only for a short period of time. I wouldn’t feel I have the right to demand him to stop, he is an adult and he should know what he’s doing. Of course, that might be worrisome but what you can truly do if he doesn’t want to change for himself and doesn’t want to be nagged about it? There’s also the fact that people judge the way she reacted to River collapsing. And who are we to judge that? We weren’t there, people in shock react differently to a such difficult situation. You truly need more empathy in such a delicate matter. You need to remember she was only 23 back then and I don’t think she ever experienced and faced death in such a brutal way before. And, of course, the other thing about Samantha is how they judge her for dating someone else “that fast.” Well, let’s remember she wasn’t a 50 years-old widow married for 32 years. She knew River for an year only, they spend their time together and unfortunately things didn’t end well for River, but it wasn’t her fault and she needed to move on with her life. With all three of them I see the pression of how they should love River in a very unrealistic and romantized way, the way I don’t believe love actually exists, let’s be logicals. Maybe if some of them died right after him like Sid and Nancy or Romeo and Juliet people wouldn’t be judging them that much. On the contrary, they would be romantizing their lives, love and story together. I’ve seen those things being said over and over again throughout the years and the worse thing is that they are said not only by young fans but by people way older than me, it makes me see that this concerns the whole society and is very problematic. Remember, River was not a perfect and innocent boy totally influenced by everyone like the press always wanted to paint him and how he always hated people assumed he was. It’s okay to recognize that he had flaws and that he wasn’t a perfect boyfriend in his relationships with those women and still admire him. Maybe the idolization towards some artists linked to sexism and misogyny has gone too far to the point that people forget these men are humans, they make mistakes by themselves, they have their on minds and the women or the people around them are not the only ones to blame when something terribly wrong happens. It might be painful to some of you, but the truth is that the world doesn’t revolve around River or any other famous man. Women, just like men, are humans and have the right to take care of their own lives and do what’s best for them.
