Letter from the editor

Interview, May, 1995 by Ingrid Sischy

I've just gotten back from Paris, the City of Light, where I saw a sight that reversed the usual order of things. It happened because of a fashion show, but it could have been any kind of event where those who are supposed to control the flow of people turn into control freaks. Usually one sees herds of photographers chasing celebrities or supermodels at fashion events, as if they're rabbits in a hunt, but what I saw was a horde of photographers storming out of the Louvre in a huge pack, chasing nothing. The equivalent of a revolution had just taken place. The guards at these roped-off, ticketed affairs can get into their hour of power as if they're working in an old-line gestapo force, and apparently one of them went over the top by bullying a cameraman who was just trying to get in to set up. Word traveled about the incident, and the next thing that happened was this mass exodus.

The photographers talked about their need to be respected, and, indeed, even though they can forget to respect others in the rush to get pictures, on this occasion all they'd been trying to do was get to their post so they could go to work. There was something about their collective walkout that felt familiar to anyone who was on a university campus in the '60s, but it also had the feeling of representing something bigger than itself. To me, it was yet another example of what's going on all around the world, with the Newt Gingriches, the religious right, and even skinheads all trying to hold on to or secure their power by regulating how we think and act, while those who reject the outdated ways of thinking they represent are rising up like those photographers to say, "No, you can't bully us."

Drew Barrymore, the woman on our cover this month, is exactly the kind of person who refuses to be bullied or controlled by backward or rigid thinkers. She's definitely a person who knows what is damaging about trying to control other people, and why it is each person's responsibility to control him- or herself. You could say she's a photographer's dream in the way she hasn't tried to control the images of herself - she'd be a great mascot for those photographers in Paris. And she's unquestionably a forward thinker and a freethinker, so we dreamed up an idea that we're sure even photographers who like to guard their job would smile at. We put a picture by Herb Ritts of Drew Barrymore the star on our cover, and you'll see that we did something else to go along with the interview. We decided to show Drew Barrymore the person. We invited her to do a kind of self-portrait by choosing pictures she and her friends had taken, and which she thought would be fun to look at. We knew she'd give us something that wasn't contrived and that was all about the insights into human beings and their lives that can happen if a person believes in others enough to open up her world to them.

This openness is what makes Barrymore the best kind of star there is and why we wanted to inaugurate our new format with Barrymore on our cover. Welcome to the new shape of Interview. We want you to know that we thought about it for a long time before making this change, and that it is something we have done with conviction and with you in mind. It's also in keeping with the spirit of Interview, which is all about an openness to change, and a belief in the excitement that new things can bring and about not getting stuck on one idea for the sake of it. We believe you'll see what we mean about our new size feeling good to the eyes and good to the hands holding the magazine, so back to Barrymore.

To us, she is the perfect example of someone who has the capacity to change things, because she simply does what she believes is right. She listens to her gut, and not to received ideas about how things should be done. She is a kind of embodiment of the forward steps that have been made in the last few decades. Here are a few of the ways that Barrymore represents what we mean: She understands people's desire to see images and characters that reflect life as it really is and not some programmed view; she realizes that celebrities can help bring about illumination of all sorts of topics by talking about their own struggles; and she reflects the desire and insistence of women to chart their own course. Barrymore goes for progress as if it's the only choice to make. And because of this, she's one of the people who proves that the work that has been done by those who wanted a more enlightened world has opened up new possibilities. For example, twenty years ago, would a twenty-year-old woman have had the chance to have her own production company, as Barrymore now does? To us, she is like a promise of things to come.