Jodie Foster shared her thoughts about Gen Z and what it’s like to work with them, and to say it wasn’t a very flattering recommendation is putting it mildly. Apparently, the actress doesn’t seem to like it at all. In fact, she described it as “really annoying” as she went on to explain multiple reasons why.
At the age of 61, actress Jodi Foster sat down with The Guardian for an interview and discussed what it’s like to work with the young members of Gen Z. The Gen Z generation, also called “zoomers,” is “generally defined as referring to people born between the years of 1997 and 2012,” according to The Blaze.
The Hollywood movie star, best known for portraying FBI agent Clarice Starling in the blockbuster movie “The Silence of the Lambs” from 1991, admitted that she finds the young members of the Gen Z generation to be “really annoying” to work with. In fact, Foster had a couple of criticisms for the “zoomers,” starting with their work ethic.
According to Foster, those who belong to the Gen Z generation seem to have no problem with showing up late for work, simply because that’s what they feel like doing that day, regardless of their obligations.
“They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace. They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m.,'” Foster explained, criticizing Gen Zers for showing up to work late on a whim.
Unfortunately, showing up on time for work isn’t the only “rule” the “zoomers” seem to blatantly ignore. Jodi Foster also criticized the younger generation for being careless when writing emails. According to WKKG, the “Nell“ actress was particularly perturbed by the way Gen Z seemingly disregarded proper spelling and grammar, especially in their sloppily written emails.
“Or, like, in emails, I’ll tell them, ‘This is all grammatically incorrect — did you not check your spelling?’ And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?'” Jodi Foster recalled as she lodged her complaints against the younger generation.
According to The Guardian, “Foster has arguably earned the right to tell it how she sees it” since she “made more movies than the director had” by the time “she was nominated for an Oscar for her depiction of a victim of child sexual abuse in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver at the age of 14.”
After making films for more than five decades, Foster said it was important to her that she help young female actors navigate the often difficult waters she had already sailed. So, although the actor admitted she had found the attitudes toward work, which she had encountered with Gen Zers, difficult to understand, she hoped she could help budding stars find their path and help them “learn how to relax.”
“They need to learn how to relax, how to not think about it so much, how to come up with something that’s theirs,” Foster said when asked what she thought young people in the industry needed to hear. “I can help them find that, which is so much more fun than being, with all the pressure behind it, the protagonist of the story.”
To be fair, zoomers have expressed their own issues when it comes to working with older people. Apparently, they don’t find us any more delightful to work with than we find them. In fact, their generational grievances were documented in a Reddit thread about working with older people, The Blaze reported.
However, it was not timeliness or accuracy that they bemoaned. Instead, it was the use of the thumbs-up emoji. Yes, you read that right. According to one 24-year-old commenter, “the thumbs-up emoji is used to be really passive-aggressive” among younger people, so they find it “super rude if someone just sends you a thumbs up,” causing this particular Gen Zer to have a “weird time adjusting” in the workplace.
The generational differences run much deeper. Perhaps most alarming to the older generations is Gen Z people’s views on government and the level of involvement it should have in our daily lives. Disturbingly, “A poll in 2023 found that 29% of Gen Z people said the government should install cameras in every home in order to avoid crime and abuse, while only 20% of respondents of an older generation agreed with the massive surveillance program,” The Blaze reported.
While Gen Z has been called “a problematic demographic for Republicans,” Jodi Foster reminds us that older people on both sides of the political aisle seem to have issues with “zoomers” and their way of engaging with others in their daily lives. Let’s face it, the issues at hand aren’t political ones. It’s common courtesy to be on time, and it’s a matter of clear communication to produce well-written emails. Tardiness and sloppiness indicate selfishness, and that’s not a quality anyone should tolerate or applaud. Instead, it indicates that zoomers still have a lot of growing up to do, and it’s time they make that happen.
