Why do so many women hate Gwyneth Paltrow?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/why-do-women-hate-gwyneth-paltrow?CMP=fb_gu
Why do so many women hate Gwyneth Paltrow?
Vanity Fair's attack reflects a wider loathing, but at least the actor
is brave enough to venture beyond Hollywood's accepted script for women
Tanya Gold
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 November 2013 19.00 GMT
Gwyneth Paltrow is feuding with Vanity Fair, which is not easy if you
are a famous actor: the magazine, dedicated to the placement of luxury
goods into spindly hands, is essentially a marketing arm of Hollywood –
although it acknowledges the current wretchedness of the medium,
consciously or not, by repeatedly placing dead ("better") actresses on
its cover. Even so, it's widely reported that Vanity Fair is working on
a "take-down" of Paltrow, which is yet to appear. She has responded by
emailing famous friends, who I imagine as the Bratz dolls, telling them
not to contribute. Now she has guest-edited the December edition of Red
magazine, filling it with philosophy from her lifestyle website, the
oddly named Goop.
But why "take down" Paltrow? This may be a personal vendetta on the part
of Vanity Fair's editor Graydon Carter. (Who would be near a
professional courtier like Carter when he turns?) But the dislike that
Paltrow engenders is widespread enough to be interesting; it reminds
me, of all things, of the fascinating case of Samantha Brick.
Brick was the Daily Mail contributor who emerged last year shouting, in
heavily edited Daily Mail speakese, that she was beautiful and that
other women hated her. The response to a proposition that has some basis
in scientific fact was astonishing; Nick Griffin has a friendlier
postbag, by some wretched margin. Women managed to prove Brick's point
for her, although obliviously and with all the moral grandiosity they
claimed to most despise in her. Yet Brick has interesting things to say
about how women mistreat one another, if, again, perhaps obliviously;
and the introduction of her glaring French husband, Pascal, into the
story, photographed in combat fatigues with a gun, induced enough
merriment for gratitude, and maybe pity, to be the only polite response.
Indeed, I suspect that Brick's blustering is a facade she herself does
not believe in; but who cares about that when the headline is naked
self-satisfaction? She was annihilated, and by the sisterhood too. You
can hear the echo in Vulture.com's Practical Guide to Not Hating
Gwyneth Paltrow; in Star magazine's election of Paltrow as most
irritating celebrity; and in Paltrow's pre-emptive self-defence in
Red – "Do what is right for you," she says, "and don't give a shit what
anyone else thinks."
I do not know if Graydon Carter would self-identify as a feminist, but
I am certain that the loathing of Brick and Paltrow is largely driven
by women. My colleague Hadley Freeman called Brick a Trojan Horse for
the Mail's misogyny, and this is true, but she was also a Trojan Horse
for the left's contempt for the Daily Mail, whose most aggressive
critics are also, mysteriously, its most avid readers. As Howard
Stern's confused producers realised in the shock jock's biopic,
Private Parts: "The average Stern fan listens for an hour and 20
minutes; the average Stern hater listens for two and a half hours".
Paltrow – successful, opinionated and seemingly happy – now emits Goop
, her very silly website that aches for parody with its monied rustic
fantasies and inspirational monologues about fruit. But this is still
an example of a woman venturing beyond the accepted Hollywood script
and expressing her thoughts about clothing, motherhood and nutrition –
even if, again, I do not believe the facade. (Read the recipes. They
bespeak nothing but self-denial, the better to fit into the clothes.)
What to do? Ignore the tedious subject matter (perhaps Carter is
threatened by Goop, which is in itself a possible movie with a
starring role for Paltrow) and hope that other women likewise seek
guru status, even with a constituency of one? Or damn her on the
spurious grounds of wealth, beauty and apparent good fortune?
Gwyneth Paltrow is not a politician. She does not deny things to other
women. In fact, she seems to want women to have what she has, which
seems to be mostly expensive clothing and cookery books.
The greatest criticism of Paltrow is that she cannot see beyond her
lovely nose, which is rational in an actor. The fury, and obsession,
this most self-evading art form excites in others is for another
column. Meanwhile, allowing only the women you agree with – or
identify with, or respect – to have a voice is not feminism; that
is not sisterhood, but something else. I call it spite.
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