People really hate Gwyneth Paltrow. Last year, Star magazine named her one of “Hollywood’s Most Hated Stars.” But, that same week, she was also named the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” by People Magazine.
That juxtaposition confused Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, presumably because he prizes beauty above all else. But, to the non-beautiful, the juxtaposition isn’t all that difficult to explain: People hate Gwyneth in part because she is beautiful.
Apparently there are other reasons to hate Gwyneth. Indeed, Vanity Fair commissioned an article exploring the reasons why people hate Gwyneth, reasons that Carter summarized well in this paragraph:
Half the female staff admired her for creating a healthy family amid the maelstrom of modern-day celebrity—and with a handsome rock-star husband, no less. They thought she was a great actress who deserved the Academy Award she received for Shakespeare in Love. And they envied her abs, her legs, and the fact that she had built a business of being a lifestyle guru. The other half seemed to dislike her for pretty much the same reasons. Some had kind words for Goop, her Web site. Others criticized it both for its privileged Just get your butler to whip up a batch! tone and for what is perceived as a blatant, My life is better than yours thrust.
It should be noted that Carter’s paragraph is excerpted from an editor’s letter, not from the article that he commissioned. And the editor’s letter was written to explain why the article he commissioned wasn’t ultimately published. Carter doesn’t mention it—perhaps he doesn’t recognize it—but people hate Gwyneth, in part, for the very reason the article wasn’t published: People hate Gwyneth because she is in control. (The article wasn’t published presumably because she didn’t want it to be.)
Goop describes itself as “a weekly lifestyle publication and e-commerce shop, curated by Gwyneth Paltrow.” The use of the term “curated,” which seems designed to be maximally grating, also hints at another purpose: the editing and controlling of Gwyneth’s own image. Which is certainly her prerogative, even if in this case, that image is itself about control. Goop pushes juice cleanses, exercise programs, and outrageously expensive clothes and furniture. It offers up helpful tips for throwing celebrity parties and ensuring that your kids eat healthy. And all of it flies under the implicit banner of: This is what Gwyneth does, so why can’t you?
There are a million reasons why none of us can do what Gwyneth does. But it ultimately boils down to this: We aren’t as good as Gwyneth. We can’t throw celebrity parties because we don’t have celebrity friends. Gwyneth does. We can’t afford the furniture. Gwyneth can. We can’t find time to exercise because we don’t have an army of assistants. Gwyneth has.
Gwyneth’s very existence, then, stands in judgment of our lifestyles. If I can do it, she says from that beautiful face perched atop a tall, slender frame, you can too. If you were just better.
Of course, we know, based on empirical evidence, that no one is perfect. So, even while Gwyneth curates her life to project maximum perfection, we look for the faintest crack in her facade. When Gwyneth asks Graydon Carter “what to do to get the ‘haters’ on her side,” the answer seems completely obvious: Let us see your human side. Let us know that you are weak like us. Give us hope that perfection is not required.
Two days ago, Gwyneth announced that she was separating from her rock star Coldplay-fronting husband. The announcement was met, of course, with a heavy dose of Schadenfreude. But, for Gwyneth, it was an opportunity to relax her facade, to let people in, to get the “haters” on her side.
I regret to report that she did not take advantage of her opportunity.
Her website, Goop, reported the divorce but only in the most carefully curated fashion: “We have always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and co-parent, we will be able to continue in the same manner.” The link to the announcement also incorporates the phrase “conscious uncoupling.” It seems that, even in her darkest hour, Gwyneth will not admit that anything—even her husband’s love—is beyond her conscious control.
As long as Gwyneth insists on controlling and curating her life, it will remain difficult to love her. One suspects that only when she can admit ‘conscious’ defeat—or at least some degree of powerlessness in the face of life’s vicissitudes—will she be free to enjoy the uncurated messiness of life. And to be loved.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI0ll5SexV0&feature=kp&w=600]
COMMENTS
10 responses to “The Curated Life of Gwyneth Paltrow”
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http://www.theonion.com/video/iron-man-2-buzz-heats-up-over-rumors-gwyneth-paltr,17275/
I’m so glad Mbird is talking about curation. So many lifestyle and mommy bloggers are throwing this word around, sometimes as a nicer way to say they picked out some outfits. It’s so interesting to me that publications like Kinfolk and these individual bloggers are following in her footsteps. I frequent this website on occasion who call these types out and “snark” on them. So it’s really interesting to see these blogs develop in contrast to all this criticism on the other side. The site is getoffmyinternets if you’re interested. Thanks for bringing this up. I’m only good enough because of Jesus.
I find it really interesting that we so often throw around the word “curated” like it’s a good thing. I’ve always felt a negative connotation with this word. A feeling that whatever is being described as “curated” isn’t real or attainable.
I don’t mean to be so very anti-this, but I think there is a hefty dose of little “L” in this piece. While I wholeheartedly agree that GP’s general “I am great, you could be like me if you were rich and beautiful, so try harder” website is shitty, I think it’s also shitty to say “hey gwyneth, you ought to divorce better.”
Maybe there’s a way to critique the “curation” of lives that’s pretty widespread in the social networking web without condescending to becoming the E network.
Mbird was like E! yesterday; three straight celebrity posts!
Anti- or not, I appreciate your comment very much. It would be the height of hypocrisy (not to mention rudeness) to tell Gwyneth she should divorce better. Fortunately, the odds of her reading this are very small. I was really trying to describe rather than prescribe.
In any event, you bring up a (literally) crucial point. Gwyneth, like the rest of us, is incapable of surrendering control on her own. Only the message of the Gospel, and the work of the Holy Spirit, can transform her heart and reveal to her that it is not necessary to achieve (or project) perfection. That she remains a slave to her own need to control deserves our compassion, not our judgment.
I get what you are saying and all, and I have no problem with writing about celebrities, but this gospel message in your comment didn’t really make it into to your original piece.
Maybe I am misguided in thinking that a) being fair and sensitive to someone in an article they won’t read is a more sympathetic choice and b) that perhaps a “divorce serves you right, maybe this will teach you” message isn’t a very helpful message for anyone, descriptive, prescriptive. To me, it doesn’t matter.
The compassion you say Gwyneth “deserves” in your comment just wasn’t in your original post. Your original post basically says she missed her big opportunity to get people to like her by announcing her divorce wrong. I think that’s what rang so false to me. That’s a heavy weight to put on someone. Not only should someone have people’s love and approval, they also should not let opportunities pass in which they could gain more love and approval, likes and followers.
It’s opposed to your own message. Your message is anti-curation, anti-control, anti-goop basically, and I am with you wholeheartedly. The divorce is where the disconnect comes in with a zinger – aha! you can’t even control your husbands love! he’s not even a rock star, either, he fronts wimpy Coldplay! – and then the description of why it is hard to love her.
Do you think she will be easy to love if she were to become carefree and gain 20 pounds and lose all of her money in a fire? The answer is no. Because she will still be a human being and the rest of the world will be humans, too. She won’t match our wants. She’ll have different opinions. She will be in the mood for Mexican when you wanted chicken wings.
The problem is even though we hate that she seems to be perfect, we want that. We want her to let her gaurd down, but in a particular way. We want her to wear jeans and a t-shirt, but not *that* t-shirt. We want her to go out without makeup, but not to have pimples.
It’s not just her. We can’t be pleased.
Man, you just whacked the head right off the nail.
“As long as Gwyneth curates her life it will be difficult to love her.” Perhaps in the recognition that I too am a curator of my life, an attempted perfector of the imperfectable, I might come to love her because as God batters my heart – I discover my belovedness and so know her belovednes.
Love the “curated life” thinking!