My most recent encounter with this word began with Gwyneth Paltrow. The GP is ever present right now due to the upcoming release of her new fflick Country Strong. She performed with Vince Gill for the CMAs, garnering a standing ovation. Her Glee cover of Cee Lo was just released to drum up anticipation for Tuesday's episode, as if more was really necessary. And with this media blitz comes the requisite backlash. It should be noted that opinion of the GP appears split; a twitter search will contain both confessions of idolization and flippant phrases of disgust. An article on Salon asks, "Why do so many people hate Gwyneth Paltrow?" It's a fair question and a reasonable take on the topic but ultimately I find it to be shallow and compromising. I'll try my best to explain.
It's no secret that women deal with double standards on a daily basis. For most women this usually is the most obvious when discussing their career. If you are not professionally ambitious and would love to be a stay-at-home mother, you are told you're a doormat and being pigeonholed by society. If you're not ambitious and don't want children, you are labeled a free-spirit and not taken seriously. If you are ambitious and decide not to have children, you are depicted as being a workaholic and an unfeeling bitch. If you are ambitious and have children, you are either Superwoman or the worst mother in the world. These divides are heightened with women in the national and international spotlight. Two years ago in the political sphere there was the Obama vs Clinton vs Palin reality show that both highlighted and further frustrated the gender issues with which this country still wrestles. (The ceremony for Tina Fey tonight revisited a classic take on the situation.) But the most beleaguered of women are probably the Hollywood stars because everyone in the world demands a say these days. (Case in point: this blog post.)
Gwyneth Paltrow is not the first woman celebrity to have a bevy of haters. Sarah Jessica Parker had and probably still has her fair share. Jennifer Aniston. Angelina Jolie. Kate Moss. Kirsten Dunst. Chloe Sevigny. I don't really have the time to go all the way back in history, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is not a recent phenomenon. I'm also going to go out on a limb and guess that all this hatred is more often than not actually self-loathing. Gwyneth was described in the Salon article as representing "the epitome of everything most mere mortals will never come close to being" and concludes that it's her "appearance of endless ease, whether true or not, that riles so". Maybe so but isn't Grace Kelly universally lauded for that nowadays? And Audrey Hepburn? Style, grace, ease, etiquette, talent, beauty--those are the traditional trademarks of an icon. Have things changed? Yes and no. It's a cop-out answer but we are currently in a cop-out country. We demand effortlessness from our celebrities but then pour out the vitriol when it seems as if they obtain everything too easily. Had Gwyneth had her vocals dubbed we would guffaw; when she has vocal coaching and learns to play the guitar we tell her not to stray from her acting-only box. (Unless, of course, she decides to display some skills on Dancing With The Stars.) The only explanation I can muster besides my aforementioned self-loathing is a lack of understanding regarding talent. This has been a longtime coming and I doubt it will end anytime soon, but the dearth of quality these days has lead the country to accept mediocrity and enjoy it. When quality does show up it is both heralded and hated and ultimately lumped with the rest just to make it easier.
Which brings me back to "effortless". There are style makers who define style as "an innate, instinctual ability to be effortlessly individual in whatever you do." (Erdem in What Shall I Wear Today?) I don't know about you but I don't think that exists, or at least not on the primal level in which it is described. Style, like anything, is a talent. Even individuality is a talent. To some it comes easily. Others work hard for it. Some never develop their talent while others overdevelop it to the point of caricature. When commenting on the GP's many endeavors and adventures, her effortlessness and skill are described with marvel, envy, sarcasm, or worse. But I'll wager that none of her endeavors have been without effort. She is fluent in Spanish; that didn't happen without a concerted effort on her part. She learned to play the guitar and had bleeding fingertips because of her commitment. Demean that effort all you want, but when was the last time you decided to try something new and stuck with it once it became a bit more difficult? In my case, I find it hard to remember. We applaud her or loath her for the perception of her effortlessness. God forbid it look like she's trying too hard and straining herself. And so it continues that women with talent, apparently effortless or apparently strained, are belittled and grouped with a bevy of talentless and apathetic women. Why? Because they are all women. Men have the luxury to be effortless or hard-working or both. Women, on the other hand, are one or the other. And demonized either way.
