Anne Hathaway, Ourselves
LatestDo you remember how Jennifer Lawrence responded when Jack Nicholson flirted with her at the Oscars? There was a moment when he said, “You look like an old girlfriend,” and Jennifer Lawrence, without missing a beat — without missing a beat! — turned in her Dior gown to look at him and joked, “Really? Do I look like a new one?”
Now spend a moment trying to determine how you would have reacted. Me? I would not have responded like Jennifer Lawrence. I wish I could say I would, but if I’m going to be honest, at best I might have mumbled, “Well, I hope she was a nice person.” At worst, I would have said something like, “You are a very respected actor but this exchange is awkward for me.” There is an equally strong chance I would have chosen to communicate that sentiment entirely without words, opting instead for flailing hand gestures.
I would, in short, have responded exactly like Anne Hathaway. Surely I’m not the only one.
I feel for Anne Hathaway, who nervously rehearses her speeches beforehand to make herself “more likeable.” This accomplished actress, seemingly unaware of what human beings like to see at awards shows, gives endlessly long speeches thanking her team and everyone she has ever met while cradling and mumbling to her Oscar. When asked to respond off the cuff, she replies that meeting her “soul mate” and being at the Oscars is a “the cherry on top of a wonderful, wonderful dish of vegan ice cream.” That is a statement to which one can only think, “Anne, you should have rehearsed harder.”
No wonder on the night of the Oscars, Jack Moore of Buzzfeed tweeted, “What the Onion missed is that it’s Anne Hathaway who’s the real cunt. Right EVERY WOMAN ON THE INTERNET?”
Every woman on the Internet did not respond to that capslock call to arms, but it struck enough of a chord to indicate that women largely didn’t like Anne Hathaway.
Over at The Cut, Ann Friedman wrote:
Does EVERY WOMAN ON THE INTERNET baselessly hate Anne Hathaway? I took a quick straw poll. ‘She is that theater kid with good intentions but secretly annoys the shit out of you,’ said one friend, adding, ‘You want to be excited for her and you are but deep down you are kind of rolling your eyes.’ Another replied, ‘I think someone told her she was America’s sweetheart and she believed it.’ One friend placed her in the category of ‘really affected drama queens,’ saying, ‘I can imagine her non-ironically yelling Acting!’ In other words, she’s always onstage, always calculated — not someone with whom you’d want to party or share your deepest secrets.
They don’t like her. They really don’t like her.
Perhaps we are so adamant in our current dislike because, not such a long time ago, we really did like Anne Hathaway. Remember when she brilliantly responded to Matt Lauer’s question about her crotch shot, expertly tying the conversation back to Les Miserables by saying, “I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies the sexuality of unwilling participants, which brings us back to Les Mis . . .” Gosh, that was a good moment. And remember when President Obama said she was the best thing in The Dark Knight Rises?