Blythe Danner Pens Rousing Letter to the Editor in Defense of Her Daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow

“I cannot remain silent while Maureen Dowd disparages my daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, for the manner in which she chose to handle Harvey Weinstein’s attempt at a sexual encounter when she was 22 (“Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood’s Oldest Horror Story,” column, Oct. 15),” Danner wrote, presumably after sitting down at what I imagine to be a very nice writing table, with a pair of reading glasses perched at the end of her nose. “Gwyneth did not ‘put aside her qualms to become ‘the first lady of Miramax’ ‘back then, as Ms. Dowd would have it. She continued to hold her own and insist that Mr. Weinstein treat her with respect. She had learned from her father, the producer and director Bruce Paltrow, how to stand up for herself.”

Danner wasn’t the only Famous to take on the Times’s befuddling publication choices—Martha Plimpton also wrote her own letter to the editor about Mayim Bialik’s ridiculous op-ed that suggested that only the pretty girls in Hollywood are sexually assaulted or harassed. “We must stop framing this as an issue for women to emotionally grapple with, as if it had anything to do with them. It is not women’s responsibility to end systemic harassment by being better feminists or dressing modestly,” Plimpton wrote. “Regardless of one’s industry or line of work, sexual assault is a crime, not an occupational hazard of working while female.”

Plimpton makes an excellent point, but I cannot stop thinking about Blythe Danner being so incensed that she felt compelled to write this letter. Imagine! Being publicly scolded by Blythe Danner in the pages of the paper for which you are employed. Imagine Blythe Danner fuming silently over some dumb op-ed until she felt she could be silent no more. Did Gwyneth Paltrow ask her mom to do this? Is she embarrassed? If Blythe Danner penning this devastating rebuke to Maureen Dowd running her mouth about her freakin’ daughter is a glimpse of what Gwyneth could be like in the future, sign me up.