Why do we Love to Hate Gwyneth Paltrow?
She’s rich, beautiful, in great shape, a successful actress and has dated/been engaged to a string of rich, beautiful, in great shape, successful actors. Plus a hot musician who penned her a track or two. There. Pretty much sums it up as far as I am concerned.
Yet, there are any number of female Hollywood icons who could say the same. So why are we making such an organic Manuka honey beeline for Gwynnie in particular? Seems a little unsavoury of us, and I think it’s time to dig a little deeper.
1) We believe she’s been handed everything on a plate.
That’s as may be. With wealthy, well-connected parents already on the Casting Director’s speed dial in Hollywood, it’s practically a given. But maybe we should ask ourselves this: would we really be any different? If we were brought up in the fairytale fluff of all that is celebrity L.A, would we know anything outside of this reality? Would we expect our destiny to unfold any differently? Why would we opt for a life more ordinary when our path was already paved with gold? And so Gwyneth’s situation is simply a metaphor for what might be our own… Daddy works in a footsie 100 company and he pulled a few strings to get us a job there; Aunt Sally runs a salon and she’s giving us preferential treatment as her new apprentice; a friend’s mum is best mates with a Literary Agent and our manuscript naturally climbs to the top of their reading pile…
2) We still can’t forgive her for that ridiculous and emotionally over the top Oscar acceptance speech.
Are we sure the fact that she’d recently called time on her engagement to the hottest guy in Hollywood (Brad Pitt to all those young enough not to remember and too old to care) didn’t have just a little bit to do with our critique? Okay then, so how would we fare standing in front of a theatre full of A-listers and the world’s media in our blissfully naive twenties? This wasn’t polishing off a couple of lines in the school play after all. This was live camera action. This was as big as televised speeches get. Can we be sure that she didn’t simply forget all of the pre-rehearsed impressively long words and fall prey to a Bollinger induced string of waffle instead?
3) We think we want her Goodie Gwynnie Two Shoes willpower.
But do we really? I for one feel sorry for Gwyneth… who evidently never really tucked into the decadent cupcakes she raves about on the front cover of my copy of the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook; ‘The Hummingbird Bakery is a sweet tooth’s delight. The cupcakes are legendary and our special occasions are always chock full of Hummingbird goodies’, she coos. Poor Gwynnie doesn’t know what she was missing! Whilst I admire all of that discipline and self control, I don’t think any of us were put on planet Earth to spend our lives in self denial; to pinch ourselves off from the wonder of every type of food. Not even to land a role in a movie or advertise perfume. Not even to date Ben Affleck. Not even to have the ‘required credentials’ to set up the much revered Goop lifestyle website.
4) That co-parenting thing…
Or maybe that’s just sticking plaster for the fact we are baffled at her for not staying with Coldplay‘s Chris Martin. He’d have had most of us with the first strum of his guitar… and the rest of us with a twinkle and wink from those angelic blue eyes. How could she be so wasteful we inwardly scream! But look, none of us know what goes on behind closed doors. And at least they are being sensible about it. At least they are putting their own happiness first in order to be better parents. Heck, how many parents out there stay together ‘for the sake of the children’ and imbue their offspring with their resentment and depression? It’s all too easy to be judgmental of those in the limelight. And I can’t help but wonder if our private lives were splashed all over the papers and online media, how would our own relationship and parenting stories play out?
5) The girl can cook. She can really cook.
No dairy/no sugar/no wheat/no soy/no shellfish/no deep water fish/no coffee/no alcohol recipes might not float all of our boats, but there’s no denying her talents in the kitchen. Gwyneth has a string of cookbooks, hundreds of foodie blogs and millions of foodie followers to her name.
6) She talks in LaLa Land Lingo.
Take one of her recent claims that ‘water has feelings’. Well actually, she’s not so very wrong! In recent years it’s been scientifically proven by Japanese Dr. Masaru Emoto that our positive and negative energy can literally change the atomic make up of H2O. It’s just a shame that Gwyneth doesn’t make the same connection when it comes to our thoughts about the labeling of cupcakes as inherently bad… our bodies are 70% water after all, so the same principle applies to our cells when they decide based on our feelings whether they will do helpful or unhelpful things with all of that sugar!
7) The New York Food Stamp Challenge.
Oh heck, was this a recent biggie! The organic morello cherry on top of the gluten free butternut squash and stevia cake to be precise. But give her her due: she tried to live on a budget of $29 for a week (but then as many of us love to be bitter lemons about) ended up spending it all on seven limes, an avocado, coriander and kale – and a couple of other healthy bits and bobs, I’m sure. Still, she tried in the same way all of us try… and spectacularly fail to take on our own personal challenges. Surely that’s better than not trying at all. She made it to day 4 and for that I think we have to cut her some slack. The very fact that she flunked out has to be a positive in itself; she highlighted how impossible it was to eat healthily for seven days on not very much money. And she highlighted this in such a public way that maybe, just maybe, it will in time lead to change.
Excuse the culinary pun, but I think what it all boils down to with Gwyneth is this: Everything this lady does (that gets under our skin) is a reflection of the crappy thoughts in own inner world; the incessant mental chatter of our ego telling us how we are measuring up. And when we step back and look at it like this, we actually have a lot to thank Gwyneth for. She’s a spiritual teacher mirroring back to us our own paranoia.
Certainly GP could have been the quintessential popular blonde girl at any one of my schools. She’s the one I thought I had to be, the standard by which I had to measure myself… a long time ago of course, before I discovered that I was actually really rather happy to be me, and that I – and I alone – was responsible for that happiness.
And I think (no, make that I know), that for all those of you out there whose buttons Gwynnie currently pushes… well, there’s a little internal work of your own to be done.
– Why does she irritate you so much? The answer to that will be a corker ‘cos it will tell you exactly what characteristic you loathe most in yourself… and are fearful of being judged for.
– Could she be showing you where your own perceived ‘failures’ lie?
– Do you secretly wish you had more staying power when it comes to your own diet?
Well, those are just a few to get you started.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Goodie Gwynnie Two Shoes is a Good Egg.
Just preferably organic.
