Jane Heller

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The Anne Hathaway Thing

March 4, 2013

Photo: Vera Anderson/WireImage

What is wrong with people? Everywhere I look there’s another article, blog post or tweet about so-called “Hathaway Hate.” She’s an actress. She plays parts in movies. She wins awards sometimes and gives acceptance speeches that are more than a little grating. So what? She was terrific in “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Brokeback Mountain” and, most recently, “Les Mis” (I haven’t seen her other films), and there’s never a hint of meanness about her, so why all the negative energy directed her way? And why is this starting to feel like bullying? Are we in high school or what?

The Daily Beast attempted to answer the questions in yesterday’s piece about her (see below), but I’m wondering something even more basic: Why aren’t people reserving all this emotion for issues that really matter? And hate? Seriously? Disdain, I get. Envy, I get. Intense feelings of annoyance, I get. But hate is ridiculous. My guess is there will now be a backlash to the backlash, and legions of Hathaway Haters will now become adoring fans.

The Anne Hathaway Hatred Is Out of Control
by Kevin Fallon

Is it her face? Her personality? Is she too perfect? Everyone wants to know why we hate Anne Hathaway. We want to know why they care so much.

Last week Anne Hathaway gave an acceptance speech after she won the best-supporting-actress Oscar for her performance in Les Misérables. You’d think she committed mass murder.

What began as the “cult of Hathahaters” two months ago has simmered, bubbled over, and formed a zeitgeist-seizing, rage-fueled movement against the actress, peaking with a series of think pieces examining what Hathaway has done to trigger such a response. As if it’s some major social or political question that must be answered—like how to prevent the sequester or who should be the next pope—these essays explore every facet of Anne’s very Anne-ness in an attempt to get to the root of the problem.

People are stronger in their convictions on the issue than they are on most platforms that determine presidential elections. Now a hatred has arisen that’s typically reserved for celebrities who go on anti-Semitic rants (hello, Mr. Gibson) or hit their girlfriends (bonjour, Mr. Brown). Hathaway, by comparison, gave some speeches that were kind of annoying. Forget media frenzy. It’s a media pile-on, and it’s out of control.

So what are we supposed to think about her?

“She’s got this theater-kid thing where she adopts the mood of every situation she’s in … but wildly overcompensates every time,” writes The Atlantic Wire’s Richard Lawson. CNN quotes an oratory expert who tells us that Hathaway’s “just one of the people who just doesn’t come off as sincere.” The New Yorker’s Sasha Weiss posits that it’s because the actress appears too happy.

Salon brings in the scientists, who tell us we hate her because of her face. “When times are good, we prefer actresses with rounder faces,” psychology professor Terry Pettijohn says. “They convey these ideas of fun and youth.” But Hathaway’s face is bony and slender! “As the economy improves, Hathaway—whose peak of fame, post-boyfriend, pre–Oscar hosting, came amid the 2008 crash—may just be a reminder of bad times.” Science.

After a report came out that the star rehearsed her Oscar speech to sound less annoying, Rich Juzwiak at Gawker wrote: “It creates a new reason to be mad at Anne Hathaway. It’s one thing if she’s just being herself; it’s another if she’s trying to be likable and failing.”

Over at The Cut, Ann Friedman examines what we perceive to be Hathaway’s most egregious crime: she’s not Jennifer Lawrence.

What if Twitter had existed when Sally Field bragged about how we really like her?

The culturewide attack on the Hathaway is utterly bizarre—except that it isn’t. It is the rawest example yet of our 2013, Twitter-loving, insta-pundit, mountain-out-of-a-molehill media culture. It’s not that we judge stars more than we used to. It’s that we now have the platform to do it in real time and expect those being judged to care enough to respond and take action, again in real time.

It’s not only changed our relationship with celebrities but the notion of what we want celebrities to be. The picture of practiced perfection that Hathaway puts forth is becoming increasingly antiquated. Look at how celebrated stars like Lena Dunham and Jennifer Lawrence are, or how popular the Honey Boo Boos and Teen Moms have become, for proof that we now prefer to see our celebrities warts and all. It’s no longer unattainable perfection that our society is admiring. It’s relatability and fallibility we adore, and we adore it in 140 characters or less.

“Stars, they’re just like us” is no longer just a cute gossip-rag feature. It’s a societal demand. Even the word “diva,” once used as a respect-demanding label for female celebrities who have earned through fabulousness and talent the right to be fawned over and catered to, is now applied almost exclusively as an insult. If we can’t imagine ourselves being like a celebrity, at least we’d like to imagine they’re someone we could hang out with. Lawrence, for example, seems like the girl you could have a beer with. Hathaway seems like the girl who says she doesn’t drink beer.

And, yes, that is an absolutely ridiculous judgment. So why are so many people making it?

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing for The Atlantic, puts it perfectly. “I recognize that there is an entire publicity industry designed to get us to ‘like’ people whom we essentially pay to see work,” he writes. “And perhaps it’s fair to judge whether or not that industry has been effective in making you think you know Hathaway in a way that you probably do not. But the fact remains that you don’t really know any of these people.”

“Anne Hathaway is an actor,” Coates continues. “This is not a synonym for ‘Homecoming Queen’ nor ‘special friend.’ She does her job better than most. That should be enough.”

But again, in the age of Twitter and a culture that fosters opining and encourages more than ever the sharing of opinions, that’s not enough, and the growing “Hathahate” movement is the best example of that yet. It used to be that stories like this had blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shelf lives. Now they explode into weeks-long debates on social media, then online media, and then news media. It’s not just a few people asking, “Isn’t Anne Hathaway just a little bit much?” It’s a few people asking that and starting a national conversation.

Hathaway has breathlessly thanked every member of her “team” during her countless awards-season acceptance speeches. (And we mean every member.) Have they failed her by not “fixing” whatever this likability problem is?

Perhaps. One thing is clear: Hathaway was superb in Les Misérables. She seems like a sweet lady. Maybe now, with our collective obsession over how much we hate her, we are the ones who are being just a little bit much.

Filed Under: Fashion, Mainly Jane, Movies, Popular culture Tagged With: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables, The Daily Beast

Movie Day: "Les Miserables"

December 8, 2012

 

Today I was lucky enough to have a Cinema Society screening of “Les Mis” ahead of its Christmas Day opening. I’d write something but I’m still emotionally drained; I literally sobbed during much of the movie.

Okay, I’m not really that overcome. It just feels that way.

Let me start by saying I am not a fan of musicals – not musical theater and not movie musicals. I get irritated when people break into song in the middle of a scene; it’s always seemed artificial to me. Maybe it was all those childhood years when my parents would drag me into the city to see shows like “My Fair Lady” and “The Sound of Music.” Who knows. The point is I went into today’s screening sort of dreading the 2 1/2+ hour experience, despite Les Mis’s legions of devotees and the rapturous early reviews of the film.

From the opening scene I was hooked. I mean seriously hooked. Hugh Jackman is so much more than a hunky song-and-dance man. He’s an actor who tells a story with every song he sings as the runaway convict. Similarly, Russell Crowe, though not as accomplished vocally, brings a “Gladiator” style muscular quality to his role – the perfect opponent for Jackman. And Anne Hathaway is absolutely heartbreaking as the unwed mother who sings “I Dreamed a Dream” and made me convulse into tears. The movie sags a bit after her character departs. She will walk away with Best Supporting Actress. There can be no debate.

After the film, which received a standing ovation from our audience, we had a Q&A with director Tom Hooper, who’d come to Santa Barbara before when he was on the circuit for “The King’s Speech.” He explained why he decided to go with a “song-through” approach, instead of breaking up dialogue with songs, and I thought it was totally the right choice, despite my aversion to opera. Cast member Eddie Redmayne, the young British actor who was so winning in “My Week with Marilyn,” was also along and he told hilarious stories about his audition, the number of takes required for each song (99% of the actors sang their numbers live, as opposed to lipsynching), and how intimidated he was after the entire crew had watched Hathaway deliver her big number and it was his turn for his.

The movie has its flaws, among them the length and the relentless close-ups of the actors, but it’s fabulous entertainment and I couldn’t recommend it more enthusiastically.

 

Filed Under: Mainly Jane, Movies, Music Tagged With: Anne Hathaway, Cinema Society, Eddie Redmayne, Les Mis, Les Miserables, Russell Crowe, Tom Hooper

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About Jane Heller

Jane Heller is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Her fourteen breezy, witty novels of romantic comedy and suspense are now entertaining millions of readers around the world, along with her two books of nonfiction.

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