When Gwyneth Paltrow stirred controversy this week by comparing her daily struggles with internet trolls to the “dehumanising” experience of soldiers at war, she messed with the wrong woman: Cindy McCain.
Hearing about Paltrow’s comments, the wife of Arizona Senator John McCain took to Twitter, calling the actress “a joke” and stating that “My 2 sons serving in the military should talk to her.” (McCain’s son Jimmy served in Iraq as a Marine and her son Jack is a Navy lieutenant.)
In an interview on Thursday with HLN Now TV, she went a step further, calling Paltrow’s comments “ignorant” and “selfish” and offering to take her to meet with veterans.
“I would encourage Gwyneth Paltrow - and I would be happy to go with her - to go sit down with some troops who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq and talk to them about what really goes on, and perhaps meet some of the young men and women who have lost limbs from this,” Cindy McCain said. “It’s Hollywood; I don’t know what else to say.”
Paltrow, the Academy Award-winning actress and founder of goop.com, made the comments this week at a technology “Code Conference” hosted by Re/code that delved into internet culture.
“You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it’s a very dehumanising thing. It’s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanising thing, and then something is defined out of it,” Paltrow said at the conference, according Re/code’s write-up of the event. “My hope is, as we get out of it, we’ll reach the next level of conscience.”
Paltrow went on to say that the internet offers amazing opportunities to “mature and learn,” but also “to project outward our hatred” through anonymous comments.
McCain, who got her share of unpleasant internet scrutiny during her husband’s two presidential campaigns, first shared a link to Paltrow’s comments on her Twitter feed via the conservative website Breitbart.
After proposing on Twitter that Paltrow meet with her sons, she fired off a second tweet suggesting that the actress “should go out on patrol with some soldiers. Kind of like a Red Carpet in her mind, I guess.”
Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
Oh, its not easy being Charlize Theron either...
Charlize Theron doesn’t Google herself. Which is just as well, given what’s being said about her today.
The Oscar-winning actress caused an online furore after comparing press coverage of her private life to rape. The comment came during a Sky News interview in the UK, where she was promoting her new film A Million Ways to Die in the West.
Theron’s interviewer mentioned he had typed her name into Google and was surprised to see so much gossip about her boyfriends, appearance and children. Her reaction was adamant.
“I don’t do that. When you start living in that world, and doing that, you start, I guess, feeling raped,” she said.
“When it comes to your son and your private life…some people might relish in all of that stuff…but there are certain things in my life that I think of as very sacred and I’m very protective over them.”
“That doesn’t mean that I always win that war, but as long as I don’t have to see that stuff or read that stuff or hear that stuff, then I can live with my head in a clear space.”
But online communities seized on Theron’s “rape” analogy, accusing her of being insensitive and trivialising sexual assault. Some users commented that while a life in the public eye is a choice, rape is not.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebri ... z33FlzJmaC
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
When successful actors and actresses try to compare their experiences to the real life travails of real people, it never makes them look good...
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
Paltrow is insipid - she needs to just shut up.
As to Charlize - it goes too far to analogize to rape of one's bodily integrity, but still, the instrusion into private matters that is experienced by celebrities in our culture - I wouldn't want it, no matter how much $$$ was on offer. If it was really my art, my calling to be an actor - I'd be f*****g pissed!
As to Charlize - it goes too far to analogize to rape of one's bodily integrity, but still, the instrusion into private matters that is experienced by celebrities in our culture - I wouldn't want it, no matter how much $$$ was on offer. If it was really my art, my calling to be an actor - I'd be f*****g pissed!
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
~ Carl Sagan
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Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
But how does this affect Chris Martin?????????When Gwyneth Paltrow stirred controversy this week
But seriously, talk about inserting oneself just to take umbrage. Cindy McCain should STFU, too.
As for Charlize Theron, yeah, over-the-top hyperbole.
But are we really at a point in society where the use of certain words or analogies is taboo? Such that people (actors, for goodness sake!) have to self-censor to avoid the wrath of the intertubes? (And, as Gob's sig line reminds us, the Internet really does hate everything, so no good will ever come of anything anyone says that can be reported on the Internet.)
Some people have way to much time on their hands if they're getting their panties so bunched up over such off-the-cuff comments from actors.
GAH!
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
Just another example of people who seem to be looking to be offended so they can attempt to look like some sort of hero to people who also want to be offended.
Paltrow's comment wasn't unusual for her. She's like Sarah Palin. Anyone trying to find anything meaningful in her words is just as dumb as she is. If McCain wants to make a point, she should save her publicly displayed outrage for offensive comments that people might actually take seriously.
The reaction to Theron's comment is the exactly the kind of idiocy she was referencing when she said it. The paparazzi and press stalk her every day and attempt to find something they can put on the internet for the pleasure of people who get off on that sort of trash.
I'm offended by people who state publicly that we should be offended by things that we wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't said anything...
Paltrow's comment wasn't unusual for her. She's like Sarah Palin. Anyone trying to find anything meaningful in her words is just as dumb as she is. If McCain wants to make a point, she should save her publicly displayed outrage for offensive comments that people might actually take seriously.
The reaction to Theron's comment is the exactly the kind of idiocy she was referencing when she said it. The paparazzi and press stalk her every day and attempt to find something they can put on the internet for the pleasure of people who get off on that sort of trash.
I'm offended by people who state publicly that we should be offended by things that we wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't said anything...
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
I take offense at that.I'm offended by people who state publicly that we should be offended by things that we wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't said anything...
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
In the latest episode of ‘Gwyneth Paltrow states the absolute ridiculous’, the actress has claimed that saying negative things to water can hurt its feelings.
The ‘consciously uncoupled’ star revealed that she follows the work of Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, whose experiments attempt to investigate whether human consciousness has a direct effect on the molecular structure of water.
His theories go as far as to claim that shouting at rice – as one so frequently does – could turn it bad.
“I am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter,” Paltrow wrote in a blog post for her much derided clean living website GOOP.
“I have long had Dr Emoto's coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around it.”
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
At least Miss Theron seems to be aware that the definition of the word 'rape' extends beyond sexual rape...
Why is it that when Miley Cyrus gets naked and licks a hammer it's 'art' and 'edgy' but when I do it I'm 'drunk' and 'banned from the hardware store'?
Re: Life's hard being Gwyneth Paltrow
Paltrow didn't say anything about being A SOLDIER IN A WAR, she spoke of living through a war, presumably as a civilian. What she said was both understandable and appropriate. She was talking about being defined in the public eye by factors out side your control.
Theron used an analogy that was also understandable. People constantly talk about getting "killed," being "screwed," and in particular, "getting the shaft," which is also, you may know, a reference to being raped.
If these two women weren't beautiful and idolized there would be no notice whatsover of their totally unremarkable comments.
Theron used an analogy that was also understandable. People constantly talk about getting "killed," being "screwed," and in particular, "getting the shaft," which is also, you may know, a reference to being raped.
If these two women weren't beautiful and idolized there would be no notice whatsover of their totally unremarkable comments.