LAST WEEK, two famous actresses felt the wrath of the Internet — Gwyneth Paltrow and Charlize Theron. Paltrow is her own worst enemy. I don’t quite understand the hate for her “out there” but it’s real and, alas, she feeds it by continually taking to her website to sound off. (She called her website Goop, of all things. The girl can’t help it.) Sometimes what she says is absurdly pretentious. Sometimes she has a point. Her most recent gaffe was using the analogy of warfare in the matter of, well — being so hated by so many who don’t know her at all. This raised such a ruckus that the lovely Cindy McCain, wife of presidential loser John McCain gave an interview calling Paltrow a “fool” and inviting her to go to Afghanistan to see “what real warfare is like.” Ludicrous! Paltrow was using the word “war” as a metaphor. Just a few years ago, nobody would have thought about her remark, one way or another. Now she has to be burned at the stake. Or at least dragged to the Mid-East. CHARLIZE THERON has always been pretty well-liked by the anonymous hordes out there in the dark, in their pajamas. But she caused an even greater “scandal” than Miss Paltrow when she compared being chased by paparazzi and hounded by rumors about her personal life to — being raped. Eh, perhaps she should have said “violated.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have taken the bait when the interviewer opened the subject of an “intrusive” press. But she didn’t and she did and so now she, too, must be consigned to the flames. Charlize participated in an anti-rape campaign aimed at her own country of South Africa, so she is not clueless or insensitive on the subject. She was just talking. The way people have always talked without being rapped on the knuckles with a sledgehammer. Here’s the real ironic kicker. We are so politically correct now. Absurdly so. But that means we are all much, much kinder, more sensitive in how we express ourselves, right? Wrong!! The online comments about Paltrow and Charlize are mind-bendingly vile. Cruel, vicious. So many people who claimed to be offended by Miss Theron’s remark wished rape upon her! It seems that our culture, fueled by social media, demands correct behavior and careful conversation. But in the safe anonymity of their bedrooms and living rooms, typing furiously on their keyboards, millions spew out the worst words imaginable. (Oh, and if you think racism is something we don’t have to worry about anymore, check out the comments section on an Obama story. Scary!) Miss Theron is being pressed to apologize. She and her press reps are likely talking it over. She’ll probably feel she has to. Maybe she’ll even want to. That’s up to her. Nobody with half a brain thinks Charlize really equates her experiences in show biz with the brutality of rape. But we are also in an era of fake outrage — being all worked up just for the fun of it, just to make noise. So all those who have nothing better to do with their time than envy and despise celebrities — while remaining obsessed with what they do, where they go, whom they date — will bray and screech, demanding the tumbrel for the entitled ones, on their way to the online guillotine.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 13:27:47 +0000
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