I got rather excited when I came across this article by Annette Bourdeau in the Huffington Post entitled: "10 Actresses I'd Rather See in the IronMan Suit". Silly me. I thought it was an Ironman reboot idea with a woman as IronMan.
I was wrong.
It was just another, incredibly unsubtle, personal attack on Gwyneth Paltrow. Now, I'm not a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow as an actress. This is simply because I don't happen to enjoy the types of films she appears in. In fact, the only movies I have enjoyed in which Paltrow appears are the IronMan franchise and the Avengers. I'm a huge fan of superhero movies and not-so-much the Hollywood version of the 'arthouse film'. With the exception of the films Hook, Seven and Shakespeare in Love, I genuinely can't name another film Paltrow has been in.
I'm also not a fan of Goop. It is beyond ridiculous. It fails to acknowledge the reality of the lives of women who are not wealthy and white. It represents everything I loathe about our capitalist-patriarchal culture. I can not accurately define my hatred for Goop and the heteronormative, white, rich, and consumerist construction of a reality it endorses which is unachievable by 98% of the planet who don't have servants and nannies and are unable to spend 10 hours a day at the gym working on their upper arms. This ignores the frankly dangerous "healthy eating" advice in both Goop and the spin-off "cookbook".
However, I equally dislike the personal nature of the attacks on Paltrow. Granted she has form for making statements which are remarkably lacking in self-awareness but that is hardly shocking for someone as privileged as Paltrow. Her inability to understand the reality the rest of us live in is a problem but insulting Paltrow won't change that. Yes, she needs to take some personal responsibility for her own comments but, really, she's hardly responsible the body in which she was born. Paltrow is hardly responsible for being placed on the cover of People Magazines notoriously misogynistic '50 Most Beautiful People' edition.
I get that Annette Bourdeau hates Paltrow but phrases like 'smug mug' are waltzing into the territory commonly referred to as misogyny. Goop deserves all the criticism it gets. Paltrow deserves criticism for her, generally ridiculous, statements and her inability to see her privilege but we need to focus our criticism on her actions and words and not reinforce the misogyny of our capitalist-patriarchy by using misogynistic language to denigrate the work of a talented actress.
Goop is the problem.
The capitalist-patriarchy is the problem.
Our heteronormative, white supremacist culture is the problem.
We need to focus our anger on them and not waste time in personal attacks.
Personal attacks on other women achieve nothing.
We need to call Paltrow out on her lack of awareness of her privilege but in a manner which does not involve misogynistic language and abuse.
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