This Week in Gossip #20

The Hathaway hate was stupid, Sean Combs is a creep, and AI continues to ruin our lives.

1. The Hatha-hate Had a Major Impact on Anne Hathaway’s Career Until Christopher Nolan Saved Her

Remember when everyone hated Anne Hathaway? Wasn’t that an especially stupid period in our hellish timeline? I’ve always liked Hathaway. I was the right age for The Princess Diaries (and I loved those books) and I kept following her after she made the leap into more serious dramas like Brokeback Mountain. She’s pretty, funny, talented, can sing, and is an expert at smacking down creepy dudes in interviews. So, when she faced this ridiculous online backlash during her Oscar campaign for Les Misérables for, gasp, being earnest and wanting to win, I disliked it immediately. Being a bit corny but always professional was apparently the biggest crime a woman could face in the public eye, and the harassment was extreme.

Nowadays we’ve mercifully moved on from that nonsense and Hathaway’s popularity has grown. She’s currently promoting her latest film, The Idea of You (which is definitely not Harry Styles fanfic), and her latest Vanity Fair cover shoot is stunning. In the accompanying profile, she talks about the perceptions of her image and work that have permeated her life, for better or worse, and dealing with being so thoroughly lambasted by strangers for no dang reason. She also reveals that the Hatha-hate wasn’t simply a personal low but a professional one too.

Despite having attained one of the highest honours in her field, she says, “a lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online. I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.” She thanks Nolan for casting her as (a super underrated Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises) and helping her to retain the momentum she may otherwise have lost.

It really is so much harder for women in Hollywood, right? Imagine being some stooge in a suit and thinking they shouldn't hire Hathaway because of some tweets. Every awards season gets its villain but it is glaring how forcefully cruel the narrative was about Hathaway at the time. She was endlessly contrasted with that year's Best Actress winner, Jennifer Lawrence, because Lawrence was seen as cool and relaxed and no-f*cks-given. Of course, Lawrence faced her own backlash when people claimed that image was too try-hard and tedious.

I think one of the reasons people had their belated realizations about their behaviour towards Hathaway is because it reminded so many of us of how women who try to keep up with an unbalanced system are doomed to fail. She did everything “right” in terms of what’s demanded of women in entertainment and they told her it was too much. And we keep seeing this cycle go on. Look at how Rachel Zegler faces many of the same kinds of harassment over her earnest theatre kid energy and it being twisted to suit some “cancel culture” bro nonsense about her disrespecting Snow White fans. Okay, dude. Whatever you say. Let’s just stop setting women up like this, and let Anne Hathaway dance in Valentino to “Lady Marmalade” whenever she wants.