Plastic surgery/botox/facial enhancement: who eff-ing cares? Looking gorgeous, youthful and skinny is her job! We as consumers of film and cosmetics demand beautiful young things to sell us things - Nicole is just doing her job. And like we have a right to know if she's had work done or not? No one's business but hers.
Devoid of talent... I'm a lover - y'all know what I think about that!
On the "perfect" point, I think that's an absolutely ridiculous allegation, considering she admitted her heartbreak in painfully real terms following the end of her mysterious marriage to Tom Cruise (remember when she said she couldn't get off the couch?); she discussed her miscarriage; hubby #2 went to rehab after just a few months of marriage etc. Doesn't exactly sound perfect to me. Just because she's a highly successful actress, her life is in order now and her career has until recently been going great guns, I don't think she could be labelled "perfect". Can you imagine how damaged she would have been after being married to control freak Tom Cruise for 10 freakin years?! Good on her for getting her shiz together and being at the top of her game all at once. Screw the critics!
Lately, Nicole has been branded a ratings-killer for any new film. From my biased view, I think people are angry that a woman of her age is still working successfully in Hollywood, when all the other actresses her age are washed-up rehab attendees. I also think people are angry that she hasn't opened up to the world in the manner in which we as celebrity-gossip consumbers have become accustomed: even though she has talked about heartbreak and challenges in her life, I think the haters might feel a bit ripped off that they haven't had the chance to really witness her demise (so I suppose in their mind - it's another lie) - call it schedanfreude (I'm sure I spelt that wrong). There was no headshaving, no nickerless partying, no tears. No solid, photographic evidence that her life fell apart. Being a strong female does not serve you well if you plan on being in the public eye. Lindy Chamberlain was hung out to dry for not giving the public their pound of voyeuristic flesh - her failure to cry in public convinced most of Australia she had killed her child. She's since been proven innocent. Julia Gillard has been lambasted in the media for failing to live up to the stereotype of the childbearing, fertile, occasionally-teary woman. Most of the haters of Nicole are women. Men say she's too skinny and looks like an alien, but they don't hate her. Sometimes, I think we women are our own worst enemy. Some women can't take real pleasure in other womens' - even their friends' - success: it's always tainted with envy and a need to reduce the success in their own mind (i.e. "I could do that standing on my head"; or "if I'd applied, I would have got it" or "it doesn't even look that good on her anyway" etc). By the same token, these women take unusual pleasure in other people's failure or nervous breakdown or financial struggles or break-up with seemingly perfect boyfriend ("I knew it was too good to be true!" shrill, triumphant squeal). Sometimes it's hard not to be jealous of someone else's success, and I think that's healthy - it inspires you to greater things. But to need to break that happiness or success down, or feel good about your friend's misery - that's just effed up!
I just went off topic. This became a rant. Sorry guys.
Back to topic:
I'm a lover of Nicole, so this hatred comes as an absolute shock to me. I think she's a great actress - she just happens to occasionally choose roles where she needs to play a restrained, cold person (particularly in The Others - but I actually thought she was great in that). Don't get me started on how great I thought she was in Moulin Rouge, but I now realise Nicole is not for everyone.
A recent survey of 1,000 Australians (that's not a very big sample!) found that 58% liked her, and 23% didn't! Slightly less than the painful Delta Goodrem, who is disliked by 24%.
Anyway - Nicole was recently nominated by Glamour magazine to be one of their Women of the Year. Damn right too. :o)Here are some extracts (not authored by me) of the interview:
- She is an ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), yet isn't photographed on the ground like Angelina Jolie despite making a point of visiting women's shelters in places like Kosovo when she can (she says "I feel dedicated to giving back to other women"). She also works to raise funds for breast and ovarian cancer (like Sarah Murdoch - and we all love her, right?);
- She had to endure her new husband's stint in rehab in the face of a judgmental public but held her head high and is now positively circumspect about the experience ("the experience gave us deep honesty");
- She was married to a crazy person, but has never spoken a bad word about Tom or Katie (unlike Jennifer Aniston), even joking with Glamour about her kids: "They're used to having a little one around, because of Suri. Bella is very maternal. Connor would like one of us to have a boy. Katie?"
- She felt inferior as an actress when she was married to Tom: "I felt I became a star only by association. I didn't think [the early movies] were very good, which is why I would always cower in the background. I thought, I don't deserve to be here... I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and be seen but not heard."
- She was single for six years: "I went six years alone. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it's better to be alone than in a lousy relationship. Work was my escape. I was existing more strongly in my creative world than in my own world... I had to find my own identity and reason for being here, and it couldn't be because of another person."
- Even after winning her Oscar, she felt inferior, telling Glamour she went home early but if she could have the moment again would "stop being so shy and insecure, and revel in it... and go back to the Vanity Fair party!"
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