If you want confirmation that the digital mob hates young women then have a look at what didn’t recently happen to Timothée Chalamet.
A month ago the twinkly young actor unexpectedly beat Adrien Brody to best actor at the Screen Actors Guild awards. He did not respond with expected feet-shuffling humility. “I want to be one of the greats,” he said. “I’m inspired by the greats. I’m inspired by the greats here tonight.”
He went on to note that he drew inspiration from Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, Viola Davis, Michael Jordan ... Why stop there? Why not put yourself in the same talent stream as Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar?
Okay, it would be wrong to suggest there was no blowback. Social media had a bit of fun with it. Vogue wondered if the speech was “manosphere-enabled overconfidence” on its way to finding little to properly bemoan. The general feeling was, however, joy at an actor showing a bit of blood-and-guts ambition. Fair enough. Long may the young fellow prosper.
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The digital haters are out again. Look at what they’ve done to Millie Bobby Brown and Rachel Zegler
Here’s the thing. Would the reaction be the same if such a speech had been delivered by, oh, I don’t know, Millie Bobby Brown or Rachel Zegler?
Both young actors have recently been through the mill. Following the premiere of the Russo brothers’ underwhelming The Electric State, social and antisocial media went ballistic about the perceived alterations in Brown’s appearance. The difficulty with discussing such unseemly controversies is that, to establish context, one has to repeat a portion of the slurs. With apologies, the main line of attack is that the English actor is looking dramatically older than she did when she emerged as a child star in Stranger Things. We need not explain the implications there.
“I think [the press] need to go back to school and learn how to speak to people,” she said on Instagram earlier this month. “Be kind and just understand that we’re all growing people, we all make mistakes. Ultimately, the standards and stigmas against girls – it’s ridiculous.”
Elsewhere, on another red carpet, Rachel Zegler was celebrating the arrival of Disney’s Snow White. Or is “celebrating” the word? “Disney scales back Snow White Hollywood premiere amid Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot controversies,” Variety told us on March 11th. The trade paper observed that “the red carpet will not include the dozens of media outlets usually invited”. There was no confirmation from Disney that this had anything to do with the “controversies”, but the fact Variety included that word in the headline is significant.
The chatter was partly to do with the two actors’ differing approaches to the conflict in Gaza. Gadot, who served as a combat trainer in the Israel Defense Forces, has been supportive of her home country. Zegler, a member of Artists4Ceasefire, signed a letter imploring President Biden to facilitate a cessation of the bombing in Gaza.
Most of the fury around Zegler has, however, concerned considerably less significant issues (or no real issues at all). Again, it is playing the gossipmongers’ game to list even a handful, but some impression should be given.
There was the supposedly controversial notion of someone of Colombian descent playing a character with “white” in her name. Early on, she said she had found the 1937 version of Snow White too frightening to watch as a kid (surely a compliment). When, asked why she appeared in Shazam! 2, she remarked that she “needed a job” it was decided she was being arrogant (or something).
There is a lot more of this rubbish, but nothing gives a better sense of the tone than the criticism on TikTok of her apparently eccentric posture when walking onstage with Gadot at the Oscars. (She’s just walking.)
The average bully at a US high school would barely bother with this stuff. You walk funny? Really? Then again, one tragedy of modern communication is that those average bullies now have a platform where they can gather to torment any young woman foolish enough to achieve even a sliver of fame.
The high-school analogy could hardly be more appropriate. A supposed original slight is forgotten in the mists as hostility broods and festers over rumbling years. Can anyone remember why the online masses originally turned against the admirable Anne Hathaway? “I did have the internet turn on me and hate me and it was like a whole big thing,” she noted a few years ago. Let us say it again. Young men don’t get this.
Zegler, like Hathaway, may have her revenge. She is the best thing in the not-very-good Snow White. More importantly, in the days before that film landed, she learned she was to play the lead in a new production of Evita at the London Palladium. That’s how you shake ’em off.
