OK, you guys? JENNIFER LAWRENCE IS NORMAL.
Anne Hathaway’s Oscar message is that she’s not sexy and she has to try harder than everyone else, always with an apology. Jennifer Lawrence’s overall message, one that she consistently puts out there in every interview, is that, despite having one of the best years in Hollywood, with a proper franchise on her resume (Hunger Games) and, presumably, about to receive her second Oscar nomination, at just 22, she is NORMAL.
Here’s Lawrence on the cover of the new issue of Vanity Fair. I’ve not read the entire piece but going by the preview on the VF website, the major, MEGA MEGA, might as well be in BOLD PRINT takeaway from the article seems to be that even though she’s widely considered to be an acting phenom, with the kind of range and versatility that someone like, say, Ashley Greene shouldn’t even dream of, she is, in the writer’s words “the rare celebrity who sounds more like a human being than a well-coached product”.
Or, maybe that’s exactly how she’s been coached and she’s just doing it very, very, VERY well? Either way, the objective is to convince you that she’s not up her own ass. She describes herself as “vastly uneducated”, then the journalist goes on to note that she reads the classics and is an intelligent and diverse conversationalist but is still so age-appropriate that she freely talks about getting “slaughtered” on red carpets. And the combination of all that is why she was named the World’s Most Desirable Woman.
Hot, but not too smart, but not dumb. But hot.
Which, really, is a prescription that’s been dictated by men anyway so...is that all? Is that all we have to be?
Just like Jen?
Who is Jen?
Well, Jen can be a fangirl too:
“Once I’m obsessed with somebody, I’m terrified of them instantly. I’m not scared of them—I’m scared of me and how I will react. Like, for instance, one time someone was introducing me to Bill Maher, and I saw Meryl Streep walk into the room, and I literally put my hand right in Bill Maher’s face and said, ‘Not now, Bill!,’ and I just stared at Meryl Streep. I just creepily stared at her.”
But even though she has her idols, at the same time, since she’s so NORMAL, Jen also realises that what they do and what she does too is really not all that special. And rather than giving it the gravitas that James Franco applies to his work, she sees her job in a much less illuminating way:
“Not to sound rude, but [acting] is stupid. Everybody’s like, ‘How can you remain with a level head?’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I ever get cocky? I’m not saving anybody’s life. There are doctors who save lives and firemen who run into burning buildings. I’m making movies. It’s stupid.’”
I don’t disagree. I wouldn’t say it’s stupid, but too many of them try and make it way too cerebral with the arts and the crafts of it all. At the very least, Jennifer Lawrence isn’t trying to big-word me into believing that. As for whether or not the comments are disingenuous and calculated, the suggestion is the exact opposite: that Lawrence is spontaneous and unfiltered, and though she may f-ck up on occasion, put her foot in her mouth, she’s not a machine who just pukes out whatever she’s been told. Not unlike, for example, what we’re expected to believe of Kristen Stewart, only one comes by it awkwardly and defensive and the other delivers it with a big smile and a goofy shrug.
As the target audience then, to whom she’s selling, do you buy it or do you leave it?
Click here for more from Jennifer Lawrence in Vanity Fair.
