When rich people show off their houses in Architectural Digest there’s typically a slew of “If I had that kind of money!” observations. But for once, I think the people of the internet will be united, at least by one area of the house – the reading nook.
Celebrity home tours are a binary: either the house is so devoid of colour that the all-white-everything looks like a place where housewives in the 1950s were held against their will for “nervousness” or it is so overstuffed with hand-painted wallpaper and hand-carved trinkets that it feels like it’s trying so hard to be charming. The homes look unlived in.
Jennifer Garner’s new home is lived in. There’s a lot of wood but she doesn’t talk about where the wood comes from (it’s a frequent topic of discussion in these videos). The sofas look like people sit on them, not medieval torture chambers. She talks about people wearing shoes in the house! (Side note: no.) And kids running inside from the pool, dripping all over the house. That is not a stressor you make up for the cameras – she is legitimately worried about that piano. Instead of turf or perfectly manicured grass, there’s clover and fruit trees fed with a grey water system.
As artificial and contrived as these parasocial relations are, there is something disarmingly trustworthy about her.
I believe she cooks in her kitchen and it gets messy and there’s always sh-t on the counter. I believe that the books in the library (not to be confused with a separate reading nook!) have been cracked open. And when she pulls out her children’s toys – some of which are plastic and contain primary colours – I fully believe she’s hanging onto those “just in case.” Oh and that reading nook – it is for anyone who has ever thought, “If I was rich, I wouldn’t want an 18-car garage or an industrial hibachi grill, just a cozy window nook.” This tour is for you.
Watching her walk through her choices with self-effacing delight, it’s clear that Jennifer Garner actually lives the way so many celebrities pretend to live.
For a very long time, I was not sold on Jennifer Garner and I found her to be a little too saccharine, but now I realize that was probably a bit of internalized misogyny. Moreover, looking back now on when she had young children and Ben Affleck was being Ben Affleck… that must have been hard. Very hard. Combined with the fact that she took a big step back for many years while he soared, with her support, I see Jennifer Garner in a very different light.
I’m rewatching Sex and the City (I’m basic, I know!) and there’s a scene of Carrie running into Big at the furniture show and he says he’s leaving Natasha. She later tells her friends at brunch that he’s getting divorced and Samantha says, “Let's just say it. You won.”
Jennifer Garner doesn’t seem petty, but she went through it. There were a lot of years and a lot of very damaging and embarrassing stories that she had to endure. She isn’t competing against anyone, but let’s just say it: she’s won.
