Anne Hathaway, Ourselves

We certainly did like her, then. That was only about seven months ago.

Then, somehow, women seem to have decided to hate her. Perhaps because it feels like she betrayed us. We liked her before she lived on two squares of oatmeal paste a day to lose a massive amount of weight. And before every interview seemed to revolve around her weight loss. That was also before she began actively and obviously trying to make herself more “likable.”

We liked Anne, basically, when she behaved exactly the way a lot of us would if we were one of the most well-known celebrities in the world.

We hate her, in short, because we know, deep in our hearts, that if we were as famous, we’d act exactly the same.

We like to believe we wouldn’t. It’s much nicer to believe that we’d be just like Jennifer Lawrence, laughing about how dieting sucks and falling on the stairs without really worrying about it. Being awesome, basically. We like to believe that we would spend every second of every day being effortlessly off-the-cuff cool and funny, just like Jennifer Lawrence.

We wouldn’t.

Expecting celebrities to be relaxed and entertaining authentic is expecting a lot with no additional pressures. They’re under huge scrutiny as is and, if they are remotely intelligent, they’re well aware that everything they do is going to be replayed — and replayed, and replayed — afterwards. In my life I’ve known a handful of people who legitimately seem cool and utterly in the moment 90% of the time. I’ve known many more who have assertively stated that they are a go-with-the-flow kind of person when they are actually…the exact opposite. That’s okay. Being cool requires a level of comfort in one’s own skin that is rare. That level of comfort is even more elusive when you are dealing with a group of people who have sought out a profession that demands they pretend to be someone else much of the time.

Let’s be honest: Most people are more Anne Hathaway than Jennifer Lawrence. That is to say that we are good at preparation. We make intelligent choices. We probably even promote causes we believe in, as Hathaway does with her anti-violence organization. We work hard at tasks assigned to us. And, even if we try not to care, we do want people to like us. (Not to say Jennifer Lawrence isn’t any of these things; it’s just that Anne more proactively is.)

These are attributes that lend themselves well to most occupations and interactions in daily life. They do not, however, necessarily guarantee one’s ability to be funny and charming if cameras are thrust in front of our faces. I feel fairly certain that if I were in Hollywood and being photographed at random times, it would take about a week before I started dieting. It would take two weeks before I started preparing everything I said. Everything. I would begin drafting speeches to greet the barrista at Starbucks in the morning.

Still, even as I realize that, I want Anne Hathaway to seem cooler.

Perhaps that is because we want our stars to represent the best of us. For all the endless articles reminding us that celebrities are “just like us”, we actually want and expect them to be better. We’d like them to be very cool. Someone to emulate. After all, if a person is going to be given countless riches simply for going to work, we want to feel that we have picked someone exceedingly special — not someone who is dorky, and awkward, and exactly like ourselves.

Anne Hathaway truly is just like us.

And Jennifer Lawrence? Well, Jennifer Lawrence is like the coolest girl in high school who also happens to be the nicest. She’s the kind of star who is sparkling and bright and totally removed from the majority of human beings. And that dazzling quality will last until the moment when she messes up and says or does something ridiculous in front of a reporter. Since that happens to everyone eventually, I’d give it about seven more months.