I’m not trying to be mean, but what’s going on with Reese Witherspoon’s face on the cover of Glamour? I don’t think it’s Photoshop. I think it’s something weird with her brows. Are they too light? Is it a makeup thing? Hm. Anyway, Reese has been named one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year, alongside women like Victoria Beckham, Caitlyn Jenner, Misty Copeland, Cecile Richards and more. You can read Reese’s rather long and rather butt-kissing interview here. Reese really has successfully rebranded herself from “A-list has-been who got arrested while sh-tfaced in Georgia” to “recent Oscar nominee, powerhouse producer, lifestyle guru and women’s rights advocate.” Are you buying it?
Working motherhood & choices: “I’d always ask my grandma, who was so, so smart, why she didn’t work, and she would explain that her parents didn’t approve of her working after she had children. She didn’t feel like she had choices. And I witnessed it all firsthand. Growing up in the South, it was very patriarchal. When I applied to Stanford, I was told by a [male] college counselor, “You’re never gonna get in, don’t bother. They don’t want you.” I said, “I’m going to try.” And I got in! But I wouldn’t be the woman I am if I hadn’t had that conflict to overcome. It has given me an underdog feeling all my life.”
Why she started developing female-driven films: “I have this drive from my upbringing to be a doer, not just a complainer. I have achieved a certain amount of success, and I felt a responsibility to my daughter and to women in this world to create more opportunities for women. Women of different ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. We’re 50 percent of the population…Shouldn’t we be in 50 percent of the stories?”
How she started developing films: “I just kept complaining and complaining to my husband. He goes, ‘You read more books than anyone I know. Why don’t you start turning them into movies?’ So that’s what I did.”
On #AskHerMore at the Oscars: “I don’t want to discount the beautiful work that the fashion houses do, but somehow, just focusing on what you’re wearing feels reductive. These actresses are there because they made us laugh and made us cry and touched our hearts.”
Potential versus “proving yourself”: “Men rise through the ranks because of potential, but women have to prove themselves—while trying to have children and having no family leave. No woman’s getting hired because of her potential. I hope that we can invest more in female potential.…”
Legally Blonde & Gloria Steinem: “I was debating whether to do Legally Blonde, and I saw this interview with Gloria Steinem about how important Goldie Hawn’s role in Private Benjamin was for women; by the end of the movie, the character socked her fiancé in the face at the altar because he didn’t understand who she’d become through her journey. I was like, “I feel like Gloria Steinem told me to do Legally Blonde. That’s how Elle Woods is too!” She starts out thinking she’s gonna follow a man, but in the end she’s like, “I don’t need you.”
Her lifestyle brand & being compared to other lifestyle people: “I’m always confused about that. Is it more fascinating, perplexing, unbelievable that women are entrepreneurs? A [news] magazine printed a [photo-illustration] of me in a ball gown holding a vacuum cleaner, saying I started a company. Last time I checked, I’m not selling vacuums. It was very sexist. Just “Stay in your lane. We like what you do—don’t try be something else.” But guess what: I hope we all have three or four chapters.
My favorite part is when she’s talking about the Lean In stuff, the “potential” versus “proving oneself.” It’s very true. But I still think the #AskHerMore stuff is utter horsesh-t though, to the point where I think if Reese ever tried to drip her serious-actress sanctimony on a red carpet again, the interviewer should immediately follow up with questions like “So how much are being paid to wear this dress? How much are you being paid to wear this jewelry? Why don’t you want to even mention the name of the designer who is paying you to wear this gown? And now, for something more serious: how do you think your white privilege affected your treatment during your 2013 arrest?”
Photos courtesy of Glamour.
It’s like they tried to use the Cate Blanchett brush tool on her?
Yes! Cate does it better.
I find her super annoying. Couldn’t stand her before the American Citizen mess, and even less so now with the re-branding.
I do too and I don’t even care about the drunk episode. she’s just so stuck up and phony. And guess what, Reese? We WANT to know you made your dress on the red carpet. If I were a designer, I wouldn’t make a dress for anyone who won’t say who their dress was designed by.
I’m conflicted. A lot of what she’s saying is very true, she makes some very good points but then it comes from a horribly entitled person (who reads so many books) who now tries to sell herself as “the underdog”??? The hell? She’s a woman and therefore I believe her when she says she has been disadvantaged because of it but honey, you’re still white and rich. Let’s not go overboard. I’m a woman, I’m white, I’m not rich by ANY means but I was born in one of the top 3 wealthiest countries in the world to parents who gave me ALL the opportunities education-wise. I am by no means an underdog. For the love of god.
This.
I hate how someone like her can say totally true things and still make me want to slap her. Total lack of self awareness.
Says she gets all dressed up every time she goes out…different bags, different shoes, different outfit. She must have a house that’s just closets.
I find her arrogant and annoying.
Doesn’t she also have a clothing line or something?
You can love the fashion and to be feminist in my opinion
You can say many bad thing about Reese but she has her own production company since many years and she produces some movies with a woman as real lead /about the women without to act in it necessarily
She looks good on the cover to me. I like it.
But I also find her very arrogant. She had a new bag, and new clothes every pap walk before she even thought of opening DJ. I think she just tosses away stuff after her pap walks.
I remember way way back when she would use Rebecca Minkoff bags all the time, I guess that contract expired though. She was using Chloe for a long time too. I always envied her bags though. 🙂
Good for Reese.
Despite her mistake she has turned the corner.
She is a perfect example of the disconnect between what someone says and reality. She is right about a lot of what she is saying but your example questions, that no reporter would have the balls to ask, show she does not understand the privilege she enjoys.
This is really turning into the year of white celebrities accidentally showing the limits of their progressive beliefs. Very few are willing or able to engage with the tougher issues of what their privilege has provided them .
I have a hard time seeing her as an underdog at any point in her life, but aside from that I’m liking this interview. I think she makes some good points, and is trying to walk the walk.
I think you can be a privileged white female in America and still experience discrimination because of your gender. Just because you’re privileged in some aspects doesn’t negate your other experiences of being told you’re not good enough for something because you’re female. “Lean In” was written from that perspective and it had a lot of good information.
Agree with you JenB. Not sure I’m being it from Reese though. I’m 200% sure she’d talk about Draper James on the red carpet though. Just not who she’s wearing. Cause, you know, sexist.
I really liked her interview, a lot.
The first photo looks like her, not the second. What is up with that bizarre shadowing they did on the side of her face?
Hopefully she doesn’t mention her clothing line on the red carpet. Why should she get airtime for her designs and not the luxury brand designers paying her to wear their clothes. Yeah I understand the woman struggle but she had plenty of other privileges helping her push through, underdog my ass.
I used to like her a lot (90s Reese is still my jam, like all her movies back then are practically classics), but there’s something so phoney about her nowadays. It’s like she says all the right things, but it’s like she’s been coached within an inch of her life to sound classy and smart and self-aware, but with very little to actually back it up. Her recent movies have all been terrible (Wild was a slog too), and I’m always suspicious about these actors who try and create their own lifestyle brand.
I don’t know, there’s a huge insincerity to her.
I was just thinking how different she sounds now as opposed to the interviews she used to give in the 90s/early 00s.
Back then she always talked about how smart she was to extent that she named her production company type A as a nod to her personality type.
Back then, she sang her own praises. Perhaps it’s life experience and maturity (and a huge dollop of PR training) that has changed her tune to this phony humble brag.
I also hate the fact that she disavows her earlier work as a producer and makes it sound like she only decided to produce in recent years. She’s produced her own films since the early 00s, including the LEGALLY BLONDE franchise.
She decided to go for the cash grab until that wasn’t working for her anymore. Like MM, but at least MM acknowledges the cash grab, and what he had to do to go back to his acting roots. She’s pretending that it was/is all new to her, it’s infuriating.
I feel like this sudden emphasis on the south and her southern upbringing is just to sell more clothes. So fake.
Lila Fowler!! Love it!
“Pick Flick!”
I don’t get all of the criticism. I think she made a lot of good points, but apparently because of her “white privilege” she’s not allowed to speak about sexism and inequality? Or about trying to be placed in a box and side-eyed for wanting to try other things? Not allowed to have a point of view or an opinion on any such subjects? She may not have experienced those things to the extreme of some (or even most), but that doesn’t mean she’s never been effected by it in one form or another. Yes, she grew up privileged (I believe she was actually a debutante, if memory serves), but I think she’s using that privilege in a positive way (unlike the Kardashian’s and Hilton’s of the world) and to set an example for her daughter that a woman can be just as successful as a man. I don’t know….I feel like I’m not expressing my thoughts very well so I’ll just leave it at that.
I think you are spot on. Well said.
Thank you 😊
Thank you, smcollins!
“I don’t want to discount the beautiful work that the fashion houses do, but somehow, just focusing on what you’re wearing feels reductive.” thats literally the point of a red carpet though. i honestly dont care to hear how you suffered for 40 days with no shoes on to shoot your film on the red carpet you’re on cause your nominated so we all know already why you’re there. just tell me why you picked that calvin klein dress and how much you got for it to say “calvin klein”
I would never identify the woman in the red lace dress as Reese Witherspoon. She looks like someone else whose name escapes me at the moment.
You can add to the list of questions: If focusing on what women wear is reductive, why did you start a women’s clothing line?
My thought, exactly!
I chuckled at the “I’m an underdog because I had to fight to get into Stanford.” STANFORD. You sweet child.
and she was there less then a semester/quarter! yeah whatever!
Pretty sure some of those ballgown vaccume pics are meant to be ironic Reese…a stab in the nose at people to suck it…anyways, reese needs rebranding asap bc she comes across as bitter and old. Since her movies kinda suck she really should work on her personality more…
A small part of me is sorry for saying this but Greasy Reesey Witherdrunk just really needs to STHU and stop with all the fake and phoniness she spews E V E R Y D A Y!
Don’t be sorry! Just own it because she is a fake phony!
She seems to take herself too seriously. On the ask her more thing, it is deflating to see the men on the red carpet get questions about their work while Cate blanchett only gets questions about what she’s wearing. You get attacked for not dressing up enough or being pretentious if you don’t play the fashion game. You can’t win as a woman. It should be okay to look nice at a formal event and get asked about your work as the men do.
Reese Withoutaspoon.
I think what frustrates me about her red carpet “Ask her more” bend is because I’m not particularly interested in what celebrities (male or female) have to say about serious issues. Perhaps this is a bias on my part, but when I want serious, thoughtful interviews or interesting insights, I go to Diane Rehm, NPR, PRI, BBC World News, The Daily Show, Fareed Zakaria, et cetera. Not celebrities. Or at least celebrities that are trying to learn and have something worthwhile to contribute – like Geena Davis and her gender studies. I’d love to hear someone ask her about that on a red carpet. But Reese and her clothing line? Not that radical and not that interesting. And besides, does she really count as an entrepreneur? I want to learn about a Parsons grad or a self-taught seamstress starting their own line from scratch. That’s inspiring, not some rich actress who decided ‘I want to be a fashion designer now!’ Hard pass.
You know what bothers me about the criticism of Ask her more? It’s that the word ‘more’ seems to be ignored. Surely the point of the campaign is to ask who the designer is and then, you know, ask her *more*. Ask about the role, ask about the preparation, any of the sorts of questions the males get asked. Why is this such a hard concept to get?
But don’t they all have the chance to do that when they do a magazine cover. Look at the things she talked about. They also have that opportunity during the Q & As at the press junket. The RC for a 2+ minute chat is hardly the time to get so serious. I’m an Angie fan and she is always asked the serious questions on the RC. She hardly ever gets asked the funny silly questions. That happens more in the Overseas junkets.. but not the US ones; which means she gets perceived as being overly serious. Which if you see some of the overseas interviews are quite different and fun.
I think that many of the women asking to be “asked more” are going to find that just being asked about your dress and such is a lot easier.