By Maria Padhila
If you think I’m a snarky bitch now, you should have known me a decade or so ago. I was an early snark adopter — and one of the very first Gwyneth Paltrow snarkers. That latter art has become both a cottage industry and a throwaway line, but this was back when her Goop website was just a gleam in her eye, before the (undeserved) Oscar, even.
I had just been paid to sit through a movie called Sliding Doors, which reduced some interesting questions about time, choices, and alternate realities to a couple of pop music montages. One of those horrid rom-cons that turns all the friends of the main character into robot minions who exist only to have chats about the main character’s fascinating life and all the straight men into mere smiles perched on a set of shoulders who exist only to indicate her “success” at roping them in.
The lesson of all such movies is that you don’t have to change your life, your loves, your goals, your society, or your environment — just change your haircut, girl! And put on a little blusher. There you go.
So her patented moue of humblebrag had driven me mad with irritation for more than 90 minutes, and I had to do the other thing I got paid for then, which was write about the movie, and that’s pretty much what I wrote. While some rose to her defense, I was surprised how many people commented that they agreed with me — just couldn’t stand her!