Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow has come under fire before for being absurdly out-of-touch with the real world. Perhaps her most egregious display of this came yesterday, when she compared comments from mean people on the internet to going into battle.
“You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it’s a very dehumanizing thing. It’s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing, and then something is defined out of it. My hope is, as we get out of it, we’ll reach the next level of conscience."
Yikes.
Here on Townhall and in my other blogging adventures, I've experienced my fair share of mean people on the internet. I've been called basically every insult in the book--including some names I'm pretty sure people made up. Sure, I guess one could call it "dehumanizing," but to compare it to going in to battle and being shot at is simply ludicrous.
I'm not the only one appalled by Paltrow's statement. Clash Daily published this epic takedown by a Green Beret. (Emphasis added)
You said, “Its almost like, how in war, you go through this bloody dehumanizing thing and then something is defined out of it.” I could see how you, and others like you in “the biz”, could be so insecure and mentally weak that you could pair the difficulty of your life on twitter to my brothers who have had their limbs ripped off and seen their friends shot, blown up, burned and disfigured, or wake up every morning in pain – while just starting the day is a challenge. How about our wives? The ones that sign on to be there for us through thick and thin, that help us to shake the hardships of war upon our return? And do all this while being mothers to our kids, keeping bills in order because we are always gone, and keeping our lives glued together. They do all this, by the way, without a team of accountants, nanny’s [sic], personal assistants, and life coaches. Yeah, reading a mean tweet is just like all that.
Well said.
