Thanksgiving is a great time to curl up on the couch and watch Thanksgiving themed…
Four movies to help Gwyneth Paltrow realize that the other carpool lane isn’t always easier.
By now you’ve heard about Gwyneth Paltrow’s unfortunate foot eating incident. Yes, the one where she stuck her foot in her mouth by royally insulting all non-Hollywood working moms in the world by saying in an interview with E! News:
“I think it’s different when you have an office job, because it’s routine and, you know, you can do all the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening,” you said. “When you’re shooting a movie, they’re like, ‘We need you to go to Wisconsin for two weeks,’ and then you work 14 hours a day, and that part of it is very difficult. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as, of course there are challenges, but it’s not like being on set.”
When I first read her complaints, I was angered and annoyed. “Oh yeah,” I thought, “it’s super easy being a regular, working mom making the equivalent of what you spend on your monthly shoe budget!” How could someone be so insensitive…especially when we’re still working our way out of a recession and many of us still struggle to put food on the table. Then I read the response by Mackenzie Dawson of the New York Post. I love how smartly she handled it, engaging in humor because how else can you respond to something so ridiculous and coo coo?
“Thank God I don’t make millions filming one movie per year” is what I say to myself pretty much every morning as I wait on a windy Metro-North platform, about to begin my 45-minute commute into the city…As someone with an office job, my mornings are obviously pretty leisurely. Sometimes I even have time to drink half of my coffee before it gets cold!….Then I have a few Bellinis and adjust my 401(k) contributions. After I get home from work, I’m full of energy and ready to cook dinner using one of the recipes you post on your lifestyle Web site, Goop: slow-cooked kale, pancetta and bread crumbs, anyone? After that, I’ll go to yoga, spend a few hours meditating and maybe do some online shopping, picking up a pair of $350 white leopard-printed short-shorts via Goop in preparation for the “spring break” I’ll take with my husband and son. If there’s one thing I look good in after having a child, it’s short-shorts.”
For more from this fantastic article click here “A Working Mom’s Open Letter to Gwyneth.”
Upon reading Dawson’s article, I laughed, relaxed, and realized that poor Gwyneth is just suffering from the Wizard of Oz syndrome. Like Dorothy, she thinks the grass is always greener on the other side. So I thought, what better way to help out good ole Gwynnie than to come up with a list of movies that also tell the story of someone who thinks life is much easier in the other carpool lane?
Here we go:
1) The Wizard of Oz
As we all know, the grass isn’t always greener-even if it is in technicolor.
2) Shakespeare in Love
Hey Gwyneth, do you remember this one? It’s the role that won you the Oscar. Yes, the one where you play a wealthy, aristocrat who is unhappy with her destiny and wants to join Shakespeare’s theater troupe but must disguise herself as boy.
3) Freaky Friday
The famous ole tale of wishing you could live someone else’s life; it would be so much easier, until you actually try it.
4) Hook
One of Gwyneth’s earliest roles was that of a young Wendy in Hook. In the original Peter Pan, Wendy doesn’t want to grow up and wishes she could stay young forever, which is how she comes to meet Peter Pan. Moral: It’s better to grow up than have to deal with Captain Hook.
So, dear Gwyneth, maybe next time you’ve got to fly across the pond for a movie shoot, you could take a look at some of these classics. Hopefully, you’ll realize that you have it pretty easy and life isn’t so bad. Then we (the regular non-Hollywood moms/ie: your fangirls and you) won’t have to have a “conscious uncoupling.”
Source for all GIFS: www.giphy.com
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HI! I’m a Shana, self-proclaimed Media Mixologist, wife, and mom to two little girls. I love to mix up cocktails of crafts, recipes, wellness, family and business with just the right amount of sparkle to help you shine everyday. So, grab a glass, and let’s celebrate the cocktail of life!
I’m not sure I agree. I think the problem is she’s often blowhardy (is that a word?) So people are ready for her coming off that way. I think all she was trying to say is as a mom, as stressful as motherhood is, she’d prefer to be able to see her kids everyday, instead of possibly leaving for weeks on end. I don’t think she was saying your job was easy, but it’s easy to have that routine and it’s hard to have to drop everything.
OH that’s a good point and a good way to interpret what she was saying. But then why can’t she just bring them along with a nanny and tutor? ugh, i still think she’s unappreciative of what she has and wants to complain. it still wreaks of spoiled behavior to me. But that’s her issue, i shouldn’t let it bother me. As they say in Frozen “Let it go.” hahaha
I tend to take anything those in Hollywood say with a grain of salt. They are so far removed from the real world that they just don’t have a clue what life is like for the rest of us. But of course the news media reports it like it’s important for us to hear…so silly.
So true, very good point–they are completely removed and it’s silly for the news media to report it as if it’s important information. This is probably really more a store of how the medium is the message since most of us probably heard about it through other mom-centered op-ed pieces and not the original interview itself. It demonstrates the power and relevancy of the blogosphere in obtaining news and feeding conversations.