In the matter of full disclosure, I should first mention that I’m at odds with the internet on a lot of the important issues of our time. I don’t like cheese. “27 Cheese GIFs That Will Make Your Mouth Water?” Absolutely no effect on me. Though I think she’s an impressive actress who deserved her Academy Award, I do not want to be besties with Jennifer Lawrence. I feel like she’d be the kind of person to eat fries off your plate while you’re in the bathroom. And I don’t understand why everyone hates Anne Hathaway. She’s the princess of Ginovia, you guys.
After starring on the short lived TV comedy Get Real with Jesse Eisenberg (those who win TV trivia night with that factoid, you’re welcome) Hathaway made her big screen debut as Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo in The Princess Diaries, a movie that gave the world Julie Andrews arm wrestling and eating a corn dog. There’s very little Princess Diaries hate out there, and it’s pretty hard to ignore the fact that Hathaway was the film’s backbone, with grade A physical comedy skills and a general willingness to appear on screen with those eyebrows.
Hathaway’s next big role was the 2004 adaptation of the classic middle grade book Ella Enchanted, which came with a lot of fan expectations (not to mention film adaptations of middle grade books can go really, really badly). The movie got mixed reviews, but Hathaway defiantly pulled off her cover of “Somebody to Love.” Look how adorable she is! Absolutely no Lea Michele face of deep meaningful singing.
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She continued to pop up in well liked films while never becoming well liked herself, like a raisin in the giant oatmeal cookie of film. Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci didn’t make The Devil Wears Prada alone, you know.
In 2009, she was nominated for her first academy award for Rachel Getting Married, in which she plays an entirely unlikable person. Historically, actresses who play entirely unlikable people (especially in dramas, not comedies) get tied to them and their unlikability (see Kristen Stewart and Bella Swan, January Jones and Betty Draper).
Still, it wasn’t until 2012 that the Hathaway hate got really organized (meaning think pieces). 2012 was after Hathaway starred in the admittedly bad Bride Wars, played the topless but otherwise unremarkable lead in Love and Other Drugs, and took her infamous turn as the poster girl of bad hair cuts, Les Miserable’s Fantine. Hathway won an Oscar for the role, and while she had little screen time all but buried in a musical mess that boasted Russel Crowe’s inexplicable grumble growl and Hugh Jackman, a Tony winner who should have known better, singing whole octaves out of his range, she was good. Her singing was good, her acting was good, her reaction to questions about her pre-shooting diet was good.
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In late 2012 Buzzfeed published a round-up of internet Hathaway hate, citing reason’s like “her teeth” and “her face,” neither of which are a good reason for writing someone off. Steve Buscemi has literally the scariest face ever to be seen on a human body, and everyone’s cool with him.
As New York magazine writer Anne Friedman explained in 2013, a lot of the hate seems to be irrational. People get a vibe from Hathaway. An annoying vibe, a stuck up vibe, a vibe that has you trying to talk your niece out of putting in the Rio DVD because Hathaway voices one of the parrots.
For what it’s worth, I’m team Anne. Even when she’s doing a terrible Russian dominatrix impression. Even in a cat suit. Team Anne all the way.
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[Lead image via]
In Defense of Anne Hathaway
