An Open (and Kinder) Letter to Gwyneth Paltrow
Hello Ms. Paltrow,
I don’t know you. I probably know more about you than you know about me though. I have seen you in some movies, on the red carpet via TV, read news/entertainment reports about you here and there. I know you have a lifestyle website that give advice and information about all sorts of things. I know you are considered beautiful by many. I know these things about you because America, and most of the world actually, has developed an amazing obsession with people who do one particular line of work. That line of work is the one you happen to be in, acting. You are lucky to be living now compared to 100-200 years ago, when your profession was not so highly regarded. Then you would have been considered disreputable, and while people might want to watch you on stage, they would not have wanted to actually know you.
How times have changed. Now everyone DOES want to know you. Not only that, they actually think they do know you. And to be honest, that is partially true. Your life is in the public eye, and that is, at least in part, a conscious decision made by you and your family. As a result, people you don’t know know about you. They know some about your family, your marriage, your likes and dislikes in fashion, food, charities, makeup, hair, and more.
The Special Categories
As a result of this appearance of knowing you, many feel close to you, like you are friends with them. That is a pretty cool thing. But you aren’t just showing yourself to ‘friends’, you are showing yourself to everyone. And here’s the bad part Gwyneth. You are in that special category of humans (actors) that America has decided does not deserve to be shown the respect they would show to their real friends. The reason for this is because they don’t, in spite of thinking maybe you are their friend, think you are actually real. You are just a creation, like the movies you are in. Those who follow this idea of course don’t feel the need to show you respect, or compassion, or mercy, or kindness, or forgiveness. They get a free pass on all that because you aren’t real.
Of course some may think you are real. But they have another category of human that trumps that and so they still feel they have the right to withhold those elements of civility. That second category is ‘the privileged rich’. You aren’t a person who just happens to have a lot of money, you are ‘the privileged rich’. As a result, many feel they can treat you like they would an alien species or an animal who doesn’t have feelings and doubts and hardships like they do. They can degrade you. They can mock you. They can rally their friends and society at large against you. They can destroy you. After all, you aren’t one of them. You are an alien who doesn’t deserve anything.
Working
Two recent events regarding you made all this come to the fore. First was your interview in which you said your type of work is harder for you than a different type of work that is more consistent and regular is for other mothers. Some people, mostly mothers, didn’t like that. But since you are in the two aforementioned categories they didn’t do what they would have done with their friends. What they would have done with their friend is perhaps say “yea, I can imagine that sucks. I wouldn’t want to be away from my kids that long either. My life is consistent, it’s true. I do the same things day in, day out, for the most part. But it’s can be really hard too.” At which point I have every reason to believe you would have said, “Yea, it can be hard for both of us.” and then you both would have continued to talk as friends about it.
Conscious Uncoupling
The second event was your recent separation from your husband. In your announcement you used the words, ‘conscious uncoupling.’ It was a phrase most of us hadn’t heard before. Some people made fun of that phrase because it wasn’t the single word, ‘Divorce’. They used your use of that phrase as a weapon against you, saying you are pretentious and elitist. What they didn’t do was actually think about the phrase. They were so busy mocking and denigrating they forgot to actually pay attention. If they had been paying attention then they might have realized the phrase is actually a pretty interesting and effective way of saying ‘separation’ or ‘divorce’. It makes you think about it in a new and different way. But those people don’t want to be faced with thinking new things. They want to stay with what their tribe, and the influencers that lead the tribe, say is approved. If it’s not approved, then it is worthy of being mocked.
What a Friend Would Do
Here is the crux of it all. I don’t know you. You might actually be pretentious or out of touch in real life, I don’t really know after all. But I certainly don’t think those to examples show it. But I do know that even if you did say something that showed a lack of understanding on your part, I would respond as I would to a friend. I would first try to understand you; where you are in your life, what you deal with. I would try to walk in your shoes. Not your supposed shoes of privilege, but your emotional shoes. Your real shoes. The shoes worn by a human, not a mockable category. I would then, if I didn’t fully understand, give you the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t assume you had bad intentions or motives or were a terrible person because of what you said. I would probably ask you what you meant. I have a strong feeling asking you that would solve any issue I had.
Judgment is the New Black
Unfortunately Gwyneth, you and I are living in an era where judgment is the new black. Judgment can be a good thing of course, but when it is bereft of it’s balancing partners it usually isn’t. What are judgment’s partners? They are compassion, understanding, mercy, silence, patience, forgiveness, openheartedness and openmindedness. Instead partners that bring out the worst in judgment are on the scene. They are envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, mean-spiritedness and hatred. What we end up with is an America that thrives on judging and attacking others in the most unthinking, vicious way possible.
Anyway, that is just a bit of what I have had on my mind in the last few days regarding your public situation. I hope it helps you to see that most of this negative response you are getting, and have gotten for quite a while, is not about you, it’s about them. It’s about their small minded desire to be part of their self-righteous tribe and their unconscious anger that they are not you.
I wish you the best with your family situation and your career,
A friend you don’t know,
Marty Coleman
