EACH Thursday morning, a substantial number of average young women open their inboxes to find a new e-mail from none other than Gwyneth Paltrow, in which the multimillionaire movie star offers tips on how to dress like her, cook like her, detox like her, etc. In other words: how to become far, far better at life.
“My life is good because I am not passive about it,” she wrote in her mission statement. “I want to nourish what is real, and I want to do it without wasting time.”
And so, each Thursday afternoon, excerpts from Paltrow’s e-mails – exercises in narcissism masquerading as benevolence, emanating from her four-month-old Web page GOOP – are posted, to much derisive glee, on Web sites ranging from Huffington Post to Jezebel to the LA Times.
“I read one of her articles about the Master Cleanse,” wrote one HuffPo commenter. “Who has time for that much pooping?”
“She really is a pretentious windbag,” wrote another. “However, I don’t want her to give up GOOP. During these tough times, it’s nice to have something to laugh at!”
Among the amusements: Paltrow’s gift guide, suggesting an $1,850 Hermes watch and a $1,350 Mulberry bag. An NYC tip sheet – and as a native, she writes, she knows best – recommending obvious institutions such as Balthazar and the Carlyle. A cataloging of her favorite books, including “The Sheltering Sky,” which, she writes, Ethan Hawke gave to her when she was a starlet in need of “a literary bringing down to size.” Because who hasn’t been there? She asked for lists from her “best and most literary-minded” friends, too – Christy Turlington and Madonna.
The criticism has, in recent weeks, become so vitriolic that the usually above-it-all Paltrow responded publicly. (As of yesterday, a short piece called “Gwyneth Paltrow Wonders Why People Hate Her” was No. 2 on NYmag.com’s most-read list.) Last month, she told USA Today that “I feel sorry” for people who dislike her. In the weeks since, her self-touted equilibrium has clearly been upset. “F – – – the haters!” she exclaims in the new issue of UK Elle. “I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.”
Of course she can’t. This has always been the paradoxical appeal of Gwyneth Paltrow. She carries herself with unapologetic superiority, head tipped upward, as if to more ably inhale that rarefied air. This is the woman who speaks often of her “integrity,” yet shills for Estée Lauder, Tod’s and Martini & Rossi. She once dismissed Jennifer Aniston, then with Paltrow’s ex Brad Pitt, as “that TV girl.” She declared the English response to the 7/7 terrorist attacks far classier than that of Americans: “There were no multiple memorials, with people sobbing as they would have been in America,” she told London’s Evening Standard in 2005.
This, say those who have closely observed her throughout her career, is the real Gwyneth Paltrow.
“She is not an accessible person, and trying to market herself as such makes no sense,” says E! Online’s Ted Casablanca, who famously nicknamed Paltrow “Fishstick” for her chilly blandness. (“Also, her shape,” he clarifies. “And I’m talking about a fish stick right out of the freezer – not heated up!”)
“I liked the old Gwyneth, the snotty bitch,” says Lainey Liu, an entertainment reporter for Canadian TV and avid Paltrow follower (see her blog LaineyGossip.) “Her whole image was predicated on the idea that she would never, ever be your friend. It’s fascinating that she’s still lording her superiority complex over us, even as she’s trying to be more accessible. It’s like she’s doling out manna to the peasants.”
GOOP seems to be the foundation for Paltrow’s attempted second career as a younger, hipper Martha Stewart. “I think she’s savvy enough to realize that Hollywood may have passed her by,” says Liu; indeed, her new film, “Two Lovers,” flopped at Cannes and opens in limited release next week. Last summer, Paltrow embarked on a culinary tour of Spain for a PBS series with superstar chef Mario Batali. She is also reportedly planning to open a chain of gyms with her trainer, Tracy Anderson, and has just signed a deal to publish a cookbook, “My Father’s Daughter.”
The only thing Paltrow’s domestic rebranding has in common with her former identity is a deep, seemingly congenital need to be the ultimate aspirational figure. “GOOP is about fulfilling a certain vanity,” says Liu, “to make everyone think she has the perfect life, to want to be her.”
As Gwyneth Paltrow herself would probably say of such an endeavor: How sad.
GWYNNIE TIP!
On exercise: “[My trainer] sent me this [DVD] for the New Year’s butt. It’s really hard. But do it like she says to do it, and I swear that in 10 days you will see your butt change shape.”
GWYNNIE TIP!
On elimination: “If your bowel movements get sluggish, you can accelerate things by drinking half a cup of castor oil
or using a mild herbal laxative.”
GWYNNIE TIP!
On detoxing: “I like to do fasts and detoxes a couple of times during the year, the most hard-core one being the Master Cleanse I did last spring . . . As I do not wish to subsist on lemon water in the middle of winter, I asked my doctor, a detox diet specialist, for the guidelines he uses to achieve a good detox that is not as hallucinogenic (in a bad way) as the Master Cleanse. He actually thinks that the Master Cleanse can be dangerous because the liver is not supported by the nutrients it needs.”