I, for one, have always liked Jennifer Lawrence. I still like Jennifer Lawrence. Are you guys okay with that? WILL WE SURVIVE THIS? Absolutely we will. (We're all tough broads.) And as if Jennifer Lawrence herself wanted to attest to why we can and should and do still love her, she recently used an interview with Marie Claire to address the fame machine. Let us proceed.
"Nobody can stay beloved forever," she said. "I never believed it, the whole time. I was like, just wait: People are going to get sick of me. My picture is everywhere, my interviews are everywhere; I'm way too annoying because I get on red carpets and I'm really hyper, mostly because I've been drinking, and I can't not photo-bomb somebody if it's a good opportunity. But it's something I always tell myself: 'You need to calm the fuck down. You don't want to constantly be a GIF.'"
Speaking of GIFs, she also used her fall at the 2014 Oscars are proof of her ability to raise even the eyebrows of her fellow celebrities — a.k.a. Jared Leto, who thought she staged her trip on the red carpet during the arrivals.
"I'm trying to do the right thing, waving to the fans, trying to be nice, and there's a traffic cone," she explained. "The second I hit it, I was laughing, but on the inside, I was like, 'You're fucked. They're totally going to think this is an act.' If I were Jared Leto, I would completely agree. But trust me, if I was going to plan it, I would have done it at the Golden Globes or the SAGs. I would never have done it two Oscars in a row."
"Honestly, I'm just doing my best," she continued. "But if people want to start the backlash, I'm the captain of that team. As much as you hate me, I'm 10 steps ahead of you."
But here's the thing: why should we hate Jennifer Lawrence? Has she said things on the red carpet or in interviews which have been described as problematic? Sure. But who hasn't? Why is it standard for us to hate an actress or actor when they're just doing their jobs? They're just going to work. And that work description happens to include "pose for as many photos as humanly possible, speak until your interviews are everywhere, and act your ass off." Shouldn't we hate the fame machine? Particularly since if we were in the position of most actors, we'd be doing the exact same thing?
Backlashes are exhausting. They're the equivalent of going to Shoppers Drug Mart and telling the cashiers you were sick of them because you watched that Drake video too many times. And it's a buzzkill actors/people like J-Law have to deal with our inability just to look away instead of over-indulging ourselves.
