Cover Story: Emma Watson, Rebel Belle
Since her years as Hermione ended, Emma Watson has fought to assert her own identity. Now that she has found her voice—most notably as a U.N. ambassador—she’s revamping a classic stereotype, the Disney princess, in Beauty and the Beast, the live-action musical coming out in March. Watson talks to Vanity Fair about her metamorphosis from child star to leading woman.
by Derek Blasberg
Photographs by Tim Walker
Styled by Jessica Diehl
Emma Watson and I are standing on the 23rd Street platform of an uptown-bound E train in New York City and we’re littering. Literally. And literature-ly. The 26-year-old actress is scattering hardcover copies of Maya Angelou’s book Mom & Me & Mom throughout the station—tucking them between pipes, placing them on benches, atop the emergency call box—in hopes that New York commuters will pick them up and put down their smartphones. This display of civil disobedience was conceived by Books on the Underground, a London-based organization that plants books on public transportation for travelers to discover. “We’re being ninjas,” she says with a conspiratorial grin as she digs in a big black rucksack of books. “If there were anyone to be a ninja for, it’d be Maya Angelou.”
Watson is one of the most famous women in the world, the child star who skyrocketed to global fame at the age of 11 playing brainy Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies. Next month, she’s back on the big screen as Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, the big-budget live-action musical—she sings too!—which broke the record for most viewed new movie trailer. (That’s 127 million views in its first 24 hours, beating Fifty Shades Darker’s record.) But today she’s makeup-free, her hair shoved into a bun, and she’s wearing a nondescript dark wool coat over a baggy black sweater, completely blending in with New York’s distracted mass-transit masses.
“It’s good that we’re spreading a little bit of love,” she says. As she removes the last book, a train pulls into the station. She hops in, places it on a seat, hops out, and watches from the platform as the doors close and a young man inquisitively picks it up.
Aboveground, over coffee at a nearby café, Watson explains why she thinks reading is “sacred.” There’s the obvious, professional reason: Harry Potter was a literary sensation before becoming the blockbuster franchise that made her famous and a millionaire many times over. But books are also rooted in her deepest personal experiences. “Books gave me a way to connect with my father,” she says. “Some of my most precious and treasured moments . . .” She trails off and, unexpectedly for someone who is known for her composure, tears up. Her parents divorced when she was young. “I just remember him reading to me before bed and how he used to do all the different voices. I grew up on film sets, and books were my connection to the outside world. They were my connection to my friends back at school because if I was reading what they were reading we’d have something in common. Later in life, they became an escape, a means of empowerment, a friend I could rely on.”
I first met Watson, Hollywood’s latest exception to the rule that all child stars inevitably flame out, during Paris Fashion Week more than a decade ago, when she was still a teenager and filming the fourth of the eight Harry Potter films. It was both a homecoming for the actress—she was born in Paris to British parents, both lawyers, and lived there until she was five—and a symbol of her maturity on-screen. She was there to attend her first-ever fashion show, at Chanel, which was a big deal considering that up until then she had shopped in the bridesmaid section at Harrods or borrowed dresses from her stepmother for movie premieres.
She was a shy teenager, but friendly, intelligent, and down to earth. Watson is described as much the same today: “She’s way more like a real person than a movie star,” according to Gloria Steinem, who became a friend when Watson reached out to discuss the changing face of feminist activism. (More on that later.) Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who met Watson backstage at a performance of the musical, sums it up: “She played this very smart, conscious, noble wizard—and then somehow we had the good fortune that she became a smart, conscious, noble woman.” (They did a video together—Miranda freestyling, Watson beatboxing—to raise awareness for International Women’s Day. It got more than six million views.)
Emma and I got to know each other, and I visited her on the sets of the last two Harry Potter films. But as the Potter train pulled into its last station, I noticed the clouds of melancholy forming over her fairy-tale life. “I’d walk down the red carpet and go into the bathroom,” she remembers of the last few premieres. “I had on so much makeup and these big, fluffy, full-on dresses. I’d put my hands on the sink and look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘Who is this?’ I didn’t connect with the person who was looking back at me, and that was a very unsettling feeling.”
What few people knew when she enrolled at Brown University in 2009 was that she had a desire to give up acting and walk away from Hollywood altogether. “I was finding this fame thing was getting to a point of no return,” she remembers. “I sensed if this was something I was ever going to step away from it was now or never.” She loved performance and telling stories, but she had to reckon with the consequences of “winning the lottery,” as she calls getting the part of Hermione, when she was nine years old and literally still losing baby teeth. As an adult, “it dawned on me that this is what you’re really signing up for.”
The question most people ask when a celebrity moans about being famous: If you hate the fanfare so much, why keep making movies? Watson asked herself that all the time. “I’ve been doing this since I was 10 or 11, and I’ve often thought, I’m so wrong for this job because I’m too serious; I’m a pain in the ass; I’m difficult; I don’t fit,” she says. “But as I’ve got older, I’ve realized, No! Taking on those battles, the smaller ones and the bigger ones, is who I am.”
She recently found the courage to say no to selfie-seekers. “For me, it’s the difference between being able to have a life and not. If someone takes a photograph of me and posts it, within two seconds they’ve created a marker of exactly where I am within 10 meters. They can see what I’m wearing and who I’m with. I just can’t give that tracking data.” Sometimes, she’ll decline a photo but offer up an autograph or even a chat—“I’ll say, ‘I will sit here and answer every single Harry Potter fandom question you have but I just can’t do a picture’ ”—and much of the time people don’t bother. “I have to carefully pick and choose my moment to interact,” she says. “When am I a celebrity sighting versus when am I going to make someone’s freakin’ week? Children I don’t say no to, for example.”
I tell Watson I’ve watched other actors, like Reese Witherspoon, walk down the street and happily pose with fans—and suddenly it becomes clear that the fans of Sweet Home Alabama are different from Harry Potter fans. For mostly better and occasionally worse, the Potter books and films not only captured the imagination of millions of people but, for many of them, changed their lives. It’s something Watson is deeply aware of. “I have met fans that have my face tattooed on their body. I’ve met people who used the Harry Potter books to get through cancer. I don’t know how to explain it, but the Harry Potter phenomenon steps into a different zone. It crosses into obsession. A big part of me coming to terms with it was accepting that this is not your average circumstances.” (Since the first movie premiered, in 2001, when Watson was 11, there have been numerous incidents with stalkers.) “People will say to me, ‘Have you spoken to Jodie Foster or Natalie Portman? They would have great advice for you on how to grow up in the limelight.’ I’m not saying it was in any way easy on them, but with social media it’s a whole new world. They’ve both said technology has changed the game.” When she was at Brown, Watson went to a Harvard football game and The Harvard Voice, a student magazine, live-tweeted as its staff stalked her at the stadium. I remember at Watson’s 18th-birthday party in London, the photographers outside had a bounty on who could get a picture taken up her skirt. She’s not exaggerating her security concerns, either. She purchased her house sight unseen over a Skype call with a real-estate agent because it had a paparazzi-proof entrance. “Privacy for me is not an abstract idea,” she says.
Watson has a boyfriend, though she adamantly, vehemently refuses to expound on him. (The Internet says he’s called Mack, he’s handsome, and he works in tech in Silicon Valley.) “I want to be consistent: I can’t talk about my boyfriend in an interview and then expect people not to take paparazzi pictures of me walking around outside my home. You can’t have it both ways.” She sits back and wonders if she should finish this thought, and eventually she does: “I’ve noticed, in Hollywood, who you’re dating gets tied up into your film promotion and becomes part of the performance and the circus. I would hate anyone that I were with to feel like they were in any way part of a show or an act.”
Back in college, Watson was like most 20-year-olds, struggling to carve out her own identity, only she did it in front of a rabid fan base and a never-ending celebrity-news cycle. She made international headlines when she chopped Hermione’s long locks into a closely shorn pixie. We don’t need Sigmund Freud to read into the symbolism of that haircut, and to this day Watson declares, “It’s the sexiest I’ve ever felt.”
She got into yoga and meditation; being the Type A person she is, though, she wasn’t content just doing it. “Typical Emma,” says Harry Potter producer David Heyman, who has remained a close friend. “She had to become a certified meditation teacher.”
Watson shied away from doing additional big-budget studio films and instead focused on smaller movies, like Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), and sought out auteur directors, like Sofia Coppola with The Bling Ring (2013) and Darren Aronofsky with Noah (2014). She turned down big offers: from lucrative cosmetics deals to critically acclaimed scripts. (Emma Stone’s role in La La Land was reportedly developed for Watson.) “There have been hard moments in my career when I’ve had an agent or a movie producer say, ‘You are making a big mistake,’ ” Watson says. “But what’s the point of achieving great success if you feel like you’re losing your freakin’ mind? I’ve had to say, ‘Guys, I need to go back to school,’ or ‘I just need to go home and hang out with my cats.’ People have looked at me and been like, ‘Is she insane?’ But, actually, it’s the opposite of insane.”
What ultimately helped clarify her purpose was—you guessed it—reading. Last January, Watson started Our Shared Shelf, her bi-monthly online book club. She used Twitter (more than 23 million followers) to crowd-source the name, and chose Gloria Steinem’s book My Life on the Road as her first selection.
All About Love: New Visions, by Bell Hooks, was Watson’s March 2016 book-club selection. Watson traveled to Berea, Kentucky, near the Appalachian Mountains, to meet Hooks, and the two quickly struck up a friendship based on, in the words of the writer, “the belief in the primacy of a spiritual foundation for life.”
“In so many ways she’s not like we think of movie stars,” Hooks told me. “She’s [part of] a very different, new breed who are interested in being whole and having a holistic life, as opposed to being identified with just wealth and fame.”
In early 2014, U.N. Women, the United Nations’ department of gender equality, contacted Watson about becoming an ambassador. Everything clicked: she could focus the prying eyes of the world onto causes that she was passionate about, namely a new initiative called HeForShe, which aims to get men to co-sign on feminist issues. I was in the audience at the General Assembly on September 20, 2014, when Watson, elegantly and discreetly wrapped in a simple silver-gray Dior coatdress, stepped onto the podium and spoke passionately about women’s rights for a little more than 10 minutes. Her battle cry ended with: “I am inviting you to step forward, to be seen, and to ask yourself, If not me, who? If not now, when?”
“I used to be scared of words like ‘feminism,’ ‘patriarchy,’ ‘imperialist.’ But I’m not anymore,” Watson says.
“It was not typical for U.N. Women to have a celebrity give a keynote address,” says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of U.N. Women. “We needed a new messenger to break new ground for us. We didn’t want to just speak to the converted.” Watson blushed at the standing ovation and beamed as then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon became the first person to officially sign on to HeForShe. The U.N. Women Web site crashed in the aftermath of the media blitz that followed—“A good problem to have!,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says—and her speech made headline news around the world, from CNN to fashion blogs. Men like Hugh Jackman, Jared Leto, Harry Styles, Russell Crowe, and Eddie Redmayne aligned themselves with HeForShe. Feminists worldwide heralded their newest spokesperson: “For a time, there was a conversation about whether ‘feminism’ was a good thing or a bad thing,” Mlambo-Ngcuka says. Watson’s speech “gave us the word back.”
The first time Watson saw the final cut of Beauty and the Beast she took along her mother, Jacqueline, and Gloria Steinem to a screening in London. She wanted her mother’s approval, but she needed Steinem’s. “I couldn’t care less if I won an Oscar or not if the movie didn’t say something that I felt was important for people to hear,” Watson says.
Specifically, she must have wanted assurance that her portrayal of a Disney princess, in the Bill Condon-directed film, didn’t conflict with the ideals of a feminist, and who better than Steinem to give that stamp of approval?
She got it.
“It was fascinating that her activism could be so well mirrored by the film,” Steinem says, noting that Belle uses—you guessed it, again—reading as a way to expand her world. “It’s this love of literature that first bonds the Beauty to the Beast, and also what develops the entire story.”
This is a new Belle, much of it by Watson’s design. “I was like, ‘The first shot of the movie cannot be Belle walking out of this quiet little town carrying a basket with a white napkin in it,’ ” she says. “ ‘We need to rev things up!’ ” In the original Disney movie, Belle is an assistant to her inventor father, but here she’s a creator in her own right, developing a “modern washing machine that allows her to sit and read.” Watson worked with costume designer Jacqueline Durran to incorporate pockets in her costume that are “kind of like a tool belt.” Another thing: in the animated version, Belle is on and off horses yet wearing a long dress and silk slippers, which didn’t sit well with Watson. Bloomers were created and Belle’s first pair of riding boots. “The original sketches had her in her ballet shoes,” Watson says, “which are lovely—don’t get me wrong—but she’s not going to be able to do anything terribly useful in ballet shoes in the middle of a French provincial village.”
Maturing from Hermione to Belle is a true coming-of-age story for her. “When I finished the film, it kind of felt like I had made that transition into being a woman on-screen,” she says. Belle is “absolutely a Disney princess, but she’s not a passive character—she’s in charge of her own destiny.” What’s more intriguing, however, is how Watson observed a similarly strict code in her real life, too, from what parts she plays to what she reads in bed at night and what clothes she puts on in the morning.
“Emma has an incredible sense of integrity,” says Livia Firth, the founder of Eco-Age, a sustainable-fashion consulting firm. “You can’t marry activism and then do something in your life that is not in agreement.” Firth praises Watson’s choice of dress for last year’s Met Gala: it was designed by Calvin Klein and made almost entirely from recycled plastic bottles. For her Beauty and the Beast press tour, Watson created a PowerPoint presentation that her stylist sent fashion designers. It included a questionnaire about how their garments are produced, what their impact is on the environment, and the moral reason why she should wear one on the red carpet.
As Steinem honors Watson’s high moral standards and relentless activism, I ask her if there’s a risk of becoming, well, annoying to the general public. Is she too much of an ethical Goody Two-Shoes? After all, what other starlet assigns fashion designers homework before she wears their clothes? Steinem is not amused. “Let me ask you something: If you did a story on a young male actor who was very private and involved in activism, would you think he was too severe or serious? Why do women always have to be listeners? Emma is interested in the world, she is caring, and though she is active she is also joyous and informed.” At this point I’m backpedaling—“I think she’s wonderful!”—but Steinem still digs in. “It’s possible to be both serious and fun, you know. That response is why men will ask a woman, ‘Why don’t you just smile, honey?’ ”
The actor Kevin Kline, who plays Belle’s father in Beauty and the Beast, agrees with Steinem. “When someone has a feminist point of view, we tend to think she’s no fun at all,” he says. “But a feminist can be feminine, delicate, vulnerable, sweet—and still demand to be taken seriously. Emma fits the bill perfectly.” A big grin forms on his face as he asks, “Has anyone told you about the dancing scene yet?”
In the film, there’s an over-the-top ball, which required the entire cast and scores of extras to waltz in period costumes for hours and hours. “Ater a long, long day, suddenly Pharrell Williams’s song ‘Happy’ comes on, blasting, and everyone just starts jumping around,” Kline recalls. “It became kind of a wrap party, really celebratory. And I asked, ‘Who did that?’ It was Emma.”
51 comments:
Interesting photoshoot, she must have loved it (as much as she loved her Lagerfeld photoshoot if I remember well).
It's not my taste though, they played on the androgyne look a bit too much for me, but at the same time when we stop looking at the pics just for the pretty and beautiful, it helps give more depth to the article.
this is what a feminist looks like?
I like the natural look with which you go out and meet people and communicate. Those photo shoots in general are a waste of good money and fantazise the person. By no means is Emma androgyness, but why does she allow herself to be presented this way. What does that have to do with active feminism. I am a young person, but I wonder how abnormal the world is becoming.
"What does that have to do with active feminism."
Desperation showing your breasts?
I love androgynous people and style, it's the mixture of masculine and feminine that so many people are bothered by but that is so strikingly beautiful. Unfortunately some people will always have something negative to say.
Why did she had to bring the Oscar comment? She sound bitter she should just made no comment. :/
I bet that the person who made the 'abnormal' comment only likes her because of her physical appearance, it's really obvious that they've never read anything about her work or know anything that she stands for.
Love Tim Walker his style of photography. He always has this mystical, fairytale thing going on and it's fucking awesome. I'm jealous she got to work with such an amazing artist. I don't think she can pull of every look in this shoot, but there are def some pictures that I like. I'm glad it isn't another boring photoshoot in which she has to look sexy and show of designer clothing. This is much more interesting.
boytits
(,) (,)
anyone compared her new 'picture' to the leaked ones last year to verify them?
I really like this photoshoot, she doesn't need to be "sexy" all the time, she can also try new themes and not the boring, usual photoshoot. Honestly, some people don't apreciate new things, they sound like they just want to "fap" all the time.
Great interview and fascinating shoot. Very VF in tone high end symbolism and interpretative dance was consistent with there target demographic. Personally think Emma was having a bit of fun with us.
mh...
Photoshop or boop job ?
Just Woman Anon, what more could you ask :)
Those pics are less than flattering. How could anyone think they were a good idea? And calling them artistic doesn't make it any better. May I remind everyone that they go against everything Emma has ever said AND everything that her image stands for. Modest, classy, not wearing skimpy clothes. Those were standards she insisted on! She was harping about them in every damn interview she gave. And now everything is out of the window? For what???
How disappointing! She said she would never do that. It makes no sense it'll hurt her career.
This was so unnecessary. She's already rich & famous. What does she need pictures like that for? And the interview is not helping either, what is she thinking these days?
Could people have a chill pill? Some reactions here are beyond ridiculous. Emma has boobs. What a shock. We could see more in that red dress she wore for a Lancôme dinner than here. And Emma fights for women to do whatever they damn please with their bodies without being judged and/or objectified. Some of you could clearly learn a thing or two about that.
agreed with Edem 05:52!
These photos are very sophisticated!
I think this was a very good idea - very creative!
She should make a calendar out of it - I will by immediatly!
The pics themselves aren't the problem. There's nothing wrong wearing revealing outfits. The PROBLEM IS Emma's attitude. It's OK for her to show as much as she wants, but she calls other women, who do the same thing vulgar, and lots of other things. That is not alright. Either it's OK for all women or none. No Double standards! Not even for Emma Watson. She can't have it both ways. And not practising what she preaches is not making her look very good.
Where did Emma say that?
The racy look comes after Emma famously declared back in 2009 that 'I'm not just getting my kit off for anyone,' and perhaps opens the feminist star up to criticism from some quarters.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday's Live magazine, the then 18-year-old explained her stance on sexy shoots and her refusal to let stylists dictate her image.
'Personally, I don't actually think it's even that sexy. What's sexy about saying, "I'm here with my boobs out and a short skirt...have a look at everything I've got"?'
'My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal the more people can wonder.'
The actress added that she would only strip for famed arthouse director Bernardo Bertolucci, saying: 'I have no plans to do anything for the sake of it, or to shock people.
There are tons of interviews where she is making clear comments, that can not be mistaken about that. But if you don't want to go looking for yourself, then you might at least want to check out the Daily Mail article, which has collected a few of those and is quoting them. I don't like DM, but for once they have actually done a decent job on it. Fair warning: Don't check out the comment section there, unless you are hardboiled. It's not for the faint hearted.
Selective quotes without context lazy journalist at best right wing polemic at worse
Have people forgotten what growing up means glad no one recorded my utterances at 18 years old.
Besides the Images are artistic objectification is not in the pictures but in the viewer.
If you have any questions about feminism and sexism just look at the fuss two concealed breasts on an activist had caused. Check some if the outfits seen at the Oscars much more revealing.
Why the difference in the reactions. Simple Emma is being targeted and has shown that brilliantly.
Anon: You're only taking quotes from years ago though. Are we really supposed to expect her to live her life according to stuff she said almost 10 years ago?
@eden will you think the same way if in 10 years time she says feminism is wrong? or that this photoset was bad choice.
@anon will you if she, as is far more likely, does not. How about later this week when she talks on Ellen and again restates her views.
Photos are bizarre! For some that is art; to each their own.
Absolutely - boob job or photoshop!
Proportion doesn't fit with pics where she was braless and wearing only a shirt like 4th of July last year in Camden!
Stop with the objectification Anon. Women have breast and what they do or don't do with them is there own business. If you are a man you should be grateful if you are a woman you should know better.
Hope she will not transform in a new Kardashian!
Cry me a river Taggart!
completely agree! well said x
this shoot is actually not revealing! her breasts are actually covered so she hasnt gone back on anything she has said! if she had nothing to cover anything then yes but i dnt see that here! i see a strong feminist who is simply doing a shoot for her film! personally ive seen a lot worse. This is nothing and not against her morals atall. y'all need grow up shes not a child anymore! xx
Your predicating you argument on the basis she did something counter to her feminism Karen. This is not the case however we can all argue the point but it has become a recursive debate. The facts remain the same she had done nothing wrong. Further discussion seems pointless.
It was Emma herself who opened the can of worms by saying that she finds too revealing clothes vulgar. Simple & plain those were her words, and no, they are not out of context, but very clear. What's not to understand there when she's claiming that showing too much is vulgar? And artsy fartsy or not in that VF shoot her top is revealing much more than it's covering. So don't even try to deny it. Her nipples are not visible but pretty much all the rest. That is exactly the definition of revealing clothing. REVEALING doesn't mean showing it all. Nobody has sad she's showing everything. So putting Emma's own logic to work here: either that pic is a)vulgar or b) not vulgar bc she's applying double standards. And yes she might've changed her mind, but she did not say that anywhere. So unless she states, that she had a change of mind, her statements she made earlier stand and are still valid, no matter how old they are. By the way excusing any kind of behavior by saying oh that person is still young is not acceptable, she's of age and if she's smart than she knows what she's saying & her responsibilities. Plus she's almost 27 that is an adult age, she's not an inexperienced teen, she wants to be taken seriously, than she has to stand by what she says, that's what adults are expected to do.
"Expecting to live her life according to stuff she said" What the hell? Yes, ppl do generally expect other ppl to live by the stuff they say. And rightfully though. She's a UN ambassador, you can bet that ppl expect of her that she better promotes stuff that she believes in and lives by that. Bc you can not preach one thing and do something completely different yourself. Protecting an idol you like is one thing. Bringing up invalid arguments just to shut up any kind of criticism is lame. And don't play that she's human, she makes mistakes card. Emma never acknowledged any sort of mistake, or apologised for mistakes she might have made. So of what kind of mistake are you even talking about? If she says one thing but does not act accordingly than that is not a mistake but a CHOICE if she keeps doing it over and over again. And I'm affraid but there are some very clear patterns in Emma's behavior.
Stand by what she said as opposed to being anonymous. She does. Has it occurred to you that the outfit she spoke of would have appeared vulgar to a woman of 18 and that she said it publically as herself not anonymously.
It is possible, but not certain that she would not still holds those opinions. What is certain is that she would state her views herself.
@Ross Taggart You are wrong! I understand you think highly of her, but I do not share your opinion for very valid reasons. You do realise that she did not state her views herself on the Panama Papers affair? She has a PR team, are you aware of that? Whenever things are not going to her tastes she prefers to leave statements to Luke Windsor her publicist. And she has claimed she did it purely anonymity (the offshore account you know) which is, well if I wanted to put it nicely not entirely correct. And FYI we are on the internet EVERYBODY enjoys a certain anonymity there, that does not make a civilised comment any less worthy. And by the way they were not discussing a particular outfit and Emma herself generalized it by saying so. Also opinions do not have a best before date. If a person dislikes something it's not they gonna dislike it for a little while and than it's gone. Milk has a best before date, morals usually don't.
I have as stated on the board at the time made clear I have knowledge of IT and wealth management I went to the PP site and confirmed what Emma said. You say people have valid reasons for using anonymous accounts that is so and the same can be said of publicists for people in Emma's position.
People change there minds and views all the time if the are thoughtful and mature, otherwise they might as well be a pint of milk. Emma is not perfect who is but she has integrity. Dispite how it may seem Anon I take nothing at face value I like Emma and choose to belive her. You do not maybe it is just that simple.
Anon: "Are we really supposed to expect her to live her life according to stuff she said ALMOST 10 YEARS AGO" I can't make it any bigger.
Emma Watson was shaming Beyoncé after she became UN ambassador and a public feminist. That was not 10 years ago! Watson IS still rolling in her old ways, so don't try to make it look like she has changed her mind. She has not. In her book it only means: Do as I say, not as I do.
You and Emma have met anon and discussed this. No matter if she has changed her mind or not does not effect her conviction as a feminist. She said all those years ago she though an outfit was vulgar. You feel that justified all this and nothing she has done in the ensuing decade matters.
You have never made a mistake or held a view out of step with the majority anon. You have been fortunate.
Only people with unrealistic view of Emma are cynical people not willing to except facts. How many times the Panama Papers site is public domain she did not evade tax. Look for yourself if you don't believer that.
Desires what she does with her money is her business I am no millionaire but I am careful where I put money, using high interest account for example. I am sure Emma with her resources does the same so what. She is a person not a character she played no matter how well she did it. See anon realistic views
I like Emma without any need to rationalize every happenstance why if you must can't you dislike her honestly.
@Ross Taggart all you can make are assumptions based on the image you have about her in your head. You like it and that's your choice. It's very clear that as far as you are concerened Emma can do no wrong. But why are you getting worked up so much when other people don't share your opinion. You're acting like she's your child and you must protect her from everything that might tarnish her image. She's a grown up women responsible for what she says and does. And if her fans really do believe that she's a fiercely intelligent woman, as they like to put it, why do you think she can't stand for herself? Why would she need her hardcore fans to get annoyed at people who are discussing (AND I mean DISCUSSING, not insulting, throwing tantrums, foot stamping) matters that she herself brought up. Nobody is trying to intrude her privacy, we are discussing statements that she made. It does not matter if we have met her. She's giving interviews in order to communicate to a broad spectrum of people, whom she doesn't need to meet or be aquainted to. You don't need to personally know a celebrity to be a fan of them, and you don't need that either, to discuss them. Simple as that.
I am not getting worked up all the accusation you level at me could be applied equally to you. You know Emma from the same view point as I do. I don't agree with you anon. I respond to your statements because they insult someone I like and because as a feminist I find your attitude to women in general sexist.
@Ross Taggart Nonsense! Stating things that you do not like, means not I'm insulting or sexist. Those are ridiculous words that get tossed around a lot from people like you, who do not have the chops to lead civilised adult conversations. I'm not against women at all, and I don't know how old you are or what your life experiences may be. I am however realising, that this is a place where only Emma worship is welcome and nothing else. Therefore I'm going to let you adore her in peace and won't disrupt your little party here. Rest in peace freedom of speech!
1) The picture really is much ado about nothing. In fact, she's had racy or risque picks in the past so its not like she hasnt done this kind of work before.
2) While people learn and grow from experience of life they will always be compared to the things they say right or wrong. This happens a lot in the media and when you are a famous person you will be criticized for things that you say publicly.
3) If there is one thing that i feel comes across hypocritical is the stances Emma makes and states about what Emma calls "unreal" expectations for young women and what they should achieve to look like.
Granted, this type of photoshoot is more avant-garde than say a Maybeline shoot. But... it still reinforces this unreal perception of what young women should achieve to look like. While Emma does far more good than she could ever do bad i do think she comes across as a hypocrite when she tells young women they should be totally fine with their bodies yet Emma constantly does modeling shoots where they doll her up.
Does someone like me really care about that? Absolutely not. Im a firm believer that there are just some people who are more gifted with beauty and looks than others. The old saying "flaunt it if you got it" comes to mind. But when you take on the mantle as an activist it most certainly will resonate with young women and cause confusion with the message you are trying to send when you keep dolling yourself up instead of being "yourself" as she puts it.
The sad part is Emma actually looks great without all the makeup and fancy clothes. Emma does a lot of things to "buck" the system whether its her portrayal of Belle or the way she approaches life in general. It would be nice if she finally bucked the system when it comes to glamorizing women to unrealistic heights. My opinion of course.
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