Gwyneth Paltrow vs. Lena Dunham: Who Reigns Insufferable?

By Jodi Smith | Celebrity | March 9, 2015 |

By Jodi Smith | Celebrity | March 9, 2015 |

Celebrities live their lives in the spotlight. We know this and they know this. However, some celebrities either forget or don’t care about how the things they say can affect others. A couple of very visible offenders seem to be Gwyneth Paltrow and Lena Dunham. Both women are famously open and verbal about things that most people would just keep to themselves. They spout quotes intended for a Pinterest board titled “Being Your Best Self” while wildly misunderstanding that the things they say might be poorly thought out, offensive, condescending, or downright dangerous. (Vagina steam clean or sisterly vagina spelunking, anyone?)

After a particular quote from Dunham was brought to my attention today, I thought it would be fun to play the “Seriously, She Said THAT??” game. I’ll give you a quote and you guess whether it was said by Gwyneth, Lena, or if I made it up. I’ll put the answers at the bottom, in case you want to lord your superiority over others by sharing your accomplishment of knowing, or not knowing, all of the quotes.

1. “When you go to Paris and your concierge sends you to some… restaurant because they get a kickback, it’s like, No. Where should I really be? Where is the great bar with organic wine? Where do I get a bikini wax in Paris? People know that I know that…”

2. “When I think about all of the things I’ve accomplished in my life, I understand that I’m just a person who came from a normal place to do extraordinary things. Anyone can do what I’ve done with the right amount of work.”

3. “How many times a day do we throw our words away? We say things like, ‘I hate my hair,’ ‘I’m so stupid,’ ‘I’m such a klutz.’ We never think that these words bring negative energy into our vibration and affect us on a physical level, but they do.”

4. “This was the same year that I became a vegan. This was inspired by a love of puppies and also a cow who winked at me on a family vacation to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.”

5. “You come across [online comments] about yourself and about your friends, and it’s a very dehumanizing thing. It’s almost like how, in war, you go through this bloody, dehumanizing thing…My hope is, as we get out of it, we’ll reach the next level of conscience.”

6. “I stopped looking at my own Twitter. I send the tweets to someone… and she posts them for me — she lets me know if there’s an important response. It became a little too much. This is advice I would have for everyone — whether you have a million followers or whether you have seven followers, because we all deal with the complexity of people being able to say things to you anonymously from behind the veil of the internet…”

7. “… I was like, ‘Oh, this attention is something I’m going to figure out how to use in a way that feels productive, healthy, and smart. And not just like as an excuse to collect handbags.’ Although … I love handbags.”

8. “I was a fool. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But I have to say, it’s been incredibly rewarding and I learn so much every day.”

9. “Why they want to twist words, why they want to read about someone in a negative light and why that feels good to them. But I also know a huge tribe of women who are loving and supportive of other women, in ways that are completely transformative.”

10. “If I can see something in my mind’s eye and then put that out there for the world to recognize as a universal truth, then it doesn’t matter what a few anonymous people on the internet might say.”

11. “It’s sort of like saying someone’s obsessed with the Holocaust. This is a huge issue, and it speaks to the way that we abuse power and the way that celebrity allows for injustice.”

12. “My life is good because I am not passive about it. I invest in what is real. Like real people, to do real things, for the real me.”

13. “One night I put on a nightgown, stepped onto the porch, looked up at the moon, and said, ‘Who am I?’”

14. “It’s just who I am and how I choose to be every day. I wake up, look in the mirror, and then I go about the, like, task of figuring out whether today is a Good Day or a Bad Day. It’s all about choices.”

15. “Thinking about death every single day can actually make you feel more connected to your life…. I was just lying in bed the other day pretending that I was on the verge of dying and looking out the window and thinking ‘What if this is the last moment I ever existed?’ And I kind of felt cool about it.”

1. GP; 2.me; 3. GP; 4. LD; 5. GP; 6. LD; 7. LD; 8. GP; 9. GP; 10.me; 11. LD; 12. GP; 13. LD; 14.me; 15. LD