Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Emma Chance | Celebrity | October 24, 2023
Last Saturday was the Hello Sunshine “Shine Away” event. If that sounds like a lot of silly words to you, let me explain. Hello Sunshine is Reese Witherspoon’s … I’m scouring the website for a definition of what it actually is. Production company? I’m not sure. It seems mostly focused on female storytellers. The About page says “We Support Women’s Authorship,” “We are Joyful Changemakers,” and “We are disruptors.”
“Shine Away” was essentially a bunch of panels where Witherspoon talked to her famous friends, including Jennifer Garner, Mindy Kaling, Tracee Ellis Ross, author Cheryl Strayed, and more. To start things off, she explained how and why she launched Hello Sunshine in 2016. Ah-ha! Clues!
“After I did a whole lot of soul searching and a lot of complaining to anyone who would listen, namely my mother, I realized what so many people in this room have realized, is that if you want to fix a problem, you have to be part of the solution. I would like to also point out women are always part of the solution. We’ve had enough of people telling our stories for us. One of the biggest rules in my family is you get to tell your own news, and a version of that in Hello Sunshine terms is women get to tell their own stories.”
Hmmm…
Well, okay. I guess that’s cool. I’m down for more stories about women told by women! Sounds good!
But wait…
“I’m not meant to be doing dark, heavy, intense, horror, gore, darkness movies. People like to see me do light movies, and I was like, OK. It doesn’t put you in the cool kids club a lot but I don’t care, I don’t want to be in the cool kids club. I want to make optimistic stuff that makes girls excited to be women in this world, because it is a wonderful thing to be a woman in this world,” she added.
Now I’m confused again.
No, seriously, listen. I get it. It’s called Hello Sunshine, for God’s sake. They’re not going to be making slasher films. But it frustrates me that another rich and powerful celebrity is using her platform to basically say that women should smile more. Is that not what she’s saying? Being a lady is awesome! I’m so happy! Sunshine!! It’s like the 2023 version of “Happy girls are the prettiest,” which was attributed to Audrey Hepburn back in the Tumblr era, but I hope she didn’t truly say it.
How about some stories about the darkness involved in being “a woman in this world,” Reese? Plenty of material there.
