Reese Witherspoon, Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, Hilary Swank and Felicity Jones recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for the magazine's third annual actress roundtable. When the group breached the topic of the commentary surrounding Renee Zellweger's appearance, Witherspoon didn't mince words.
"It's horrible. It's cruel and rude and disrespectful, and I can go on and on and on. It bothers me immensely," Witherspoon told The Hollywood Reporter:
I know this is so Pollyanna of me, but why -- and it's particularly women -- why do they have to tear women down? And why do we have to tear other women down to build another woman up? It drives me crazy. Like, this one looks great without her makeup but that one doesn't look good without her makeup, and it's all just a judgment and assault that I don't -- look, men are prey to it as well. I just don't think it's with the same sort of ferocity.
The actresses, who have starred in some of the year's best films, also chatted about the dearth of interesting female roles as well as the nude photo hackings that rocked Hollywood earlier this year.
"I feel really strongly that there's nothing deviant about two lovers sharing sexual intimacy. That is normal," Patricia Arquette said of the photo hacks. "It's been happening since the beginning of time. Through any different medium. We had paper. Before that, we met behind the bush. You know?"
"What is deviant is when a community decides that they can break into your sexuality, steal that from you, insert themselves, observe your private sexuality ... I feel like we're teaching our children social values," she continued.
Arquette went on to say that she encountered much victim-blaming when discussing the hacked photos, especially from other women who called the actresses "stupid" to have taken the photos in the first place.
"That society thinks it's okay [to hack the photos], that it's their fault -- that's deviant. That's what we're teaching our kids, that if somebody messes up or does what they want in their private life, they're stupid and you can, basically, communally molest them," she said.
Arquette's comments echo Jennifer Lawrence's feelings about the invasion of privacy: "Just because I'm a public figure, just because I'm an actress, does not mean that I asked for this. It does not mean that it comes with the territory," Lawrence told Vanity Fair in October. "It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world."
She added, "Anybody who looked at those pictures, you’re perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, ‘Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.’ I don’t want to get mad, but at the same time I’m thinking, I didn’t tell you that you could look at my naked body.”
For more, head over to The Hollywood Reporter.
Before You Go
