Donald Trump probably hates Megyn Kelly. If not, then he wants everyone to think he does. After FOX News denied his request to remove Megyn Kelly as a debate moderator, Trump boycotted the Jan. 28 Republican debate. As a result, Kelly moderated the debate, Trump held a protest and Trump’s supporters hurled sexist insults at Kelly online. What exactly did Kelly do to cause this outpouring of hatred?
From time to time, pop culture deems a celebrity worthy of our hatred. Kelly is under fire from Trump’s supporters after asking about his disparaging comments about women at the Aug. 6 Republican debate. Megyn Kelly is a recent — albeit, more political — example in a long tradition of Americans immediately hating a public figure with fervor.
Anne Hathaway, Taylor Swift and Gwyneth Paltrow have all also received public hatred for completely different reasons. What sets these celebrities apart from others who receive collective hate is the unpredictability of the hatred’s emergence.
Anne Hathaway won a 2013 Academy Award for her role as Fantine in “Les Misérables,” a movie in which she chopped off her hair and received critical praise. The general consensus was that Anne Hathaway deserved her Oscar. Two years prior, she stumbled her way through hosting the same award show alongside a barely-present James Franco, a job she was likely given due to public appeal.
Around the same time as her Oscar win, a public hatred for Anne Hathaway grew so large that it deserved a short hand: “Hathahate.” A large portion of this hatred came from a mysterious location. Though most people could not place the one moment that made Anne Hathaway a hated celebrity, people still hated her.
This phenomenon of hate is not rare, either. Countless celebrities, most of whom are female, garner hate from outside sources for seemingly no reason. This sets them apart from a separate category of hated celebrities — those like Australian rapper Iggy Azalea.
Azalea, known for her song “Fancy,” attracted negative attention for various reasons, including her repeated cultural appropriation. Azalea had one of the largest hits of 2014, but has yet to recover her public image.
Not all famous people stay hated, however. The prime example is Taylor Swift, who was an online target prior to the release of her most recent album, “1989.” While Swift’s album was being promoted, she ran an aggressive reinvention campaign to improve her public image.
This effort contributed to her meteoric rise to becoming one of the largest musicians in the industry. However, Swift’s approval has recently started to turn into disillusionment, and Swift now stays more and more out of headlines.
When you start to examine the waves of hatred forced onto celebrities, there is an obvious pattern. Examples of hated celebrities are overwhelmingly female. Furthermore, male celebrities who receive an extreme amount of hate usually do so as a result of a large offense committed in or exposed to the public, such as a crime or public hate speech.
In fact, famous men who were disliked and publicly shamed include those who remained in the public sphere despite allegations of serious crimes. Actor Mel Gibson presented an award at the 2016 Golden Globes, and Chris Brown still has a successful music career. Both of these celebrities publicly apologized for their actions.
One exception is Justin Bieber, who was a male target of hatred from a young age due to his popularity and feminine singing voice. Bieber later grew to become an international hooligan, but as a child, did he really deserve the hate?
After the 2016 Golden Globes, actress Jennifer Lawrence received negative attention for calling out a reporter for being on his phone. Lawrence was serious when calling out the reporter and most likely did not intend for the public’s disapproval to be directed at her. Now, the actress is at a risky point in her career.
Women in the public eye for a long period of time are in a precarious position, to say the least. Talented and successful women attract a specific form of sexist hate on the Internet. This hate does not impact most careers, but the messages received are disturbing to read even for those unaffiliated with their targets.
Public hatred is something that arises from both simple and dramatic circumstances. It has the potential to touch any public figure for any amount of time and cause positive and negative results. Celebrities have made careers out of being hated — stand-up comics, specifically — and careers have been ruined because of the public’s hatred.
It is true that famous men and women are both subjected to cruelty and hatred, but the level of hatred certain women in the public eye are subjected to is only comparable to famous men who have committed crimes. While online hate is nothing new, it is something that is reaching new unfortunate heights most evident when famous women are attacked.
This is so true, and Justin Bieber is not an exception. The way people quickly forgave him when the “things” they supposedly hated him for had a more realistic reasoning than, say, Iggy Azalea, and we’ll see how it goes for her this time around when she releases her second album (spoiler: it won’t be as big as Justin’s massively reported comeback from the past year I’m pretty sure)….
I can see why people dislike Iggy Azalea. Anne Hathaway? I just don’t understand that.