Nerdshares

From context, I can’t quite agree with the “root” thing. I do think she means it’s de rigueur, it’s rote, to see people of color on magazines. I think it’s possible she has associated “rote” with “rooted,” and thus has mistaken the pronunciation. 

And I agree that she’s not explicitly saying “our race problems are over, everyone!” But she does have this tendency to make grand declarations with authority and knowledge that she just doesn’t possess. And I think, really, it’s just that she is severely deluded. She’s a competent actress, and I’m sure she shows up to sets knowing all her lines and hitting all her marks and is friendly and professional. But she really is so far deep into herself that she doesn’t ever honestly acknowledge how she achieved the success she has (realtalk: lady has only a high-school education, dropped out of college to pursue her acting career, and landed her first role because her godfather is Steven Spielberg and he cast her in Hook without a screen test), and she talks about her dad — who I’m sure was a nice, talented fellow — as though he effected Social Change. The editor has to correct, in a parenthetical, that “The White Shadow” actually didn’t feature the first interracial kiss, which is what Gwyneth thinks because of course she does.

Gwyneth is annoying because for most people being rich and literally never having had to worry about bills would be enough, but she also needs to project this air of somehow earning and being entitled to all the things a quirk of genetics bestowed upon her. So because of this delicious Snuggie of delusion in which she is constantly wrapped, she will talk about almost anything, regardless of how little she knows about it. For as sophisticated as her “personal brand” is supposed to be, all she has to do is open her mouth and you can immediately tell her intellectual sensibilities lag far behind her interests in food and fashion. And yeah, when you want to sell consumers on the idea that you’re “cultured,” it’s helpful to expand the idea of what cultural appreciation really is, beyond what you can appropriate for your personal use. But again, because of who she is and what she has, it would never occur to her that she’s not qualified to talk about race, or to — god forbid — adopt an air of humility.

She just bugs me, dude. To each his own.