Nicole Kidman Bullied On Facebook
Monday, December 1st, 2008
I don’t know why. I am completely indifferent as to whether Kidman’s acting skills are bad, very bad or indeed the worst in the world. And I don’t know what a crazy pill is supposed to be.
But I was not entirely surprised it existed - Facebookers are inherently unpleasant and Kidman has always polarised people.
What was something of a shock was to discover just how spoilt for choice anti-Kidman campaigners are. Type “Nicole” and “Kidman” into a Facebook search and you’re confronted with the horrible, disturbing, catty world of Kidman haters.
For every fan group there is at least one “So over Nicole Kidman” or “No wonder Tom Cruise is crazy and Keith drinks” group. Or nastier: “Nicole Kidman is Satan”, “Nicole Kidman Looks Like An Alien With Foetal Alcohol Syndrome” or just plain “I hate Nicole Kidman” groups.
And they are feral - men and women violently attacking a woman they have most likely never met or know personally.
They don’t just not like Nicole Kidman but are so filled with loathing and spite they are inspired to digitally alter photos so she looks 100 years old or attack her entirely innocent newborn baby - pages and pages of that malicious looniness bloggers are renowned for.
“She is manipulative, calculating and two faced!” said Avi Aronstan.
“Nicole = Bland,” said another and “she has the emotional scope of a spoon and she’s ugly”, Jarrod Booth wrote. And that’s the printable stuff.
But the sport of Kidman-hating has hit a grubby new low, not to mention reached greater audiences than online chatrooms in recent weeks as movie reviewers take unprecedented personal swipes at the actress on the back of the release of Australia.
In one of the many brutal reviews she is labelled “frozen, brittle and vapid”, in another she is “glacial” and there’s the standard “ice queen” barb running through many.
Cutting even deeper, one reviewer unfairly blames her “baby brain” for what he describes as an “overpaid” performance.
Melanie Reid, a columnist with The Times in Britain has been by far the most stinging.
“Australia the movie has one huge problem: it stars Nicole Kidman,” Reid wrote.
“She’s one of the most overrated actors in the world, a woman who has been the kiss of death in practically every movie she has starred in” she wrote.
They are at a loss to explain why this successful Aussie export attracts such vicious personal attack - at home and abroad - but the worst of which is in her own backyard.
Some commentators blame the roles she’s played. Some blame her apparent lack of relationship with her adopted children Conor or Isabella.
They say it’s a tall poppy or a jealousy thing, a Tom Cruise or Scientology thing. Something about red hair, lanky legs or arched eyebrows.
I think all of the above. But I also think these latest attacks on Kidman are even more meaningless than any of that - I think it’s just a case of momentum.
In the frenzy of the online world where people feed off each other and spite breeds spite, Kidman is caught up in an unofficial game of bullying.
Only with what could be the performance of her career on the cards, the timing couldn’t be worse.
Tags: 100 years, acting skills, alcohol syndrome, audiences, campaigners, chatrooms, columnist, deeper one, fan group, haters, melanie, movie reviewers, nicole kidman, spite, spoon, swipes, tom cruise