In a recent mailbag column, Bill Simmons fielded this question:
Q: In your “Midseason Form” column, you write about how your wife hates Mariah Carey and that most women do. Try this: Tell your wife that you find Jennifer Love Hewitt attractive and you enjoy her acting. You may even be able to squeeze a whole column out of her reaction and the pure bile that women spit when hearing her name. Ask any sisters, sisters-in-law, other female friends; they all hate her universally, and it is unexplainable.
–Jack, ClevelandSG: Just for the record, I tried this with the Sports Gal this week … she reacted like George Brett in the Pine Tar Game. Highest of high comedy. Somebody needs to film the pilot, “Everybody Hates Jennifer.”
I encountered this very topic Saturday when flipping through the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. Encountering an underwear ad featuring Jennifer Love Hewitt, I made some random comment about it to Danielle and tilted the magazine so she could see. A look of scorn quickly pierced the magazine’s flimsy paper, followed by a “She can’t act and that photo is so airbrushed.” Hmmm… interesting.
I agreed, of course, but not just because it was the manhood-saving correct response. I don’t give Jennifer Love Hewitt much thought, other than my inability to turn the channel if I land on an airing of Can’t Hardly Wait, but that’s really little more than my enjoyment of the Preston Meyers character. Or maybe it’s just my inexplicable man-crush on teen comedies. Regardless, I don’t get the Jennifer Love Hewitt hatred, but it obviously exists and seems universal. Fascinating.
Perhaps I should draw horns and facial hair on the picture and leave it on top of the trash, just to be safe.
Allow me to explain the hatred. She’s probably not dumb, but she PLAYS dumb. And coy. In the World of Women, that is the worst kind of way to be. We don’t hate women who are ACTUALLY dumb or coy. Like Jessica Simpson, for example. We can laugh at her and want to stroke her brain and tell her about the rabbits, but we don’t hate her. That would just be cruel.
And I already drew the horns and facial hair. Plus I blacked out a few of her teeth.
*giggles coyly*
Now, Jessica Simpson? I would understand that hatred.
hmmm.. I’m different I guess.
I hate jessica simpson, but am indifferent to jeniffer love hewitt.