Naked Celebrity News Update (Or, the Parable of the Prodigal Upskirt)

Posted on | December 13, 2012 | 32 Comments

Because I’m trying not to offend the Pope — he’s on Twitter now, and I’m still hoping to get a “Follow Friday” shout-out — I resisted the temptation to headline this item “Anne Hathaway Upskirt,” although I decided it wouldn’t hurt to use that as the URL. It seems that at this week’s premiere of Les Misérables, Anne accidentally displayed for paparazzi what the New York Daily News calls “the Full Hathaway”:

“I was getting out of the car and my dress was so tight that I didn’t realize it until I saw all the photographers’ flashes,” she told Vanity Fair writer Ingrid Sischy.
“It was devastating. They saw everything. I might as well have lifted up my skirt for them.”

If this incident was important enough to be reported by the New York Daily News, why shouldn’t a Hayekian public intellectual notice it? Meanwhile, in important news from the tech sector, Google has made it somewhat more difficult to search for porn photos, including the suddenly popular “Anne Hathaway Upskirt” photo. (No, that link won’t show it. I’m just linking back to this post to Google-bomb myself.)

Here’s my thought: Guys are going to be searching for that photo anyway, and why shouldn’t some percentage of that traffic lead to my site, where maybe these sick freaks will be inspired to feel some twinge of regret for wanting to see what Anne Hathaway’s naughty parts look like.

Because the Pope’s on Twitter now, guys, and don’t you feel ashamed that you have nothing better to do with your pathetic lives than to Google “Anne Hathaway Upskirt” photo?

Speaking of pathetic lives, Matt Lauer still has a job at NBC:

“We’ve seen a lot of you lately,” Lauer said, prompting the actress to immediately divert her gaze in embarrassment.
“Sorry about that,” she said . . . “I’d be happy to stay home, but, the film.”
Lauer complimented her ability to keep smiling (seriously with the creepy uncle bit, Matt?) and pressed on for any lesson she might have learned.
“It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it … sells it,” Hathaway said.
“And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants.”

You’re exactly right, Ms. Hathaway: Your sexuality is commodified when some photographer sells that picture, and when Matt Lauer (whose annual salary is reportedly $25 million) asks about it on The Today Show, and when I make “Anne Hathaway upskirt photo” the URL of a blog post. And this makes the Pope on Twitter very sad.

However, without any intent to excuse Matt Lauer’s sins or my own, why didn’t you wear underwear to the Les Miserables premiere, Anne?

I mean, that gown was slit way up the thigh and you were wearing some weird kind of high-heeled bondage-themed shoes and yet it never once crossed your mind that, hey, maybe a pair of panties would be a good idea to complete the ensemble? Now that we’re having a discussion about a “culture that commodifies sexuality,” can we talk about you posing nude with Jake Gyllenhaal for a magazine cover?

When it comes time to consider whether you were an “unwilling participant” in the commodification of your sexuality, Ms. Hathaway, this kind of stuff matters. You can ask the Pope on Twitter.

We are civilized people and not brutal savages who would require you to wear a burkha, Ms. Hathaway, but there is an obvious and unfortunate element of hypocrisy when a young actress who gets paid millions of dollars a year to look pretty on camera (and who poses naked on magazine covers) decides she’ll attend a movie premiere with no panties and wearing a gown slit up the thigh and then has the incomparable chutzpah to complain about “a culture that commodifies sexuality.”

Don’t blame me for this lecture, Ms. Hathaway. I’ve become somewhat notorious for lecturing young ladies about their short skirts, and as angry as you are about all this, it would ill behoove me to be silent now. That’s what the Pope on Twitter might call a “sin of omission.”

Ideas Have Consequences, as Richard Weaver warned us, and this is an unfortunate consequence of your idea not to wear panties Monday.

(C’mon: I just name-checked Richard Weaver in a celebrity upskirt post. There’s got to be some kind of award for that, right?)

Our sinful pride leads us to attempt to rationalize the wrong we do, to engage in the psychological defense of blaming others for problems that are in fact the result of our own wrongdoing.

Pride goeth before an upskirt photo.

Well, that’s enough sermonizing for one day. If Anne Hathaway still feels no guilt for flashing her crotch, maybe some of you guys at least feel slightly guilty for wondering, “Brazilian?”

No, “Landing Strip.” Or so I’m told.

The Pope on Twitter has not yet commented on this incident, and probably won’t, but you should follow him anyway.

And tell him to RT me.

Finally, in order to complete our update, two men in New Mexico planned to kidnap and castrate Justin Bieber.

Unfortunately, they got arrested before they could accomplish it.

Will the Pope on Twitter ever forgive me for that joke? Mea culpa.

Besides, I’m Protestant and he’s a Notre Dame fan. Roll Tide!

Category: Catholics, Celebrities, Culture, Hollywood, Scandal, Sex

Comments

32 Responses to “Naked Celebrity News Update (Or, the Parable of the Prodigal Upskirt)”

Wombat_socho
December 13th, 2012 @ 1:53 pm

According to one joke I’ve heard, His Holiness is actually more partial to that SEC college with the bulldog…and considering the kind of people Notre Dame’s been allowing on campus of late, who can blame him?
Bob Belvedere
December 13th, 2012 @ 2:18 pm

Put this one in ‘The Best Of The Writings Of Robert Stacy McCain’ file.
FenelonSpoke
December 13th, 2012 @ 2:39 pm

Yes, like Anne Hathaway didn’t intend for an upshot photo. Just like Janet Jackson didn’t intend for a “wardrobe malfunction.” Celebrities are pathetic in their need for attention.
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2012 @ 2:52 pm

Stacy, Stacy, Stacy… panty lines are SO Tea Party
Finrod Felagund
December 13th, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

Google is playing with fire here.

People were searching for porn on the Internet before Google even existed, and they will be searching for porn when Google is dead, buried, and forgotten. If they wanted to throw Bing a lifeline, I couldn’t think of a better way to do it. Why didn’t they just change the default setting for SafeSearch to ‘strict’ instead of ‘moderate’? It would have had the same effect and it wouldn’t have pissed off millions of people. Lots of people are going to be giving Bing a try for the first time now.
FenelonSpoke
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:05 pm

Oh, yes. I have never seen Anne Hathaway in any film but “Becoming Jane” In which her accent as a Englishwoman left something to be desired. Her nude photos and upskirt shot wouldn’t do a thing for me.
McGehee
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:07 pm

Anne’s beaver shot reminds me that for the longest time a sidebar ad on some site somewhere often featured her showing off her side-boob with a smile for the camera.
Becca Lower
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:09 pm

In deed. My only quibble: “Unfortunately, they got arrested before they could acomplish it.” 2 Cs, Stacy.
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:11 pm

” Google has made it somewhat more difficult to search for porn photos…” Umm…. my bad?
I’m Not a Particularly Good Catholic | Andrew J. Patrick
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:13 pm

[…] is why it took Stacey McCain’s epic blog post on Anne Hathaway’s wardrobe malfunction to remind me that I should follow His Holiness on Twitter. Something to confess this Saturday […]
Andrew Patrick
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:17 pm

How can you be arrested for attempting something impossible?

Oh, wait. They could have kidnapped him, I suppose.
Frank_B
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:20 pm

Wait, isn’t Anne Hathaway Mr. Drysdale’s secretary?
Finrod Felagund
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:26 pm

Google should be asked why they aren’t willing to pay ‘their fair share’ in taxes:

http://allthingsd.com/20121210/google-stashed-2b-in-taxes-in-the-bermuda-triangle-in-2011/
Quartermaster
December 13th, 2012 @ 3:57 pm

He does seem to write best when he has a few drams of skullpop in him. If it isn’t skull pop then I guess we’d better get him on Ritalin PDQ afore he hurst someone. Like himself.
Wombat_socho
December 13th, 2012 @ 4:16 pm

Betrayed by the raging monsters of their ids!
Wombat_socho
December 13th, 2012 @ 4:18 pm

I think there’s an actual dedicated search engine for porn these days. Not that I’d know anything about that personally; it was, however, mentioned in the news item on Google’s porn clampdown that I linked this morning.
robertstacymccain
December 13th, 2012 @ 5:35 pm

Haven’t had a drop, QM. The twisted randomness of this one can be explained by its origin:
Saw comments by Belvedere and BJL on today’s “Live at Five.” Curious about the topic of their badinage, I skimmed through and saw the headline about Hathaway’s embarrassment. Also, there was the item about the Pope’s Twitter account, which had been the subject of a riff I did Wednesday on Twitter, joking about how I was going to become the first blogger RT’d by the Pope. Finally, Belvedere was whining that the new Google image filtering would deprive him of Rule 5 material.
OK, so the challenge was, how to combine this into a single post? And this began with my apologetic tone-it-down opening, suggesting that the Pope might not give me a #FF shout-out if the content was too ribald. So I grabbed hold of that idea and ran with it: A celebrity upskirt post that even His Holiness might RT, given its basic moral message.
Also, Ratzinger hates Justin Bieber. But doesn’t everybody?
Finrod Felagund
December 13th, 2012 @ 5:44 pm

True, but anyone with multiple neurons to rub together won’t go to any .xxx site to look for celebrity upskirt pictures from work, whereas lots of people would look at random stuff through Google cache that might otherwise trip company firewall flags.
robertstacymccain
December 13th, 2012 @ 5:55 pm

“Not that I’d know anything about that personally”
Ba-da-BOOM-tzing!
Quartermaster
December 13th, 2012 @ 6:28 pm

The Pope hates Bieber? I guess there may be hope for him.
Bob Belvedere
December 13th, 2012 @ 6:52 pm

‘Whining”!!!!
Listen , Cornpone-Breath, this is a serious issue. I depend on Google Images to help me craft my superior Rule 5 posts!
Bob Belvedere
December 13th, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

Burn the heretic!
Bob Belvedere
December 13th, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

Ooooo…aren’t they!
Bob Belvedere
December 13th, 2012 @ 6:58 pm

http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=rimshot&play=true
Whoopie
December 13th, 2012 @ 7:39 pm

99% of so called wardrobe malfunctions are deliberate. In the last year a dozen or more female celebs have pulled the same stunt. Emma Watson, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, et al.

Then there are all the “leaked” self photos and sex videos. And they insult our intelligence by feigning angry indignation and even suing websites for posting the pics.
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2012 @ 7:55 pm

That was Jane Hathaway, youngster.
Becca Lower
December 13th, 2012 @ 8:12 pm

I’ll remember this, the next time I question leaving an off-handed comment here… noted.
richard mcenroe
December 13th, 2012 @ 8:45 pm

In related news, over on Twitter:

Bob Belvedere @BobBelvedere
RT @richard_mcenroe: BREAKING @rsmccain receives 1st 140-chr anathema in Church history. Resps by nailing theses to Pintrest #Pontifex
Bob Belvedere
December 14th, 2012 @ 8:15 am

I’m the one who wrote it for the Holy Father – he and I play cyber-pinocle on Thursdays.
Wombat_socho
December 14th, 2012 @ 9:02 am

“random stuff” Uh-huh. NTTAWWT.
Chaffetz: State Dept Hiding Benghazi Survivors (Video) « Nice Deb
December 14th, 2012 @ 10:26 am

[…] the hook – it’s obviously not a legitimate story – carry on with your coverage of Ann Hathaway’s “devastating” panty-less upskirt scandal. Share this:TwitterDiggLinkedInPinterestTumblrRedditFacebookStumbleUponEmailGoogle +1Like […]
Now the Pope's on YouTube... - Lowering the Boom
December 16th, 2012 @ 8:09 pm

[…] @Pontifex, which you may have read about from such venerable, Vatican news sources as DaTechGuy and The Other McCain. But did you know that he also has a YouTube […]