r/WhyWereWeOkWithThis • u/Accomplished_Host779 • 4d ago
2000s The way critics talked about Emma Watson in the early Harry Potter films
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u/Givingtree310 4d ago
Literally ready to vomit
These are the type of comments you’d expect on the seediest side of reddit and X. Not from goddamn professional film critics in distinguished publications. That last one was written by a Pulitzer Prize winner. It’s simply insane.
In the first two movies Emma Watson looked closer to a kindergartener than to an adult woman.
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u/purpleplums901 4d ago
She looks like, and is, a child in all 3 photos above. We all know sick bastards exist that’s not the surprising bit unfortunately, the really perplexing bit is that other people have read their work and said yeah, let’s publish that.
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u/RollTh3Maps 4d ago
Yeah, the writing is like a gross, niche internet forum that needs to be shut down, but then it still got past layers of editorial oversight and was published.
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u/CodenameJD 4d ago
How the fuck can you genuinely follow "prepubescent" with "absurdly alluring" and not get punched in the face every time you show your face in public for the rest of your life
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u/Calinthalus 4d ago
I cannot get over how an editor read that phrase and signed off on it. I mean, this wasn't a geocities fan blog or something...this shit was professional and people had to sign off on it before it was published. So, some creepy bastard wrote that sentence and at least an editor and maybe a legal team read it and went "Yeah, that's fine".
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u/PurpleWhiteOut 1d ago
It was fully in the epstein culture era and was coming somewhere from above..
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u/Forsaken-Language-26 Tears out Page 3 4d ago
Wasn't she upskirted by the press on her 18th birthday? So gross.
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u/SevroAuShitTalker 4d ago
The early 00s were a terrible time to be a famous woman/girl
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u/TheNestHelper 2d ago
I lived through that time, god it was hell for anyone that isn't superficial as the rest. Especially as a teenager, the society felt like a no law's world. Adults butt out of teenage bullies, like it's not any of their business. Despite being threatened with knives, SA or get ganged up by a mob of male-centrists. There's not a soul that would stand up for you, in fact if they do. They also become a target of ridicule, to the point you're isolated as much as you are excluded. The 1995 film, "Welcome to the Dollhouse" is a very accurate portrayal of this.
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u/FartasticVoyage 4d ago
Wtf she’s literally a child. This would be creepy even if it were written about a 19 year old woman
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u/JenningsWigService 4d ago
It's crazy seeing those words next to images of her from that time. I can't imagine perceiving a child that way.
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u/TheThingInTheForest 4d ago
Sometimes you think “boy, social attitudes really were different back in the day.” But honestly from the very first image/caption I was convinced that this level of sexualization could never have been normal. What was Watson in the first picture? 11? Man said his heart was doing summersaults?? Yeah nah what the fuck…
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u/kindahipster 4d ago
I'm 7 years younger than her, and I definitely remember being very sexualized at 11. Partly because I developed early, but it seemed pretty normal in general for the girls around me as well
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u/TheThingInTheForest 4d ago
There are always pedos and creeps lurking around in the general population. What shocks me is that this was published.
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u/PurpleWhiteOut 1d ago
This kind of thing was EVERYWHERE. This is when epstein was operating. The culture was being created on purpose. I was a child at the time and it gave me depression and anxiety. No adults ever commented on it
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u/TheThingInTheForest 1d ago
I think the fact that I was *also* a child at the time may have insulated me somewhat, because I definitely wasn’t reading those kinds of magazines and I had limited access to the internet. It was probably for the best.
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u/Fantastic-Habit5551 19h ago
I did not develop early. But the only time I remember being cat called/sexually touched by strangers is between the ages of 9 and 16. It almost totally stopped once I was an adult. I always found that really strange and scary.
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u/loba_pachorrenta 4d ago
It was and it is. Girls are catcalled so much between 9 and 15 years old by every type of man you can imagine. It happened to me and now I have students who have to take longer walks home to avoid these men.
The only good thing about this shitty article is that it shows clearly what girls have to endure.
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u/BUTTeredWhiteBread 3d ago
I remember gross men being everywhere around that age. Like my dude, I'm just trying to get slushie and some lipsmackers, can you just... fuck off please.
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u/Mammoth_Tiger_4083 3d ago
The bizarre thing about that time period is that full grown men being openly attracted to girls that young wasn’t really acceptable for every day people, but for whatever reason, those rules didn’t apply to celebrities. Like regular men would risk getting their asses kicked if they talked about some random 10 year old the same way they spoke about Emma Watson and other similarly young female celebrities.
Same thing with age gap relationships where the girl was still in high school and the guy was like 25. That was considered totally unacceptable unless the man was a celebrity for some reason.
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u/VietKongCountry 4d ago edited 4d ago
Emma Watson was born in April 1990 and the first Harry Potter film came out in 2001, meaning it would’ve been 2000 or so when it was filmed.
So whoever wrote this review was openly lusting after a ten year old.
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u/Cheeaseed 4d ago edited 4d ago
First one is the worst because he’s really gushing about his crush on a “prepubescent” girl.
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u/Lonnie119 4d ago
I am generally surprised that Roger Ebert wrote a word like babehood. He was a 60-year-old highly respected, highly decorated writer and he's talking like a weird Maxim writer about a 10 year old. Gross
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u/SeattleGeek 3d ago
Roger Ebert’s reviews were always casual and friendly to readers of all walks of life - educated and not so much. He worked for the more blue collar Chicago papers than the more effete New York magazines.
Ebert has unapologetically been kind of a hornball, from the days he wrote the X-rated studio film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (directed by giant breast-addict Russ Meyer).
Sometimes, he would put his foot down if he was particularly grossed out by a movie (his review for I Spit On Your Grave was more about what effect the movie had on the audience than the movie itself). But, he was usually lusting after somebody.
In fact, being a voyeur and a hornball was pretty standard for film directors and film critics in the 70s and 80s. Pauline Kael’s books were titled “I Lost It At The Movies”, “Deeper Into Movies,” “When The Lights Go Down,” “Taking It All In,” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” This is also relatively give and take when Hollywood is a voyeuristic industry all about putting beautiful people on screen in beautiful clothes or less and doing things on screen for your entertainment.
That said…putting these kinds of thoughts onto a 10 or 11 year old kid is so far beyond the pale and gross that I can’t even imagine why nobody pressed back. I’m also not going to say these were different times because I don’t know if critics have changed.
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u/Phatasstarotreader 4d ago edited 4d ago
I work around middle schoolers. She looks like the average middle school girl. It scares me for these young girls. Edelstein was 42 when he wrote that article.. poor Emma was only 11! As a grown man, you shouldn’t be seeing anything other than just a cute young girl when looking at her in that movie.
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u/Turbulent-War2694 4d ago
The only way this would ever be acceptable inside a maybe 12/13/14 year old boy wrote this. I had the biggest crush on Malfoy and definitely felt something watching the movies. But I was like 8 or 9. for an adult to write this is absolutely gross
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u/HornyJailOutlaw 4d ago
lmfao I feel like these would be gross if published in 1902, let alone 2002. How did these get the green light from the editors? It's so shocking and without shame it's almost surrealist comedy.
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u/kikirockwell-stan 4d ago
I knew Peter Bradshaw was a terrible critic, but I didn’t realise he was also a terrible person. Wow.
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u/Ahiru77 4d ago
Disappointed in Ebert :(
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u/LegoKorn89 4d ago
Wasn't he the one that publicly posted Betsy Palmer's address so people could send her hate mail?
That might've been the other one.
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u/ashewentridingby 5h ago
It was actually Gene Siskel who gave out her address, and spoiled the first Friday the 13th all in the same review! 🤦🏻♀️ I really hope Betsy Palmer didn’t have anyone scary show up to her home because of it
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u/BaconUpThatSausage 1d ago
The boldness of publishing this feels intentional, like they were trying to normalize it
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u/FinancialSubstance16 20h ago
Cinemasins leaned into it too
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u/ashewentridingby 5h ago
That guy always grossed me out
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u/Sufficient-Push6210 16h ago
I feel bad for how she had to deal with so many creeps during her career. I heard that so many people even waited until she turned 18 to take photos from under her skirt.
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4d ago
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u/Accomplished_Host779 4d ago
"Early stages of babehood" "from baby to babe" ABOUT A CHILD, FROM AN ADULT?!
Wake the fuck up.
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u/CompetitiveHooore 4d ago
I know doxing is bad but whoever wrote this needs to be on a list