It’s possible you’ll remember Emma Watson for her role in little known film franchise Harry Potter, but it’s more likely you’ll remember the articulate Brown University graduate for her more recent role as a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women.
The 26-year-old was in New York last week at a UN summit where she delivered a powerful speech on the part universities must play in the ongoing fight for gender equality and stopping sexual assault.
Unfortunately, UK journalist Rod Liddle remains stuck in 2011 — or perhaps the 1950s — going by the baffling, out-of-touch column he penned for The Sun about Watson’s address.
“Hermione Granger has been addressing the United Nations General Assembly. Nope not kidding,” he began the piece, apparently unable to distinguish between the young woman and her on screen persona.
“Anyway, instead of telling them all the rules of Quidditch or how to turn someone into a frog, she bored them all rigid with whining, leftie, PC crap.”
Perhaps Liddle ought to get his ears checked as well as his memory because far from “whining”, Watson actually called on universities to do more to tackle sexual violence on their campuses, promote women into leadership positions and create havens and opportunities for minorities — it was a very comprehensive speech.
“I don’t object to them (actresses) having views and expressing them. I just don’t understand why we take them seriously,” Liddle said.
“I suppose they got Emma in because Angelina Jolie is a bit tied up with other stuff at the moment.”
As a quick Google search might have informed him, we tend to take Watson seriously because she has serious feminist credentials and, as part of the UN’s HeForShe campaign, has made herself an effective advocate for women’s rights.
Personally, I’m more confused as to why we care about the dated views of mediocre white men…
Oh wait, we don’t.
Top Comments
He's got a point as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps not about Emma, I didn't hear her speech, but for some reason we seem to think that just because someone is a famous actor that their opinions on completely unrelated things are relevant and that we should be listening to them.
Take Leo Di Caprio for example, he flies around the world on private jets and private yachts lecturing us little people about the dangers of climate change. He's not a climate scientist, he probably doesn't know any more about global warming than any other bloke in the street but just because he's famous and rich he gets invited to speak about it all around the world, and we ignore the inconvenient fact that he's probably spewing out more carbon dioxide than a small country!
Has he missed the several years' work of worth Emma has done with the UN, and her He For She campaign? If he bothered to do his job and do some journalistic research, he'd find out she's a very intelligent and eloquent young woman trying to do some good in the world.