Here’s What’s Really Wrong With Those ‘In A World Full of Kardashians…’ Memes

Anne Hathaway, queen of unintentional shade. (Photo: Getty Images)

Anne Hathaway is backpedaling on a meme she posted to Instagram, which threw, according to her, “unintended” shade at the Kardashian krew. The Alice Through the Looking Glass actress posted an image of her costar Helena Bonham Carter, with the words “in a world full of Kardashians… be Helena Bonham Carter.” The image was a regram from a friend, Toby Fleischman, and Hathaway captioned the image with a few emojis and the words “(Red) Queen,” alluding to Bonham Carter’s role in the film.

Unsurprisingly, folks saw the meme as an underhanded jab at the Kardashians, and called Hathaway out for the shady pic. Soon after, Hathaway deleted the post, replacing it with one that read, “post removed for unintended shade thrown,” along with the caption, “It never occurred to me I was pitting anyone against each other. Not my style. Peace x.”

Anne Hathaway backpedaling. (Photo: @annehathaway)

It’s hard to imagine that the shade in a statement so obviously shady would be lost on Anne Hathaway, but, ok, girl, whatever you say.

There are actually tons of memes going around comparing the Kardashians to other women. A simple Google search will unveil a cornucopia of them, urging women to be more like Audrey Hepburn, Princess Diana, Dana Scully, Mama June, Joan Jett, Lucy Lawless — pretty much any woman that is not in the reality TV family.

Granted, some people could take the meme as a call to marching to the beat of your own drum and not conforming to society’s standards of what a woman should look or act like. But that doesn’t make the statement any less problematic, or the shade any less real. Women shouldn’t have to choose between narrow archetypes in order to define the “acceptable” way for them to be. It is extremely limiting and also — what If I don’t want to be a Kim Kardashian or a Princess Diana? What if I want to be plain old me? Isn’t that good enough? Instead of telling women and young girls which female celebrities they should aspire to be, we should be telling them to embrace their uniqueness — and that uniqueness does not put them at odds with other women.

In a world full of people comparing women to the Kardashians: Be your own damn self and leave a family that has no actual impact on your life out of it.

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