Stop comparing young women to each other, says Shailene Woodley.
Shailene Woodley might not want to be called a feminist, but sometimes she says some really poignant things about women and equality. She also gets compared to Jennifer Lawrence a lot. That might seem unrelated, but according to Woodley, there’s a connection.
Shailene Woodley [l] and Jennifer Lawrence [r] - what do they really have in common?
"As women, we are constantly told that we need to compare ourselves to a girl in school, to our co-workers, to the images in a magazine," the 22-year-old beauty muses in the latest issue of New York magazine, which she covers with BFF Brie Larson. "How is the world going to advance if we're always comparing ourselves to others? I admire Jennifer Lawrence, but she's everyone's favorite person to compare me to."
We sort of get Woodley’s point and she is spot on about media scrutiny, but what about the comparisons between her and Lawrence? Let’s examine the evidence:
1) Woodley and Lawrence came up on the radar roughly at the same time. While the two have been working a lot longer, both their careers kicked off in the past two to three years, during the current boom of young adult and teen fiction adaptations. The post-Twilight era, if you will.
2) Both star in big-budget adaptations of teen dystopian book series. Despite starring in two Oscar-winning films and having a prominent role in the X-Men franchise, since 2012, Lawrence has mostly been known as the star of The Hunger Games and with good reason – the movies are record-breaking blockbusters and Lawrence’s performance was nothing less than spectacular. Woodley, on the other hand, is yet to show that kind of range outside of the teen-oriented market, but her parts in Divergent – another adaptation of a dystopian teen novel - and The Spectacular Now are certainly memorable.
3) Both have pixie cuts.
More: Shailene Woodley Disagrees With Jennifer Lawrence
More: Are Shailene Woodley And Theo James An Item?
Women are under constant scrutiny, says Woodley.
So the similarities between the two aren’t exactly overwhelming. Woodley definitely seems more composed on the red carpet, while JLaw… we love her (who doesn’t), but the woman isn’t afraid to let her geek flag fly. There are definitely more parallels to be drawn between their respective franchises than between Lawrence and Woodley themselves. Unfortunately, the demand for online content is unstoppable and movie reviews can only get you so far.
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