Why Australians* Hate Nicole Kidman!

Since I’ve been in Canada, I’ve learnt a lot: That moose aren’t used as public transport; that maple does grow in trees and most importantly; that people consider Barackie to be theirs (chiming in on a good thing, I say, no judgement here). And now, I feel like it’s time I passed some knowledge on to you about my distant motherland, Australia. And this is my marvellous gem in the rough. Hold onto your hats; I don’t like Nicole Kidman. In fact, it turns out, most of us don’t.
You may have read this headline and recoiled so far back in shock, you ended up in Vancouver. How could an entire country hate one person, not to mention a person who acted in a movie called Australia? It would be like Canadians hating Celine. Well, there are several reasons for this. And as any good journalist does, I wanted to back up these reasons with some empirical research. So I emailed my friends back home, to check out their opinions. Turns out they don’t like her very much either.

One. “She has the acting ability of a wet hat” – Rhett Davis.

Despite some media showering her with praise and the entire world considering her career choice as valid, (instead of laughable) it turns out Nicole Kidman can’t actually act. It’s not that she had one bad movie, (by the name of Australia – why did she taint my country?!) after countless good ones, which could be understandable. At the time of filming Australia, she found out she was preggers (after years of trying) and was splattered all over the media for being too thin. But, she’s had too few good movies – Moulin Rouge (made more bearable by Ewan McGregor) and The Hours – and too many flops. Who could forget such gems like The Golden Compass, Bewitched or The Stepford Wives?
Times Online writer Melanie Reid writes: “She can’t act. Instead, she drifts around films like a lost porcelain doll, looking frozen, brittle and vapid, staring at the camera with her oh-golly-look-how-I’m-looking-interesting blue eyes.” Does anyone else want to give Reid a big sloppy kiss on the lips for pointing out the gosh-darn obvious?
Erin Barton agrees that she is overrated. “She really isn’t that talented. She has had one great movie but besides that she is just popular for being popular. Plus she has a high forehead and seems so fake.” Which leads me to my second point.

Two. “Nicole Kidman looks like a praying mantas and has the personality of a cardboard box that has just had Botox injections.” – Ashleigh Dollin

Now, I’m not going to lie, I know I could never win a beauty pageant. Neither could, if I’m going to be brutally honest, most of my mates. And society has taught me, we do not judge people on the way they look. Unless they are famous. Despite not liking it, everyone judges ‘celebrities’ on the way they look and I ain’t going to stop that tradition now.
“Nicole Kidman needs some serious sunlight,” says Danielle Farrugia. Now, if like me you dream in stereotypes, then you will know Australia is a sunny place and we have a lot of meat sources roaming around our backyards – cattle, kangaroo, crocodile, sheep. Why then, in a land drenched in sun, running wild with raw meat is Kidman so bloody pale?
And has anyone else noticed that she can’t move her face much? Kathleen Murphy, an ex-fan of the actress has. “I don’t like her anymore. She’s so full of Botox now she kind of has no expression.” And it’s not just regular folk like Murphy. Many people have noticed the growing crisis that is Nicole Kidman’s face, despite numerous claims from Kidman that she has had no work done before. On a blog devoted to Nicole Kidman’s Forehead (it deserves a capital letter) author “Ted Casablanca” writes, “If acting is in essence the expression of emotion, then Kidman’s face is an insult to acting.” Can I get an AMEN?

Three. “She called her kid Sunday Roast, whoops Rose.” – Erin Barton

What kind of heartless, soulless mother calls an innocent sweet child Sunday Rose, and then wants it to grow up with a Tennessee accent? Washington Post blogger Liz Kelly asks the appropriate question – did “she [use] up all her baby naming sense on older kids Connor and Isabella?”
I feel bad for the poor bubba, who will grow up feeling inferior in a world of Nicoles, Keiths, Isabellas and Connors. Not to mention the competition between the other famous S kiddies, particularly power kids Shiloh and Suri.

Four. “Her accent is so screwed up that if you didn’t know her, you couldn’t guess where she was from.” – Ashleigh Scully.

Maybe this is the real reason we don’t like her very much. Because she is no longer identifiable as an Aussie. Rebecca Batten says, “She has a hint of Aussie in her, but she doesn’t quite have that Aussie spark.” Even though we all loathe Russell Crowe, at least he speaks in the Australian tongue. Everyone knows him as the psycho overweight Australian, who throws mobile phones at concierges, and we secretly love him a little for his crazy ways.
But according to Alim Badouraly, a Frenchman studying in Montreal, Kidman embodies Australia to the world, or at least the French. “I think she should be on the Australian flag because if you say Australia to a French guy he will think of her, kangaroos and the Sydney Opera House.” It actually makes me sad that Badouraly thinks that, when we have so many fine actresses who are delicious and worthy of the Australian Flag. Think Cate Blanchett, who unlike Kidman had one lousy role of attempting a Russian accent in an Aussie one, or Naomi Watts, Toni Colette, Isla Fisher, Abbie Cornish, Portia de Rossi, Rachel Griffiths, Judy Davis, Dame Edna Everage (technically not a chick but still) or even hotties like Elle Macpherson, Miranda Kerr or Jennifer Hawkins. The list kind of goes on without Kidman.
And possibly Kidman’s biggest faux pas to date?

Five. “She married Tom Cruise. Enough said.” – Brad Marin

I agree. Enough said.

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