Emma Watson Wants Everyone To Calm Down About The Incredibly Dumb Vanity Fair Controversy

Emma Watson is an accomplished actress, UN Goodwill Ambassador, vocal feminist and Vanity Fair cover model. For some reason the combination of these things is causing a few people to lose their minds.

In the latest issue of Vanity Fair the Beaty and the Beast star posed in a see-through top:

Maturing from Hermione to Belle in @beautyandthebeast is a true coming-of-age story for @EmmaWatson: “I couldn’t care less if I won an Oscar or not if the movie didn’t say something that I felt was important for people to hear.” Read the full cover story at the link in bio. Photograph by Tim Walker.

A post shared by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on Feb 28, 2017 at 10:02am PST

It’s hardly the first time someone has taken part in  photo shoot for a magazine as part of a film’s promotional tour. But because Watson has the gall to refer to herself as a feminist, some commentators tried really hard to turn the situation into a controversy.

Julia Hartley-Brewer, an English columnist, claimed Watson couldn’t be taken seriously as a feminist because of the photo shoot. To help prove her ‘point’ she posted a picture of an article in the British tabloid The Sun headlined “Beauty & the breasts”.

Emma Watson: "Feminism, feminism… gender wage gap… why oh why am I not taken seriously… feminism… oh, and here are my tits!" pic.twitter.com/gb7OvxzRH9

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) March 1, 2017

Then The Independent decided to a run a piece questioning Watson’s agency in the photo shoot:

The whole thing clearly jumped the shark about five seconds after it kicked off. There’s lots of interesting criticisms of Watson’s particular brand of feminism, but attacking her for doing a Vanity Fair photo shoot is just incredibly dumb.

Turns out Watson agrees. In an interview today the actress described the situation as “confusing” and said it “reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is.”

“Feminism is about giving women choice, feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with, it’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it,” she said.

She also hit back at the idea that she had no creative involvement in the photo shoot, saying “It felt incredibly artistic and I’ve been so creatively involved and engaged with Tim [Walker, the photographer] and I’m so thrilled about how interesting and beautiful the photographs were.”

Enough said.