Renée Zellweger: she’s always squinting, am I right?
For years now; just like every other person with working eyeballs (who, unlike some successful actresses with a penchant for unflatteringly harsh bob haircuts, occasionally allow them to rise to the surface of our skulls), I have been wishing that Renée Zellweger would open her eyes more. It’s not that I expect every woman to have giant frisbee-floating-in-a-kiddy-pool peepers like Katy “Quite Possibly Half Goldfish” Perry; I just get sick of seeing Mlle. Zellweger with nothing but a couple of thick horizontal dashes streaking across her face. It looks like her head is perforated.
However, tonight I learnt the error of my ways, and I take it ALL back.
I learnt why Renée Zellweger constantly looks like she just lost a staring contest with a halogen lamp. It’s not because her house is infested with white-tailed spiders that bite her whenever she sleeps, causing various parts of her to swell over. It’s not because she can still remember filming Cold Mountain and is terrified of copping an eyeful of the skeletal, soulless form of Nicole Kidman. No. Renée Zellweger looks that way because it’s the only way she can look happy.
It’s true. Whenever Renée Zellweger’s eyes are open she looks like she’s SUPER FUCKING ANGRY AT ME.
Look at her. This woman is furious. She knows every bad thing you have ever done and she is fucking pissed about it. I don’t know how she knows, but she does. She knows EVERYTHING. This is how Santa checks his Naughty or Nice list. He just reads the names out to Renée Zellweger: every time her eyes fly open like a re-animated corpse in Resident Evil, that kid is getting a lump of coal for Christmas.
Need more proof? Fine. The scope of Renée Zellweger’s hatred for you (yes, you) is as broad as it is deep.
We’ll start mildly. This is the softest look Renée has in her Repertoire of Loathing. It’s the kind of look you’d give someone at a party when you see them hovering too closely to the nibbles and taking more than their fair share. “I saw you eat that”, she’s saying. “It’s loaded with MSG. How revolting.” She is so angry at you.
In this photo she is just barely keeping her white-hot contempt for you under wraps. On any other person, this facial expression would look like an impish smirk – but on our Oracle of Odium, it looks like she’s just forced a sharp intake of breath; bracing herself to keep from throwing up all over you. Can you see how intensely she wishes you dead right now? She is SO angry at you.
Oh, damn. You were so close. See how she’s smiling? You’d almost won her over. Then you started telling that joke about the Irishman that usually kills when you’re in a crowd of people, but Renée Zellweger is angry at everyone, ESPECIALLY the Irish, but now ESPECIALLY you for bringing up the Irish. Her smile may still be frozen in place, but notice how her hair has spontaneously curled and recoiled to the top of her head in horror? Even her HAIR wishes you were dead. She is SO ANGRY at you.
Don’t be confused by the slightly softened gaze. This is still hatred, but it’s diluted slightly with confusion. You see, she has shown you in SO many ways exactly how abhorrent you are to her, that she’s just surprised to see you again. Can you not take the hint? This photo actually catches her mid speech – she’s up to the “th” part of “What the fuck are you doing here, assface?” She is so angry at YOU.
There’s no point even explaining what this facial expression means, because if you ever see it on Renée Zellweger’s face in person? You will die. She’s already decided. Look at it. She is going. to kill you. Probably with her tiny bare hands. Such is the depth of her malice that not even the basic laws of physics will stand in her way. She is a tiny woman, but she hates you with the passion of an entire Spartan army. Even her lips, nearly always pursed together as if they’ve got magnets sewn into them, have started to break free into a kind of snarl. SHE IS SO ANGRY AT YOU.
So next time you see Renée Zellweger’s little chirpy manga squirrel face, don’t get upset. Don’t assume she’s so thin she can’t even muster the strength to lift her eyelids. Don’t wish, like I did for so long, that just once she would open them so we could gaze into the full loveliness of her face. No. Be happy. Be GRATEFUL.
Every day Renée Zellweger squints at you is one more day you get to live.
