Cara Delevingne’s Attitude Isn’t the Problem: America’s View of Women Is

By Emily Dalgo | July 30, 2015

Besides being a beautiful, talented, and successful English supermodel and actress, Cara Delevingne is witty, humorously sarcastic, and, shockingly enough to a few TV anchors from Sacramento, can read a book. During a live, early morning interview on “Good Day Sacramento,” Cara Delevingne experienced about a dozen moments of patronizing sexism. Why drink a cup of coffee when you can wake up and start your day defending yourself and your career to a panel of condescending assholes?

Twenty-two year old Cara Delevingne stars as Margo Roth Spiegelman in the newly released movie “Paper Towns,” the adaptation of John Green’s popular novel of the same name. At the start of the “Good Day Sacramento” interview to promote “Paper Towns,” one overly-caffeinated anchor introduced her as “Carla,” foreshadowing the awkwardness that would ensue.

At the beginning of the interview, one female anchor asked Delevingne about the book “Paper Towns”:

“Did you get a chance to read it or do you even have time to sit and read?”

A perplexed Delevingne responded, “Uh, no I never read the book or the script actually I just kind of winged it.” Of course, she was kidding, and then explained how much she enjoyed the book and how talented the author John Green is. Asking if Delevingne read the book instead of inherently assuming that she had is extremely problematic. Almost as problematic as being totally unprepared to interview her, as this anchor obviously was.

Afterwards, Delevingne tweeted presumably about the disastrous interview and actor Zach Braff responded:

@Caradelevingne or how it's condescending to ask an actress if she's read the book.

— Zach Braff (@zachbraff) July 29, 2015

Next was another patronizing moment when a male anchor mentioned that he had read Delevingne’s IMDb page (snaps to you for intensive research in preparation for your interview, sir):

“Do you find that it’s easier for you to focus because you’re so busy? If you had down time maybe it wouldn’t be so easy for you? What do you think?”

Not only does he trivialize the work that Delevingne does, clumping it all together and simply calling her “busy,” but he assumes that what she does is easy. His leading question concludes that her work is simple and it’s just her apparent busy-ness that makes life hard. Is being a supermodel-actress no longer a real career requiring hard work? Imagine this male anchor asking the same question to a male actor. It’s hard to picture, isn’t it?

Delevingne responded more smoothly than I think most people would have been able to. “No. I don’t know where that comes from,” she said, defending herself. “No. It’s not easier to focus but… I mean I love what I do.”

Later, as Delevingne was explaining how she finds herself similar in a lot of ways to her character in the movie, the anchors start to laugh and interrupt her mid-sentence with a new slew of bizarre questions:

“I saw you in London talking a couple of weeks ago on TV, and you seemed a lot more excited about it than you do right now. Are you just exhausted?

Even ignoring the previous questions that assume she can’t read and that her career is a piece of cake, this is the line that really gets me. There are so many societal expectations of what a woman should act like, and this anchor sums them up perfectly. First, Delevingne was not peppy. But if “Good Day Sacramento” interviewed Nat Wolff, the male lead in “Paper Towns,” would he have gotten the same scrutiny? Probably not. And even though she didn’t even seem “exhausted,” so what if she was? It’s ridiculous that the anchors were becoming increasingly frustrated with Delevingne’s dry humor and laid back, not-constantly-smiling attitude. Just like if a woman is asked if she’s “tired” when she isn’t wearing makeup, it’s assumed women are exhausted when they aren’t squealing with joy at the chance to talk to “Good Day Sacramento” hosts.

Maybe there’s a cultural gap in more than just the ability to understand Delevingne’s sarcasm. Maybe American women are held to a more extreme expectation of forced peppiness, happiness, and excitement, and are more pressured to give in to that expectation. These anchors certainly wanted to back Delevingne into a corner to conform.

She responded, even more taken aback than last time:

Oh! Um, no. I mean I’m still very excited, you know the premiere was last night and it was an emotional night. It felt like the end of an era; but I’m not any less excited than I was. Maybe I had a bit more energy. It’s the morning!

She let the anchors off the hook, big time. A more honest rationale for her lack of energy might have been the lack of stimulating, or even coherent, questions that these anchors were throwing at her.

The big downhill moment was when the female anchor decided to chime in again:

“You do seem a bit irritated. Perhaps it’s just us.”

Finally, she let them have it. “Yeah, I think it’s just you,” she replied, totally in shock that the woman would say something so rude on live TV. Frustrated that Delevingne wasn’t complying with gender expectations or normative media behavior for women, the female anchor said:

“Well on that note! We’ll let you go then, how about that? We’ll let you go take a little nap, maybe get a Red Bull. How ’bout that?

Delevingne, at this point at a loss for words and probably wondering what she did to be berated by these jittery anchors, mumbled with raised eyebrows, “too far” before her interview feed cut out. Prescribing Cara a nap and a heavy dose of caffeine for her natural personality is indicative of the confusion surrounding a woman who does not fit the societal mold. After the interview was cut short, the anchors erupted in “Oooooh’s” and the female anchor yelled:

“She was in a MOOD!”

The male anchor who essentially asked Delevingne if she is too weak and womanly to handle her busy lifestyle and called her exhausted said, “You make 5 million dollars for six weeks worth of work, you can pretend to talk to Good Day Sacramento with some oomph.” Again, enough with the depreciating jabs at Delevingne’s career. As the anchors talked about how moody, irritated, and rude Delevingne was, and how offended they were that she was being sarcastic, the producers put up a still shot of Delevingne on screen from the interview and played cat hissing, growling and child screaming sounds. The anchors stopped their banter to enjoy a nice hearty laugh at the actress’s expense. The male anchor then said, almost in an attempt to justify his disappointment in Delevingne’s attitude, “She was just so peppy on UK,” followed by a belittling and terrible English accent impersonation.

Women are held to such specific standards: in beauty, in ability, in strength, in intellect, and in attitude. If we don’t question these standards when people assume them, whether it be from friends, family, or the media in this case, there’s no hope for those standards to go away. Cara Delevigne may be dry-humored, sarcastic, and not constantly smiling, but just like all women, she has power, intelligence, and drive that are greater than patriarchal norms.

Plus, I doubt “Good Day Sacramento” is going to cause Delevingne to change her sarcastic attitude anytime soon.