[some] women's stories matter

on reese witherspoon and ai :)

At this point, no one is more tired of talking about AI than I.¹ Believe you me. I’d rather talk about the illustrated edition of Anne of Green Gables I bought a few days ago. Or how I’m having trouble sleeping again so I’ve begun watching Fringe, the 2008-2013 series and blatant X-Files rip-off starring Anna Torv and Joshua Jackson, famously two of the best faces on television. In fact, I’d rather dedicate an entire fortnight’s worth of essays to Ryan Coogler’s reboot of The X-Files, a project that will star Station Eleven’s iconic Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel.²

This is the Anne of Green Gables edition btw. Isn’t it gorgeous?

But women’s stories matter, so let’s tell the story of Reese Witherspoon’s AI journey.

When an industry, a stance, a technology—etc—becomes controversial, there are few actions more productive to proponents of the same than to collect and/or assign and/or recruit a few female spokespeople. Respectable women. Titans of industry, even. Vocal defenders of the female plight, as most perfectly evidenced, wouldn’t you know it, by their own individual plight (overcome, of course, via vim and perseverance—how else to become a titan of industry, an honorary member of the old boys’ club? Do keep up!).

I see what’s happening here, by the way. I see what supporters (see also: investors) of AI are attempting. The playbook is insultingly conspicuous. They’re trying to make the usage of AI a matter of feminism. As someone burdened with the questionable gift of an absurdly excellent memory, I can tell you right now: I have seen this film before. The Powers That Be, if you’ll allow me a bit of triteness, looove to drape problematic behavior in the fineries of Big Feminism.

This is of course the Trojan horse that there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women let in. That was huge. Meant that any criticism of women, however valid, needed to be diluted by a painstaking three-paragraph introduction (see above)—a justification detailing why exactly we’re allowed to engage in such critique: do we not believe in gender equality? Name three women you would die/kill/go into crippling debt for.

God, how tiresome. How distracting. How clever, the imposition of the notion that to be a powerful woman means, necessarily, to be a feminist, and thus immune to rebuke.

Enter Reese: Oscar winner, forehead-haver, person partially responsible for keeping the lights on my sleep paralysis demon series The Morning Show, and co-founder of Hello Sunshine, a multi-media company that’s produced shows like Big Little Lies, Daisy Jones and the Six, and The Last Thing He Told Me. Hello Sunshine’s stated mission is to amplify female-driven stories—a laudable goal, to be clear! One I appreciate! I love women’s stories! I’m living one myself!

Hello Sunshine’s business model has historically relied on novels or memoirs written by women—these are promoted via Reese’s Book Club (part of the Hello Sunshine corporate structure because if you wanna get ahead in this world you simply cannot skip the synergistic subsidiaries!) and a lucky few’s film/television rights are bought by Hello Sunshine so that, within 12 to 18 months, they can reach us, the consumers, via Hulu/Netflix/Amazon/Apple TV. A one-stop shop for women who support other women!

From Hello Sunshine’s About Us page.

This brings us to the reason we’re here today. A week or so ago, Witherspoon hopped on Instagram reels and peppily declared that we need to get on board with genAI, because at her ten-woman book club she asked who among them was using AI and only three of them raised their hand, and of those three, only one said she really understood AI. This troubled Reese.

Several things about this reel are interesting to me. Anyone who’s dabbled in video content—a population that includes yours truly, if you’ll recall—is aware of how intentional this composition is.

Forget for a moment the concept of the scientific method, with which Witherspoon seems to have dispensed for this thorough and bias-free study on AI female usage.

(Is it possible, perhaps, that some of the seven women who didn’t raise their hands are ethically or morally against AI? Maybe they would like to retain the ability to put together a sentence or complete a task without outsourcing brain cells to a company guzzling millions of gallons of water and stealing intellectual property from artists? I don’t know! Seemed like it might’ve been a worthy follow-up, Reese!)