Posterized: Shailene Woodley
Friday, March 20, 2015 at 1:00PM 
Shailene breaking glass againWith the excruciatingly titled The Divergent Series Insurgent upon us -- and already garnering terrible reviews even before one of those shameless audience-hating cash-grab two-parters -- it's probably time to talk about the slightly mystifying rise of its leading lady Shailene Woodley. While she's certainly easy to look at (but aren't most actors?) that doesn't really explain the career. I've been mostly quiet about this because I'm aiming for positivity in 2015 but I believe I'm developing a severe allergy.
Let's discuss why and her six major performances (How many have you seen?) after the jump...
And no, it's not because of her repeated dissing of feminism. Lots of people (including myself) have said and ocassionally still say excruciatingly stupid things. Foot-in-mouth disease is especially prevalent in human beings when they are adolescents or early 20somethings before they've had to really, you know, grow up and experience the world and suffer the consequences of saying stupid things that other people hear. They say that fame freezes your emotional development in whatever age range you become famous, which is bad news for child and teen stars (and history is full of tragic stories there) since there's no really impetus for getting educated and no ability to see the world as it is since that distorting bubble of celebrity (fame, money, "yes people") is powerful.
Shaileene doesn't like the word "feminist" because she doesn't like "Labels" and yet she insists on me calling her "Moron" constantly.
— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 18, 2015
But Shailene's embarrassing and damaging dismissal of feminism isn't the reason for the allergy. I didn't understand the fuss when The Descendants nearly netted her an Oscar nomination though I concede she had some good moments. But mostly I remain shocked to this day that her listless entitled deeply unsympathetic work in The Secret Lives of The American Teenager in which she only mustered about three expressions over 121 hours* launched a significant career. But I've been trying to learn to love her since it appears she's here to stay. The Spectacular Now, by roughly a billion times her best performance, did force me to reconsider and she was good if not award-worthy in The Fault in Our Stars. Will she improve as she goes? Do you enjoy her or loathe her (she already seems polarizing)
How many of her six** Insurgent-previous performances have you seen?
* I did not watch all 121 episodes of this show but The Boyfriend bingewatched it for inexplicable reasons a year ago so I saw many episodes at least in the background and every single time I paid attention I was horrified that she was performing every scene in every episode in every season the exact same way.
**She actually made her film debut much earlier than The Descendants in a festival flick called "Moolah" but it was never released as far as I can tell.
Reader Comments (53)
Shailene's performance in The Spectacular Now is her best by a country mile. She and Brie would've made my B.A. ballot in 2013 (bye Meryl and Sandy).
I used to find her very annoying (and didn't care much for her "the descendants" turn - also, that film, ugh), but "the fault in our stars" made me like her.
I've seen 3/6. Nothing could save Divergent, which I saw on a plane. I hated The Descendants, but she was good. Her best was surely The Spectacular Now, which was just great.