John Green's Defense Of Cara Delevingne Is Amazing

There are already a lot of reasons I love Cara Delevingne, but as the press tour for Paper Towns continues, I keep finding more. If you've been on any social networking site in the past 24 hours, you've probably seen Delevingne's sassy interview with Good Day Sacramento from Wednesday morning. Knowing Delevingne, her sense of humor, and her low tolerance for BS, I wasn't surprised that she wasn't willing to put up with patronizing interview questions from a group of morning show hosts who introduced her as "Carla" and then proceeded to ask her a series of condescending questions that led into their rude suggestion that she should take a nap and grab a Red Bull. To Delevingne's credit, at first, she played along and was a good sport about it, and then, like any normal human, she got real tired of being talked down to. And now, after she's faced a bit of backlash, Paper Towns author John Green is defending Delevingne in the most perfect essay ever.

And don't worry — Delevingne's already defended herself in her own, quiet way (not that she needed to). She addressed the situation on Twitter with a tweet of her own, plus a bunch of retweets of other tweets about the interview that she agreed with.

And then, on Thursday, Green took to Medium to write up his own take on the interview, and he couldn't have hit the nail more on the head. Being that Green was super involved with the filming of Paper Towns and has formed a close bond with the stars of the movie, it's not surprising that he wanted to stick up for his friend, and he quickly got to the heart of the matter: The fact that Delevingne was talked down to because she's a woman. Green writes:

I spent more than a month with her on tour in Europe and the U.S., and I watched as again and again, she was asked this question. Cara has read the book (multiple times), but the question is annoying — not least because her male costar, Nat Wolff, was almost always asked when he’d read the book, while Cara was almost always asked if she’d read it.

This is important. It was the very first question the interviewers asked her, and Delevingne's sarcastic response was totally deserved. "I never read the book or the script, actually. I kind of winged it." Oh, Carla. You slay me. Who takes a starring role in a movie adaptation of a wildly successful book and then doesn't read the book?!

Green also touches on the fact that he, Delevingne, and the other Paper Towns stars have had to deal with a lot of uncreative, inane questions on this tour, and while most of them are willing to play along, Delevingne just isn't that kind of girl. And that's exactly why I love her so much — and why she should be applauded for refusing to play the game. As Green says, the entire point of Paper Towns is that Delevingne's Margo is to teach Quentin to "see people as people, that we must learn to imagine them complexly instead of idealizing them, that the romantic male gaze is limiting and destructive to women" and this interview proves that we need that lesson more than ever. At the end of the essay, he adds:

Cara, however, refuses to stick to the script. She refuses to indulge lazy questions and refuses to turn herself into an automaton to get through long days of junketry. I don’t find that behavior entitled or haughty. I find it admirable. Cara Delevingne doesn’t exist to feed your narrative or your news feed — and that’s precisely why she’s so f—king interesting.

John Green, you've done it again. Can I keep you on hand next time something like this comes up?

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