Gwyneth Paltrow Really Wants to Be Oprah

Everything Guru Gwyneth Paltrow is launching an AOL lifestyle series called The Restart Project with her trainer Tracy Anderson. It's being produced by Ryan Seacrest's production company and was inspired by their admiration for "women who've restarted their lives using health and fitness." Here's how AOL describes the series:

Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracy Anderson spend time with women who've overcome hardship, injury, and setbacks to triumph in the face of adversity. We'll hear their inspiring stories firsthand, whether fighting back from a career-ending injury or transforming their lives and bodies through diet and exercise.

So, Oprah for the goop set? I can't help but think Margot Tenenbaum would frown on this.

Reactions so far have ranged from "well-meaning but cheesy" to "makes me want to throw things." I agree with Hypervocal editor Marisa Kabas: "I love Gwyneth. I think she is the perfect ice queen celebrity. I would love to talk to her about Calvin Klein and kale, but I would not go to her with real life issue" — which is what this series seems to be attempting to do.

Daniel D'Addario at Salon points out perhaps the one good reason to tune in to The Restart Project: "the spectacle of Paltrow attempting empathy with middle-class women. She’s a great actress and she’s certainly entitled to live her life however she wants, but Paltrow’s attempts to extrapolate from her chic existence lessons for the average person have always rung a bit false." I don't know much about Anderson, but from the trailer she doesn't seem much better (and apparently she's got some not-so body-positive fitness views). See the trailer here: