Critics Take Random Shots at Hilary Duff

I've known for a while now that critics don't like Hilary Duff. All of her movies have gotten bad reviews. And while her music actually hasn't gotten terrible reviews, it's probably because only a few critics actually take her seriously enough to review her stuff. The fact that critics have negatively reviewed Hilary's work doesn't bother me. I completely understand that Hilary Duff is seen as a manufactured pop star. And her movies and music haven't exactly been cutting edge. But there is a new trend that I have noticed lately that does bother me a little bit. Critics going out of their way to rip Hilary Duff. Bashing Hilary when reviewing something that has nothing to do with her. I have found 3 examples of this in the past week or so:

Example #1:
Marshal Hogan of the Daily Utah Chronicle when reviewing the new Yeah Yeah Yeah's album "Show Your Bones" said this, "All you haters are right about something: Compared with the rawness of their early E.P.'s, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Show Your Bones is so polished, it's practically a Hilary Duff album." To be fair, Hogan gave "Show Your Bones" four-and-a-half out of five stars; so maybe comparing it to a Hilary Duff album isn't a bad thing at all.



Example #2:
Jim Abbott of the Orlando Sentinel when reviewing the album "Dying to Say This To You" by The Sounds said this, " There's nothing wrong with the band's influences, if only the Sounds could find a way to make the songs less repetitive and add an edge that might make Dying sound less like a Hilary Duff project."



Example #3:
Ana Marie Cox of Time Magazine in an article about the MTV show "My Super Sweet 16" wrote, " You give teenagers $200,000, and they will spend it exactly as you would expect. The parties are the aesthetic equivalent of Hilary Duff MP3s."



So there you have it. Three critics taking shots at Hilary Duff for no apparent reason. I guess Examples 1 and 2 have some justification. They were trying to compare the albums that they were reviewing to a "tame" artist, and Hilary Duff is the first one that came to mind, although I'm guessing that neither one of them has actually listened to a Hilary Duff album, and why would they?

Example #3 is the one that really confuses me though. "The parties are the aesthetic equivalent of Hilary Duff MP3s." This could be the worst analogy in the history of Time Magazine. I think what she's trying to say is that the parties are lacking in good taste, but the statement could be interpreted many different ways depending on your opinion of Duff. Being a Time writer I'm sure she could have came up with much better ways to describe "bad taste" than comparing it to a Hilary Duff MP3 of all things. She might be referring to the theme song of "My Super Sweet 16" which of course is "Sweet 16" by Hilary Duff, but she never mentions the theme song in her article, so to me it looks like she's just taking a random shot at Hilary.