You Cannot Cancel Gwyneth Paltrow Because Gwyneth Paltrow Is Mother
Back in the Paleolithic era of the internet, aka the late 2010s, it was highly fashionable to hate on Gwyneth Paltrow. She was a constant punchline for late-night talk show wags. Health experts would regularly profess shock and disgust at the medical misinformation Paltrow peddled on her luxury website Goop, while media outlets breathlessly wrote up every ludicrous product, from vagina-scented candles to psychic vampire repellent sprays, that she’d recommend. She was simultaneously dismissed as an out-of-touch celebrity and held up as an eminent danger to society.
In the post-Covid landscape, however, everything has changed. Goop is a multimillion-dollar company, and Paltrow is regularly heralded as a scrappy, savvy, self-made entrepreneur; she even recently served as a guest on Shark Tank, advising entrepreneur hopefuls who did not have the benefit of attending one of New York’s most eminent private schools or being the daughter of a famous director. She’s leaned into her own image as an out-of-touch celebutante, sending it up on Saturday Night Live and in her ultra-campy turn as an out-of-touch celebutante mom on Ryan Murphy’s The Politician. Even the medical misinformation seems almost harmless in retrospect: when influencers are regularly hyping up the Covid-fighting powers of horse asshole cream, jade vagina eggs seem quaint in comparison.
These days, making fun of Gwyneth Paltrow seems boomer-esque and faintly embarrassing, like texting someone a Bitmoji or saying “lol” in casual conversation. In a cultural ecosystem where celebrities — particularly well-connected, white celebrities — are constantly expected to acknowledge and apologize for their own privilege, her unblinking refusal to do so makes it almost impossible to dislike her. And somehow, now that a 78-year-old former optometrist is suing her for allegedly causing him traumatic brain injury after a skiing accident, people like her even more. She is the one acceptable rich white woman, the rare Karen who has achieved self-awareness. Even when she defends being a nepo-baby by saying they “have to work almost twice as hard and be twice as good because people are ready to pull you down and say you don’t belong there,” we find it clueless and adorable, like when a straight guy goes out to get tampons for his girlfriend and comes back with 40 onions and a box of Saran wrap.
A brief summary of the current legal proceedings, even though it scarcely matters: in 2016, Paltrow collided with retired optometrist Terry Sanderson on the ski slopes of a Utah country club, causing him a “permanent traumatic brain injury” and “four broken ribs” in the process, as he would allege three years later in a $3.1 million lawsuit. (That figure was later reduced to $300,000, though neither amount would have significantly hurt Paltrow, who is worth an estimated $200 million.) The resulting trial, which has thankfully been recorded for posterity, has captured the hearts of people on the internet, with everything from Paltrow’s effortlessly minimalist chic courtroom style (including $1,450 Prada combat boots and an iconic olive-green coat from the Olsen twin-owned quiet luxury brand the Row) to her deadpan testimony, to her banter with Sanderson’s fangirling attorney Kristian VanOrman (VanOrman: “may I ask how tall you are?” Paltrow: “I’m just under 5’10.” VanOrman: “I am so jealous.” Paltrow: “I think I’m shrinking though.” VanOrman: You and me both. I have to wear four-inch heels to make it to 5’5″.” Paltrow: “They’re very nice”) going viral.
To an extent, the memeification of a celebrity trial is nothing new. Even prior to the advent of social media, the OJ Simpson trial spawned countless Saturday Night Live parodies and late-night talk show jokes. Just last year, the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard case launched Etsy shops selling trial merch and even TikTok videos of cats lipsynching Heard’s testimony. In both of those instances, the allegations were far more serious, and the stakes were much higher than that of the Paltrow trial (though Sanderson is alleging serious injuries, he comes off as something of a crank, which is not helped by his attorney’s claim that he’s been unable to enjoy wine tastings after the accident). So it’s no surprise that Paltrow’s deadpan testimony that she “lost half a ski day” as a result of the incident would be subject to memeification.
What is somewhat of a surprise, however, is how utterly enamored everyone following the trial is of Paltrow, despite the case being, as Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos puts it, “like a prestige dark comedy on HBO designed to spoof the rich,” except real life. Were this another universe, with another outrageously rich and beautiful celebrity, they would be excoriated for being so publicly unapologetic about their wealth and privilege. But with Paltrow, the privilege is the point. Without the style, without the glamour, without the deadpan self-awareness and the reveling in her own absurdity, she wouldn’t be Gwyneth Paltrow at all. She would be early 2000s starlet Gretchen Mol. And Gretchen Mol is lovely and talented, but gay men don’t go on Twitter and call Gretchen Mol Mother.
Many pop culture pundits have pointed out that we are living in something of an Eat the Rich moment. With the rise of shows like Succession and The White Lotus, as well as the popularity of films like Triangle of Sadness and The Menu, it is clear there is an appetite for content that skewers the foibles of the uber-wealthy and their silly little love for molecular gastronomy and internecine corporate squabbling and threesomes with likable Italian sex workers. But it would be a mistake to ascribe the popularity of such TV shows and movies purely to resentment of the top .05 percent. We still live in a country that worships at the altar of consumer capitalism; we still live in a world where one of the wealthiest and most batshit insane men on the planet is heralded by many as a likable Everyman. If nothing else, the warm and cozy exchange between VanOrman and Paltrow demonstrates that we still don’t want to Eat the Rich nearly as much as we want to be even in mildly close proximity to them.
Gwyneth Paltrow knows that better than anyone. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have built a $200 million empire on selling vagina-scented candles to middle-class millennial women. She has built a brand on selling a ludicrous lifestyle that basically only she can ever hope to attain. Her entire appeal is predicated not on her relatability but on the fact that she is absolutely nothing like you, never has been, and never will be. There is nothing about Gwyneth Paltrow — rich, beautiful, wry, erudite, perpetually put-together Gwyneth Paltrow — that is remotely resembling anything close to the average human being’s experience of the world. And the fact that she is not only honest about that, but hilariously, unflinchingly so, is what makes her Mother.
Music
via https://www.DMT.NEWS
EJ Dickson, Khareem Sudlow
