Got Goop?

Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar (and our hearts) for her performance as Viola in Shakespeare and Love. But in an interview last year with The New York Times, Paltrow made a bold statement, “I was masquerading as an actor.” Paltrow made it clear that she has traded in her script for her startup: Goop Lab, a feminist lifestyle and wellness company, which recently partnered with Netflix to produce the docu-series “Goop.” 

Paltrow’s mission is to help everyone live their best [sex] life, just like her. In her magical world, you learn things like how to insert a fancy crystal into your yoni (also commonly referred to as your vagina) to improve your sex life, detox “parasites” with voodoo-like vitamin concoctions, and somehow lower your biological age with an expensive vampire facial. 

But what’s at the heart of Goop’s mission? Is Paltrow a devoted and selfless health-seeker taking us along her path to achieving physical and spiritual well-being? No. Paltrow’s Goop is a sustainable, organic certified, crystal-dusted fake feminism, used to make a profit.

By all accounts, Paltrow seems like a decent person. But this isn’t about that. This is about the fact that she has no business being a health and wellness entrepreneur, she’s simply a wealthy, out-of-touch, California actress, a talented actress, masquerading as an entrepreneur. And worse, using feminism to make a profit. 

Let’s remember that like every other celebrity, Paltrow achieved her slim physique and dewy skin by going to the gym four days a week, skipping bread before eating out at restaurants, and exfoliating once a week. 

Whoops. Blacked out there for a second. It actually takes $33,000 to achieve her body. 

I don’t have a spare $33,000 lying around to dedicate to my health and fitness. And I’d guess most other women don’t either. So why is Paltrow, a wealthy celebrity, the trusted arbiter of health for all women? 

Rich people do weird things, because they can, like using expensive hair products. Then they recommend them to their friends. From there, they think they’re lifestyle experts qualified to tell the general public. Maybe Paltrow has the best intentions at heart, she’s just rich and out of touch with how much facials cost. 

But maybe Paltrow saw an opportunity and took it, capitalizing on vaginal shame and feminism. *

The Goop Lab’s “we’re not experts, we’re just asking” approach to health is a mistrust of expertise itself. The show is geared towards those who easily fall prey to compelling post-fact cynics of 2020. Can you improve your immune system through breathing? Can you lower your biological age? Can you achieve mind-blowing tantric orgasms without touching yourself? Maybe. But it’s a little worrisome that Goop, the luxury brand masquerading as a feminist lifestyle brand is asking the questions.

*In 2012 Paltrow told the Guardian that she doesn’t “like drunk women” because it’s a “bad look,” adding: “I think it’s very inappropriate and I don’t like it.” Hmm, what a feminist.