Celebrities Need to Read the Room Right Now
During a global pandemic, it turns out that celebrities are just like us: stuck at home but certain everyone wants to hear from them
As celebrities hole up in enormous mansions across the country, it’s become clear, as days turn into weeks, that they are desperate for someone, anyone, to listen to them. Broadcasting from their finished basements, wood-paneled kitchens, and enormous jacuzzi tubs, the coronavirus pandemic has established a new genre of tone-deaf celebrity content — one that is supposed to be uplifting, but instead reveals how deeply class privilege affects people who thrive on social nearness. We’re all aching for entertainment, for something to distract us from this global crisis, but a bunch of celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” ain’t it.
“Hey, guys! Day six in self-quarantine,” said Gal Gadot in a recent Instagram video. Gazing into her iPhone’s front-facing camera, her skin implausibly clear, grinning like a used car salesman, Gadot continues, “You know, this virus has affected the entire world. Everyone. Doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, we’re all in this together.” After rambling a little more, she begins to sing, this time sporting a more earnest smile: “Imagine there’s no heaven…”
Cut to Kristen Wiig, standing alone in a verdant setting: “It’s easy if you try…” All your favorite celebrities are here, and it feels bad. It does not give you the sense that we’re all in this together. There’s Zoë Kravitz lounging in front of a fireplace, reluctantly whispering, “and no religion too;” the model Kaia Gerber, the actress Ashley Benson, and the model-slash-actress Cara Delevingne having way too good of a time dancing around together; a dude from Hamilton (but not the dude from Hamilton) in a sunny field, among beautiful flowers; plus, Jimmy Fallon, who I’m legitimately surprised did not conceive of this video himself, Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman, Mark Ruffalo, James Marsden, Amy Adams, Natalie Portman, Sia, Norah Jones, Maya Rudolph, and more.
The video, surely made with good intentions, was not well-received. A New York Times music critic wrote it was “proof that even if no one meets up in person, horribleness can spread,” while a Slate writer said…
