At this point, I can assume that most people have seen that video of Gal Gadot rallying up her famous friends to each sing a line of John Lennon’s widely-recognized “Imagine.” Understandably, the video was instantly received with backlash, with many calling it “tone-deaf” and “awkward.”
I think I can speak for everyone when I say that the video of Gal Gadot and her A-list friends, creepily smiling at the camera while gracing the world with their philosophical, pandemic-curing singing made me cringe beyond belief. However, the video, along with its off-key singing and narcissistic show-offs, also brought me a rage that I couldn’t explain.
You can’t tell your millions of fans to “imagine no possessions,” while you quarantine comfortably in your multi-million dollar mansions—stocked to the brim with everything you could possibly need during this global crisis.
You can’t tell your millions of fans that there’s “no need for greed or hunger,”when there’s a very real possibility that they could struggle to buy groceries and pay their rent, due to a lack of income and millions of job layoffs. It is hypocritical to sit in your beautiful mansion in California, free to contribute nothing to the well-being of the world’s population, and preach to us about imagining a world without greed when you, conveniently, own most of our nation’s wealth.
Thank you for your inspiring message, Gal, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get your million-dollar, self-satisfied smile out of my head as I joined the other 6 million Americans filing for unemployment.
It is clear that most celebrities, who have not contributed their wealth to helping their fellow American’s, think that posting “we’re in this together” on their Instagram story is a wonderful way to connect with their plebeian followers, while they get free, accessible testing for a virus that they have shown no symptoms for. A surprising thing that this pandemic has revealed is the absolute disparity between medical treatment of the wealthy and the middle and lower class. It’s almost as if a universal health care system would solve almost every single issue that we are currently facing with how America has dealt with the virus, from scarce and inadequate testing facilities, to expensive and possibly devastating medical bills that could send millions into a lifetime of debt if they happen to contract COVID-19.
If you are in a position of wealth and influence, you should not be using your platform to spread a tone-deaf message that only you believe in right now, while the rest of working Americans—the nurses, doctors, grocery store clerks, delivery workers, and millions of others in high-risk jobs right now – are on the front lines, battling the spread of COVID-19. You should be donating your wealth to organizations that can help bring more essential Personal Protective Equipment to hospitals, or to research to find a vaccine.