There are very few actors, or celebrities in general, who have reached the height and influence of award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow. She dazzled her audience in 90s classics such as “Emma” and “Shakespeare in Love” and became a favorite within the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Pepper Potts. Currently, she sits at the top of the wellness and lifestyle empire as CEO of her company Goop. Paltrow recently starred in Netflix’s “The Politician” as a wealthy bohemian mother (she basically played herself?).
Paltrow is your average Hollywood nepotism baby: actress mother and film director father. She grew up attending the best schools in southern California and spent her summers vacationing in the south of France. Once becoming a mother to her two children, Apple and Moses, Paltrow chose to take a hiatus from her acting career, now only appearing sporadically in television and film. Nonetheless, her filmography is nothing to kid about, she has received numerous awards for her work. Like most successful women, her achievements have been used against her. Harvey Weinstein would allegedly say “How do you think Gwyneth has what she has?” to his victims, even though she resisted his advances.
In 2008, Paltrow started her lifestyle brand Goop which has now expanded into an online store, a podcast and a Netflix docuseries. Her brand has become famous for its variety of odd wellness products, such as a $75 candle that supposedly smelled like Paltrow’s vagina. The candle can be found on eBay for more than $200.
Goop has been criticized numerous times for capitalizing off holistic practices from foreign cultures and making claims about certain products with no scientific support. Gynecologists called the brand out for promoting the use of vaginal steaming with “snake oil” and the use of jade eggs for kegel exercises. In 2017, Goop released a line of stickers that were supposed to “rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies”. The company claimed that the stickers were made with the same carbon material used by NASA for spacesuits, which NASA has denied any use of the material in their astronaut suits.
Goop has also been called out for its expensive prices. For example, on the Goop website, there is a stylized Ouija board available for $1,995 and a $307 garden hose. “Sometimes I’ll get annoyed if someone’s like, ‘Goop is so expensive.’ I’m like, ‘Have you looked at the website? Have you seen the range of price points? ‘Cause we sell things that are $8,'” Paltrow told Glamour.
Paltrow has become known for her out-of-touch views from multiple hilariously sad quotes such as “I am who I am. I can’t pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year” or “I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin.” Her limited sense of social awareness almost makes her more intriguing because how can a person be so far from reality?
So, why are we so obsessed with Gwyneth Paltrow? Like most celebrities, we love her because she has everything an average person wants and more; she pulls being a major capitalist off so smoothly. Yes, she is helping women become more in touch with their health and wellness, but at what cost? Goop is taking holistic practices from other cultures and marketing them to wealthy white hippies and creating products that do not do what they are advertised as. If Paltrow would consider investing in medicinal experts within other cultures as well as useful products with the right ingredients, I think Goop would be able to survive cancel culture.