Self-aware or senseless?
The Goop Lab Debuts Friday, Netflix
LOS ANGELES “Being the person people believe me to be,” Gwyneth Paltrow says in the first episode of her new unscripted series, “is inherently traumatic.”
The fact that this remark will likely induce eye rolls proves the point. Paltrow, in her period of fame as perhaps the most prominent embodiment of wellness culture, is followed as or more closely by detractors as admirers. Enduring life as both person and persona has its purposes though: For one thing, it can be weaponized.
On The Goop Lab, Paltrow’s new Netflix show documenting her post-science pursuit of an optimized life, she’s a diffident presence, allowing her employees to receive various treatments. But perhaps the greatest sign is that although she herself is often absent, her sensibility is recognizable, and — on the show as, increasingly, in our culture at large — it is everywhere.
The Goop Lab follows a relatively unadorned format: A self-styled expert on a method of healing that exists beyond the boundaries of the known shows up at the Goop offices — a sort of Wonka chocolate factory of boho culture with rose-toned upholstery and leafy plants — to speak with Paltrow and her top editorial staffer, Elise Loehnen.
The expert explains their methods, often taking a shot at the medical establishment, and then Paltrow’s employees try out a version of the practice, interspersed with testimonials from non-goopers about how their lives have been changed by it.
It all goes down so smoothly that there is cause for concern, as when a guest preaching the power of psychedelic mushrooms criticizes the use of psychiatric medication, noting, “As a culture, we’re hungry for something to help us heal.”
On at least one occasion (the episode dealing with sexual health), the topic of the day is legitimate and worthy, as if to inoculate the show against charges of pseudo-science. Other times, it’s less troubling than daffy, as when a medium compares those who don’t believe in psychics to flat-earthers: “Ideas are laughed at before they’re accepted, right?”
To all of these visitors, Paltrow exhibits a creamy, implacable curiosity, stopping short of ever seeming truly sated by what she learns or of giving much insight into the ways in which the projects intersect with her own life.
This, perhaps, is what the general critique of Paltrow tends to miss: She is widely perceived as a self-satisfied or smug celebrity evangelist, but it is hard to recall a public figure who has made more grist out of being dissatisfied with herself.