Gwyneth Paltrow raises awareness for (her lack of ) poverty
Actress attends luxury dinners while trying to raise awareness for families on food stamps
There are moments when I’m convinced Gwyneth Paltrow is insane.
I’ll be lying in bed, worrying about tax returns or college tuition. Then without warning, Paltrow’s voice will echo inside my head — “I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin” — and my eyes will pop open and I’ll think, “My God, she is crazy.”
There’s a good chance her 2.1 million Twitter followers feel the same way after the actress, cookbook author and lifestyle guru recently posted a glam foodstuff photo with this caption: “This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store — what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week.”
Paltrow had accepted a “Food Stamp Challenge” from celebrity chef Mario Batali, which is a bit like DeMar DeRozan accepting a “Little Person Challenge” from Chewbacca.
To raise awareness for the Food Bank for New York City, the woman who named her first-born “Apple” would eat the poor.
I mean, eat like the poor.
Paltrow was allotted $29 for groceries. That’s what low-income families spend on average in one week and, one suspects, what Paltrow drops on a green smoothie with saffron extract. If you’ve ever survived on a tight budget — if you’ve ever gazed into a bare fridge with a growling belly and thought, “Maybe I’ll just drink some mustard tonight” — her shopping list was clueless.
Apparently, struggling families don’t need calories. Or stuff that might keep them alive. They are wasting their coupons on bags of potatoes and cans of tuna.
Pasta? Peanut butter? Frozen dinners? Cheese from a tin?
No, no, no and, holy kale, absolutely not.
Based on Paltrow’s grocery photo, the less fortunate just need seven limes, a dozen eggs, whole grain brown rice, a tomato, green onions, garlic, an avocado, black beans, coriander, peas and glutenfree tortillas. “Mommy, what’s for dinner?” “Black bean taquitos! But save an organic lime wedge under your pillow because we’re not eating again until next week.”
Remember, all Paltrow has to do is turn $29 into one week of sustenance. And she gets to simulate hard times while ensconced in a luxurious cocoon that, unlike many on social assistance, doesn’t include nagging fears about heat and running water. Seven days. That’s it. On Tuesday, in the midst of this challenge, Paltrow was spotted at Animal, a swank L.A. restaurant where the menu includes “fried rabbit legs” ($36) and “lamb birria” ($41). On the same night, she also slipped into $795 Louboutin heels — or what an impoverished family spends on food in half a year — to hit up a private dinner for Victoria Beckham. Table offerings included halibut, chicken Milanese and, a popular dessert for poor folks everywhere, blood orange sorbet and chocolate petit fours. Cue the “brouhaha,” to use Paltrow’s word. People wanted answers. So she put down her caviar to blog about the aborted mission.
“We only made it through about four days, when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice),” Paltrow conceded, giving herself a C- grade, which can only mean celebrity stunts are now marked on a bell curve.
Paltrow has done a lot of dumb things in her life. This was right up there with the dumbest. It was like she promised to climb stairs for charity and was then spotted in an elevator. She tried to walk a mile in another person’s shoes and got about 1,000 yards before succumbing to poultry and stringy candy.
If she ever needs to go on a hunger strike to prove her innocence, she’ll soon be led to death row reeking of corn salsa. Four days? That’s it? And that’s assuming she’s telling the truth. We should check surveillance footage from every Whole Foods in Southern California until we spot a woman, in huge sunglasses and a blond ponytail, hiding in the parking lot and binging on crudités.
The really sad thing is this was so unnecessary. Instead of raising awareness for those in need, she put a spotlight on her own lack of control, on her own indifference to the gravity of the very problem she wants the rest of us to take seriously.
Is the woman who once declared, “I would rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup,” really the best spokesperson for those who consume instant noodles due to financial hardship?
Putting Paltrow on food stamps to make a point about poverty is like putting Justin Bieber in a tux to make a point about decorum. Nobody is buying it. Showing how much you care by not caring at all?
Now that is insanity.vmenon@thestar.ca