Gal Gadot’s media missteps multiply
Coronavirus crisis seems to be to this international superstar what kryptonite is to Superman, as she appears to violate Health Ministry quarantine orders in latest gaffe
Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who portrays Wonder Woman on screen, once seemed to have a super power of her own: charming the public through the media as expertly as the mighty Amazon warrior wields her bulletproof bracelets.
But since the novel coronavirus began, some are wondering: Has Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth unraveled?
Gadot comes as close as any Israeli ever has to being royalty — even the most cynical Israelis headed to the multiplex to see her derring-do and martial-arts skills honed in the IDF — and any cracks in her once majestic media presence could cause a national crisis.
But the coronavirus crisis seems to be to this super heroine what kryptonite is to Superman, as she has made some mighty missteps, for the first time in her career as an international superstar.
In March she posted a celebrity singalong of the John Lennon classic, “Imagine” that was lambasted both for its lousy singing and what was widely perceived as the smug satisfaction of its multimillionaire participants who insisted that we’re all in this together from behind gated mansions.
Now, she seems to have stumbled again, as the newspaper Israel Hayom outed her Thursday for flying back to Israel a few weeks ago and renting a villa where she hosted visitors, violating the Health Ministry guidelines, which state that all those entering the country from abroad must be in isolation for two weeks.
GG watchers couldn’t help but note that in March she posted a photo to Instagram of herself in her (predictably large) closet in slippers, with the caption, “Staying home is my superpower... This situation should not be taken lightly.”
But although Gadot chose not to comment on the allegations that she felt she could soar above the quarantine rules — as did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin in much-publicized and criticized appearances at Passover — she posted a new photo to Instagram not a day later that could strike observers as tone deaf as the “Imagine” debacle.
The photo shows an elderly couple embracing through a plastic screen, wearing masks and gloves. Alongside it, Gadot wrote, “This melt my heart” and gives an explanation that this is a couple in Spain who have been married 59 years and who live in an “elderly care center [that] installed the screens to resume relatives’ visits 102 days after a strict coronavirus lockdown separated them.”
But according to media reports, there were no such screens in the villa where Gadot and her family hosted their guests.
In some quarters, Wonder Woman is still as mighty as ever, because more than 2,000 posted positive comments, including Michelle Pfeiffer, who wrote, “Mine too.”
Gadot came in for a bit of criticism from local Israeli media watchers a few weeks ago when she posted against racism in the US after the police killing of George Floyd, saying, “It is not enough to be quietly non-racist, now is the time to be vocally anti-racist,” and posting a black square when activists called on sympathizers to do so on social media. These critics noted that when
Israeli police killed Ethiopian-Israeli teen Solomon Tekah in 2019, Gadot was silent.
But as she prepares for the release of her latest movie, Wonder Woman 1984, the much- anticipated Wonder
Woman sequel, which was postponed from June to October, fans will surely forgive Gadot, and stop slapping their foreheads and exclaiming, “Suffering Sappho!” as the heroine used to back in her comic-book days.