Life

Why I’m Glad Gwyneth Paltrow Didn’t Stump for Clinton

Gwyneth Paltrow, political enigma. Image by getty images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy November 22, 2016

Sisterhood readers will know that I’m mildly obsessed with the question of whether various lifestyle icons will take an anti-Trump (or pro-Trump!) stand. If you’re selling something — particularly something geared towards an audience of white women with conventional tastes — chances are you’re not storming any barricades. Fine. But maybe you’d make a statement of some kind?

On the Cut, Allie Jones picks apart Gwyneth ‘Goop’ Paltrow’s stance or lack thereof when it comes to The New Fascism. As per the Page Six story Jones cites, Paltrow refused to say, after the fact, whom she’d voted for, instead producing very on-brand platitudes. But Jones points out that Paltrow used a pantsuit-centric election-day Instagram photo, and that she’d supported Obama and other Democrats in the past. Moreover, Jones also points to rumors that Paltrow had wanted to host a fundraiser for Clinton, but Clinton didn’t want Paltrow’s support.

Jones suggests that Paltrow’s non-endorsement is either an egotistical grudge (“Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t forget.”) or a privileged celebrity inhabiting a bubble (“It does not really matter what multimillionaire Gwyneth Paltrow thinks about Trump’s ascendancy; she’s going to be fine regardless.”) I have a different theory: Optics.

Could you imagine the think-pieces we’d be getting if Paltrow had been a Clinton surrogate? Remember the Lena Dunham finger-pointing? Imagine that anti-limousine-liberal (and misogyny-tinged) backlash times a billion. Think of the headlines we were spared! It would have been, ‘Gwyneth Paltrow, Poshest Celebrity Ever, Lost Clinton the Election’. It would have been that and nothing else.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO