There are plenty of celebrities people love to hate, and a select few where the hating is particularly satisfying. Such is the case with Hollywood actor-turned-entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow, whose icy blonde superiority both fascinates and repels.
This week Paltrow found herself freshly reviled due to two things she did.
First, she starred in a promotion for an Israeli luxury apartment development. It is a slick advertisement which owes a lot to the AI-utopia aesthetics of the video Donald Trump posted in 2025 of Gaza, re-imagined as a Dubai-style pleasure dome. In the ad, Paltrow wakes in her luxury apartment, and then embarks on a blithe morning jog around the adjacent park.
She is resplendent in athleisure gear and bathed in golden light, her bouncing ponytail apparently indifferent to the unrelenting suffering of millions of Gazans about 100 kilometres from the apartments’ planned location.
Paltrow can advertise whatever she wants, of course, but as the entire internet pointed out in countless outraged posts, it is hard to watch the ad and not wince at its tone-deafness. It felt like the televisual equivalent of that time Melania Trump wore her infamous “I really don’t care, do you?” jacket for a visit to a detention centre housing migrant children in 2018.
Which brings us to Gwyneth’s second crime of the week, which was to appear on her own podcast (or that of her wellness company, Goop) and declare herself an independent voter when asked about her political views.
She said her husband was very progressive, explaining that he has “such a sweet heart, and he wants to, like, make sure everybody’s looked after”, but, Paltrow said, she challenges his views.
“In my journey through being an American right now, [I’m] trying to sort of weave together lots of different points of view, and also to get out of that place of righteousness and anger and fear,” she continued. “And I mean, I’m pretty centrist, and my husband thinks I’m a Republican,” she said, clearly joking about the last thing.
She immediately clarified that she is “not a Republican”.
“I don’t feel anything right now, to be totally honest with you,” she continued, giving off Melania vibes. “I feel like I’m completely an independent.”
Paltrow was lambasted by detractors online, one of whom said that the comments were “tone-deaf, entitled, elitist, and severely void of empathy, compassion, or humanity”, reported the Independent.
Another said that Paltrow was an “extremely privileged white woman who’s a nepo baby” and another said “Of course she doesn’t give a f— about what’s going on in the world – because it doesn’t affect her”.
It’s bemusing that Americans seem to expect some sort of moral leadership from their celebrities. They even expect it from celebrities like Paltrow, whose entire brand, literally, is selling an aspirational lifestyle that is truly available only to one-percenters who live in a small radius of Montecito, California.
But the fact that Paltrow’s declaration of independence was the cause of such a pile-on tells us a lot about the current state of American civic life.
There are many, mostly on the anti-MAGA left, who argue that if you are not openly critical of the Trump administration’s egregious behaviour, you are abetting it. Given the Trump administration’s undermining of democracy, its authoritarianism, its licensed sexism and racial prejudice, and its blatant corruption, it is easy to see why some people would feel that way.
It is also true that to be “independent” in the contemporary United States can be coded as an RFK Jr-style scepticism of established science, or any information that is published by “legacy” media sources.
To be “independent”, in the contemporary American context, might mean you “do your own research” on the efficacy of vaccination. Or that you don’t trust the mainstream media, preferring social media information sources like the meme your cousin posted on Facebook, perhaps with a chaser of a YouTube rabbit hole.
When the world refracts into tribalism, independence is not seen as the consequence of intellectual integrity, the mindset of a rational being weighing up the evidence on a case-by-case basis.
It is seen as the refuge of a moral coward, someone lacking the backbone to stand up for what is right.
No one can agree, of course, on what is right, but moral leadership has become such a scarce commodity that we yearn for it.
In the American context, they want their celebrities – America’s uppermost class, even higher than the billionaire-rich – to give it to them.
Good luck with that.
In the Australian political context, we seem to have given up on our politicians’ ability to offer moral leadership. This is surely a huge factor behind the resurgence of One Nation – for Pauline Hanson fans, she offers moral clarity on issues others daren’t touch (of course, for her critics, much of what she stands for is morally off-putting or even offensive).
You could read the destruction of the Liberal Party, and more broadly, the Coalition, as a tale of weakened moral leadership. The Liberals’ lack of conviction over their own net zero emissions policy was a case in point.
Successive Liberal governments, beginning with the government of Tony Abbott, signed up for the net zero by 2050 goal imposed by our membership to the Paris Agreement. (Abbott later retracted his support, but only after being ousted as PM).
But it was clear to voters that there was no conviction, let alone action, behind the Coalition pledge.
When Opposition Leader Sussan Ley refused to say what she actually, personally, believed was the right policy on emissions reduction, it was a death knell for her leadership, even before she formally dumped the net zero by 2050 pledge on behalf of the Coalition. Afterwards, Ley insisted she was still committed to easing global warming.
Now, we see her replacement, Angus Taylor, neglecting to outright criticise One Nation’s extremism – even its self-reported extremism.
This is left to colleagues such as Opposition defence spokesman James Paterson, who pointed out this week that “Pauline Hanson has publicly said she is concerned that extremists have infiltrated her … Pauline is worried about it. I think all of us should be concerned.”
Another Liberal shadow minister, Andrew Hastie, homed in on Hanson’s refusal, on the Herald/Age’s Inside Politics podcast, to criticise Trump at all. He said Hanson was “MAGA first, even when the Australian people suffer the economic consequences”.
“Our first loyalty must be to the Australian people, not to international institutions, not to ideology like MAGA,” Hastie continued.
He also said that “President Trump’s war in Iran hasn’t gone to plan. That’s not controversial to say that.”
He’s right, but it requires some moral courage, in today’s world, to state the obvious, particularly when it comes to the kleptocratic, geo-strategically incompetent Trump administration. Or, for example, to say that many of the views Hanson has expressed are repugnant.
No wonder we find it so bracing when people call things as they really see them. Thrilling, even.
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