Ugh, as if! Alicia Silverstone is playing the hero for disrobing for a good cause – no, not Ukraine or Iranian dissidents or world hunger… but VEGANISM. How exhaustingly clueless, says MAUREEN CALLAHAN
For those of you wondering what Alicia Silverstone’s been up to lately — a vanishing slice of the population, no doubt — here’s the answer: Posing naked for PETA.
It all feels so late 1990s, back when PETA had caché. Back when it was a big deal for a major celeb to pose naked. Now it’s all so trite, so pedestrian.
But maybe we don’t tell Alicia that? She seems to think it’s a really big deal.
Here she is at 46, in nothing but vegan cowboy boots, looming over Times Square in a 29-foot-billboard, surrounded by cacti. The none-too-subtle tagline: ‘Don’t Be a Prick. Wear Vegan.’
‘I never, ever get naked in TV, in film — nothing,’ Silverstone said. ‘But I’ve done it for PETA.’
What a sacrifice. Those real-world heroes of the past few years — from frontline workers still battling COVID-19 amid a tripledemic to the freedom fighters in Ukraine to protestors in Iran tortured and executed while fighting for women’s rights — all surely tip their hats to you, Ms. Silverstone.
You’d think the celebrity-industrial complex would have taken a lesson from that most egregious and unasked-for public service message at the outset of the pandemic and the terrifying global lockdown to follow: The video of Gal Gadot, Sia, Natalie Portman, Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon, Will Farrell, Mark Ruffalo, Maya Rudolph, James Marsden, Zoe Kravitz, Kaia Gerber and others singing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ to us from their mansions and acres of landscaped private outdoor space.
For those of you wondering what Alicia Silverstone’s been up to lately — a vanishing slice of the population, no doubt — here’s the answer: Posing naked for PETA.
Nope. Not even the swift, virulent response to that — all of us plebes expressing utter disgust as bodies piled up in makeshift morgues the world over, merging work with childcare and online teaching from tiny homes and apartments, worrying about food and bills and contagion — was enough for them to get the message.
So here we are, being lectured by a former starlet, who – we now know – truly is clueless, thanks to her ‘Clueless’ director. She seems sweet, sure, but really.
Silverstone, it turns out, had much in common with her ‘Clueless’ character, mispronouncing a key word while practicing her dialogue off-camera: ‘Haitians’ became ‘Hate-ee-yans.’
‘She had the script and she was doing her lines and as soon as I said ‘cut,’ the script woman and everyone in the crew started to walk up to her to tell her the right pronunciation,’ director Amy Heckerling told Vogue in 2015.
‘I had to run interference and go, ‘Step away from the actress. Stand clear of Alicia Silverstone.’ Because I didn’t want her to know that she had it wrong…There’s something you do when you’re completely confident that just can’t be replicated when you know you’re doing something wrong.’
It was authenticity Heckerling was after, and authenticity she got. A brand of ‘Clueless’ as pure as Christmas snow.
Is there any greater description of what it is to hear celebrities lecture us? To hear their stridency and certainty as they offer endless disquisitions on subjects they don’t really understand? Or refuse to practice what they preach?
Who among us doesn’t enjoy lectures from ecowarriors such as Jeff Bezos, Leonardo DiCaprio and Harry & Meghan as they sunbathe on yachts or exclusively fly private or live, as the latter do, in a mansion with 16 bathrooms
Silverstone, it turns out, had much in common with her ‘Clueless’ character, mispronouncing a key word while practicing her dialogue off-camera: ‘Haitians’ became ‘Hate-ee-yans.’
So here we are, being lectured by a former starlet, who – we now know – truly is clueless, thanks to her ‘Clueless’ director. She seems sweet, sure, but really.
Does anyone really think that Mark Ruffalo understands the intricacies of fracking? That Matt Damon understood crypto? That Alec Baldwin is a humanitarian?
It would all be funny if it weren’t so enraging. Real harm can be done when celebrities are given legitimate platforms to spout misinformation: Tom Brady hawks a pseudoscientific line of ‘wellness’ supplements. Jessica Alba’s Honest Co. was sued in 2017 for including a skin irritant in its cleansing products that it promised to avoid. Gwyneth Paltrow’s female-centric ‘Goop’ empire is built on such insipid encouragements as buying her ‘jade eggs’ ($55-$66 a pop) and inserting them into your vagina ‘to increase vaginal muscle tone, hormonal balance, and feminine energy in general.’
After an actual gynecologist wrote Paltrow a scathing open letter noting the dangers of such a practice — bacterial infection or toxic shock syndrome — and a consumer protection lawsuit filed by ten counties in California, Goop paid a $145,000 fine.
Hasn’t stopped her from selling the eggs, though. Paltrow’s company simply dialed down the health claims.
So none of this should be assumed as harmless stuff. Alicia Silverstone may be a nice person. She may be well-intended. But she is a Class-A nut job who has no business in eco-warriorhood, public health or advocacy.
This is a woman who pushed anti-vax misinformation in her 2014 book ‘The Kind Mama.’ She wrote about the evils of tampons and diapers. Far better, she wrote, for babies to poop in the grass than in non-organic cotton diapers.
Really, this goes beyond idiocy. It’s class warfare. It’s rich, pampered, famous women shaming their less-privileged sisters for not sourcing organic everything, for not chewing up their toddler’s food and depositing it, bird-like, into their child’s mouth (yes, Silverstone did this). It’s telling other women who are doing their best that they’re bad moms. It’s mocking women of lower socioeconomic status, who may live in food deserts, for a lack of proper nutrition, for not looking sleek and rich — all under the guise of trying to help.
It’s rich, pampered, famous women shaming their less-privileged sisters for not sourcing organic everything, for not chewing up their toddler’s food and depositing it, bird-like, into their child’s mouth (yes, Silverstone did this – above)
‘I’d rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a can.’ — Gwyneth Paltrow, 2011.
Which brings us to Silverstone’s veganism. None other than The Atlantic recently reported that a world without meat could not only be worse for combating climate change but for our individual health. And guess which segment of the population would most suffer nutritionally from veganism? That’s right: Poor people who can’t afford or access all the supplemental foods that would compensate for the lack of balanced protein, iron and B12 otherwise found in meat.
As for vegan clothes and accessories, such as the boots Silverstone wears in her PETA ad? A good amount of fake leather consists of plastic fibers, and such products can take 500 years to decompose — and when they do, harmful chemicals are released into the ether. Harper’s Bazaar reported that clothing made from plastic is a true ecological threat, with an estimated 13 million tons of fake fibers winding up in the ocean every year.
And not only does fake fur pose a similar threat — far too often, companies claim to be selling fake fur when they are actually selling you the real thing. Neiman Marcus and Amazon are just two retailers in recent years who have come under scrutiny for such practices.
In keeping with that arrogant COVID-19 celebrity video, here’s a humble ask: ‘Imagine’ celebrities stopped bloviating and pontificating? Imagine if they abandoned smug sanctimony?
I know: You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.
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