Every year, millions and millions of individuals tune into live broadcasts and hop online to watch their favourite celebrities attend the Met Gala.
The Met Gala is an annual charity event in the fashion industry for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which is the only department that must fund its own budget. Each gala has its own unique theme, and attendees are given the opportunity to flaunt their creativity and fancy outfits on the red carpet. As an invite-only event, only around 400 invites are sent out to the world’s leading individuals in fashion, sport, music and politics. However, once inside, the event is a tour of the new art exhibits in the Met, with a strict no-phone policy to keep the event private.
While a place for expression of individuality and art, the Met Gala has recently faced a lot of backlash for its involvement of Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez,z as co-chairs of the event. As an event that promotes a charity and inclusivity, activists were against the promotion of Jeff Bezos, due to the speculations surrounding his working conditions in his business, Amazon.
As a part of his sponsorship, Jeff Bezos donated 10 million dollars to fund the Met Gala, which further sparked protests due to the origin of his money coming from the work of his hires. This led to New York City being covered in activist posters, headlines including, “Boycott the Met Gala! Brought to you by worker exploitation,” along with other campaigns advertising the working conditions Amazon staff are under. Along with posters, protestors projected messages stating, “Boycott the Met Gala,” onto the side of Bezos’ penthouse in Manhattan.
Despite all this public backlash, Jeff Bezos did not step back from his position as co-chair but rather avoided the red carpet and main entrance in order to evade photography and news departments. His wife, however, did walk the carpet and refused to answer any questions regarding the situation with her husband.
More notable figures turned down invitations to the Gala in favour of the anti-rich sentiments surfacing around New York, Zohran Mamdani amongst these. Zohran Mamdani is the mayor of New York City and refused the invite due to his focus being on “affordability,” a sign of solidarity within his community.
Despite high levels of media involvement with the controversies this year, boycotting the Met Gala isn’t a new trend. Activists have been protesting these excessive displays of wealth for years, since celebrities pay thousands of dollars to attend this event while citizens struggle to pay for their groceries.
At the end of the day, it is a fundraising event that gathers people together to celebrate displays of art and culture through fashion and a night of celebration. It’s up to the people whether they wish to consume and indulge in the gossips of who has the ‘best outfit,’ or turn a celebration of art into a gossip-filled, political debate of morals and the possession of money.
