The Met Gala is grotesquely out of touch

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The actor Sarah Paulson arrived on the iconic, treacherous steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the Met Gala Monday night in a sweeping Canadian-designed tulle dress and a U.S. dollar-bill-inspired blindfold over her eyes.

Who doesn’t love a good metaphor? Has money made the gala’s lead sponsors – Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, the woman he married at a wedding costing tens-of-millions – blind to the cruel realities of the world? Did Mr. Bezos’s billions make the gala organizers blind to his ugly capitalist misdeeds? Protesters certainly thought so.

Amazon has been blamed for the shuttering of local businesses, its trucks for chaos on residential roads, its warehouses identified as precarious workplaces for the desperate.

But hey, that pretty party dress.

“I feel like when you’re a citizen of the country right now, it’s your responsibility to be as aware as you possibly can about all that’s going on in the world,” Ms. Paulson told The New York Times. “That just feels like my job as a citizen. But I’m here, and I’m happy to be here.”

Blind? Yeah. And tone deaf.

Met Gala protesters target Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

Not to point the finger specifically at Ms. Paulson – props to her for this messaging and to Canada’s Matières Fécales for the dress – but rather to this whole out-of-touch affair.

Yes, the Met Gala serves up fabulous visuals and raises money for a good cause – an art museum’s fashion wing is a good cause! – but this gala feels grotesque.

The world at war, so many people suffering – including Americans who cannot afford even basic health care – and celebrities and extremely wealthy philanthropists parading around as if the most important thing in the world is their take on the gala’s dress code: fashion is art.

Which is cool. Fashion is art. And there were some standout takes (Heidi Klum as an actual sculpture – fabulous). But the designers and stylists deserve the kudos. Sure, the stars collaborate and look fabulous and know how to strut their stuff with supreme style. Connor Storrie’s polka dots? Hudson Williams’ nod to Black Swan? Magnificent. (These Heated Rivals can do no wrong.)

But from the bubble of stardom, there is an air of obliviousness.

Met Gala guests from Katy Perry to Nicole Kidman flaunt their fashion

Post-gala, Ms. Paulson was photographed holding hands with pal Grace Gummer. Ms. Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep, recently played Caroline Kennedy in Love Story, the virally hate-watched miniseries about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, whose lives ended in a plane crash, along with Ms. Bessette’s sister Lauren.

“Finale out Thursday!” Ms. Gummer posted on Instagram a few weeks ago, with a goofy photo of the show’s stars hanging on a bed together – ahead of the last episode, in which we all knew the not-so-happy couple would crash into the Atlantic and die.

With social media, it feels like we have access to the stars. It’s a façade, of course. But with real consequences, as Lena Dunham demonstrates in her memoir Famesick. In the media storm after the first season of Girls, she would search her name on Twitter and count the number of times she found the words “fat” and “ugly.”

So yes, a happy highlight of this year’s Met Gala was seeing Ms. Dunham there, striking in red Valentino. (In Famesick, she writes about fainting post-surgery at a previous Met Gala. “I know, this place is overwhelming,” Maggie Gyllenhaal kindly tells her in the bathroom, thinking Ms. Dunham is having a panic attack.)

This year’s table centrepieces were made of garden flowers along with real fruits – pomegranates, pears, black wine grapes, kumquats, Vogue reported.

Meanwhile the rest of us schlubs are scanning the grocery store aisles for any fresh produce we can afford (probably not kumquats). We shop for our galas – weddings, proms – at Winners or Marshalls, bemoaning the loss of The Bay and Nordstrom, retail giants that could not make it in this country because everyone’s ordering from Amazon. (Okay, it’s more complicated than that.)

I wonder: what was Mackenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) doing Monday? Investigating worthy causes to aid with her billions? I hope she conducted this research in the comfiest of cashmere sweats.

Meanwhile, at the Met, dinner was served in the gallery housing the Temple of Dendur – in what used to be the Sackler Wing, before artist/activist Nan Goldin made it impossible for the Met to continue displaying the name of the family that played such a large role in the deadly opioids crisis.

After dinner, of course, there was cake: raspberry-infusion chocolate with a red velvet cake; white chocolate mocha with a cocoa cake and dark chocolate ganache, Vogue reported.

But could those stars in those form-fitting dresses even eat it? Let them.