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My Life As Gwyneth
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As Gwyneth Paltrow mulls turning her web site, GOOP, into a lifestyle empire, The Daily Beast’s Rebecca Dana mulls turning herself into Gwyneth. A story of dieting, detoxing, and dining with a Golden Girl—just like GOOP tells us to.
I started reading Crime and Punishment last month because Gwyneth Paltrow said to. According to the Oscar-winning actress, “the best way to relax before bed is to curl up by the fire with an amazing, transportive [sic] novel.” (Apart from watching a few minutes of a “forensic pathology documentary” on TV.) “I think there was something about the complexity of the protagonist’s psychology that made me feel like I wasn’t the most misunderstood person in the world,” Paltrow says of the Dostoevsky classic, which she first read in high school but has returned to many times since. “It was okay to be figuring out one’s own sense of right and wrong. In fact, it was one of life’s great endeavors.”
I recently embarked on another of life’s great endeavors. For the last three weeks, I’ve strived to follow every single recommendation from GOOP, Gwyneth’s weekly e-mail newsletter, in an effort to understand this complex star.
I found myself intrigued by her recommendation to “take your drinking water to the next level” with a $900 alkaline filtration system. What vegan shoe designer does Cameron Diaz recommend? I suddenly wanted to know.
In the GOOP-iverse, there are six points on the Star of Gwyneth: Make, Go, Get, Do, Be, See—the organizing principles behind her guide to better living, her gift to us. The advice ranges from wonderfully inspiring to hilariously impractical, internally inconsistent and outright absurd. In the name of GOOP, I have now given up white foods (bread, pasta), preserved foods (chips, cookies), toxic foods (candy, ice cream), and foods containing heavy metals (I never quite figured this one out). I have dutifully tried to rid myself of negativity and the inner gunk of past excess by drinking two tablespoons of olive oil every night before bed. I have done butt-lifting exercises in my living room, cultivated my “sticktoitiveness,” cooked enormous feasts one day and subsisted on kale and lemon water the next. I have given myself a five-minute makeover involving a tight drugstore headband and slathered home-made Turbinado sugar and coarsely ground coffee paste on my cheeks, to open up my pores. I have paired slouchy trousers with a shirt that has “some edge.” I have added adaptogenic herbal formulas to my morning routine and tried to eat in accordance with my body’s natural rhythms. I have experimented with four different recipes for chocolate chip cookies. I have practiced the African philosophy of ubuntu. I have purchased leggings.
And I have nourished my inner aspect.
Gwyneth has taken a lot of heat for her GOOP newsletter, with critics accusing her of being dense, illiterate, and out of touch. Then again, how hard is it to mock a Hollywood royal who describes cooking and food as “my main ancillary passions in life” and who turned to an “organic plastic surgeon” in 2007 when she got tired of her “saddlebags and post-pregnancy Shar-Pei-like stomach”? She drops names faster than she does pounds during a liquid cleanse (Wes Anderson, Jon Favreau, Sofia Coppola, Christy Turlington, “my friend Mark Bittman of The New York Times”), and her devotion to alternative medicine is just kind of creepy. She is so preoccupied with bowel movements that if she ever does expand the empire (as she has hinted), there could easily be a spinoff newsletter devoted solely to remedies for gastrointestinal “sluggishness.” No telling the potential web audience for POOP.
There’s a lot to scoff at here, but the three weeks I spent following GOOP were pure joy. Expensive, inconvenient and totally unsustainable—yes, but also full of unexpected pleasures. Instead of taking a vacation this summer, I lived like a world-famous actress obsessed with maple syrup, pseudo-science and Mario Batali. And just as Gwyneth did with Raskolnikov, I too found a special comfort in the complexity of my protagonist’s psychology. She may be tone-deaf and full of wacky ideas about food and religion, but she really just wants everyone to feel as good as she does. On a few occasions, I think I got close. My GOOP plan began with cynicism and failure, and by the end, I was cooking a giant pan-holiday dinner party with recipes from Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and Valentine’s Day for my boyfriend, three girlfriends, and Rue McClanahan of The Golden Girls. It was a long, strange journey.
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Rebecca Dana is a culture correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she has also written for the New York Times, the New York Observer, Rolling Stone and Slate, among other publications.
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Rebecca Dana is a culture correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she has also written for the New York Times, the New York Observer, Rolling Stone and Slate, among other publications.
I enjoyed the piece.
Brilliant!
Despite I like your article,I think Gwyneth's GOOP is entertaining and different from other self-help newsletter. There are too many web copy cats and they always tell you " it's easy, quick fixed and inexpensive" but at the ends nothing works or even worth reading. At least Gwyneth shares something she knows best, how could we blame her if she have such a good life? Maybe her GOOP is not for Americans who like everything fast, cheap ( chinese made) and nonesense.
That was hilarious. Thank you for giving me something utterly funny and enjoyable to read about besides health care! Rebecca Dana is great. I guess I better check out POOP, errr, GOOP.
If you've ever been in love with or known an alumni of The Spence School in NYC, you've been graced with the acquaintance of one of the few truly superior women of the world. They are cultured, well-read, pragmatic,independent,
wise and possessed of a profound "interiority"... I don't know for a fact that Gwyneth is an alumni, but I would wager she is. She exudes it from every pore of her "yellowness".
You've got to be kidding, right?
Nauseating
Please. It's not possible to be "an alumni" of the Spence School. For one thing "alumni" is plural, for another, it's masculine
Gwyneth attended Spence, but did not graduate because she was so involved in her career.
Nice spin, Dr. Daily. I believe Ms. Paltrow actually flunked out of Spence, probably close the time at which she became engaged to Mr. Pitt.
written like a Spence enthusiastic, maybe even a flack.
Very Funny article.
@methinee - What's wrong with Chinese Made? I just bought a computer mouse for $11. It has a laser inside. That's amazing, and in a way makes me richer than generations of snobs who had to employ teams of librarians to search their palace libraries. It's not all lead painted toys and poison milk you know.
"Chinese Made" products have been posionous. From baby formula with radiator coolant in it, to Talapia fish farmed in China in the most poluted water in the country. Plus, their pricing undercuts everyone else because of the cheap labor, therefore putting everyone else out of business. Just like Walmart.
Cat treats - carried by a US brand but product imported from China - almost shut-down my pet's kidneys. Vet's tab, $800.
Why is it that the people who are obsessed with themselves are usually the least interesting?
because their interest doesn't involve you, or anyone outside their class.
Don't get the fascination with Paltrow.
She seems nice enough,
somewhat humorous, kind of milk toast.
not enough education, too much money.
not enough psychotherapy, too much narcissism.
too much julie and julia, not enough originality.
Gwyneth Paltrow is annoying and condescending and her website sucks.
I love your writing and thank you so much for making me laugh this afternoon. I've shared the article with many more people.
Yawn, I'm so sleepy now.
hilArious!
This really was a good article...but I am a Paltrow fan. To each his own, I guess.
How about this: This really was a good article...AND I am a Paltrow fan.
Ms. Dana had me chuckling out loud at parts. I don't follow GOOP, but I will love G.P. forever for "A Perfect Murder."
So, does anyone think G.P. is getting kickbacks for her merchandise "recommendations" (i.e., endorsements)? Or is she doing it purely for the love of these designers and/or items?
What does Paltrow do, pay blogs to write stories about her? She's constantly on Huffpo. Now here. Could care less.
I remember an article in Vanity Fair about Arianna which mentioned that GW was a big donor to the Huffpo. If she's writing this nonsense to channel money to the Huffpo & other alternative news outlets, more power to her. She's ridiculous, though, & must make a mint through her cosmetic endorsements.
Great Article! Loved it. I once tried to do Goop, but felt kinda poor at the end of it - lol.
Hey Rebecca, do you have a boyfriend? The article wasn't clear about that.
Don't really even know why I clicked on this, other than that I just couldn't stand another minute of what's really important in this world without a break. Sometimes one just has to surrender to the shallow, go no deeper than an inch, submerge in froth.
So I did. I enjoyed this piece, and identified with its author who seems lost on planet narcissism. She sure tries to give Ms. Paltrow the benefit of the doubt but I couldn't help feeling like I think she did----I'd rather spend a couple of hours with Betty White than be gifted with a life time subscription to Goop.
I don't envy Gwen's life, or her diet, or her cleanses or her impossibly expensive toys and accessories. But I do indeed envy her platform---the space and power to say and do so much of real value in this world. And it does not garner my respect that she is squandering it on the vapid.
Don't get me wrong, I think all the topics mentioned in the article are fair game for girl friend gab. But I'm just sayin'--- if I had her platform I'd sure as hell be doing more with it.
Really agree with your comment..
Nice article. I like Gwyneth and I like that she is ignoring the people who are laughing at her website. She just keeps on sending it out to those who want to read it and I say good for her!! I'm certainly enjoying it. I'm glad she's back from her summer vacay!!!
Ah, what the hell. I like nothing better than to find a way to criticize Ms. Dana, largely because of the incredibly silly and unprofessional photo that accompanies her posts, but okay, I enjoyed this article. I wish I hadn't said it; I may never say it again, but I enjoyed it. Good laugh about Gwynneth, a woman who filmed a series about food in Spain, but refused to eat ham.
Co-sign.
I haven't been this delighted by a lifestyle piece since I first read David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." Kudos to you. Loved it!
Thank-you Rebecca Dana -- I have not laughed that long or that outloud in so long I'll have no need to visit GOOP !!!
Hurrah. Gwyneth is going to teach us all how to live transportively and make chocolate chip cookies ... without chocolate chips, I suppose, since chocolate is candy and "candy is toxic" (and sugar is only sugar when it's white). Gibberish.
yup, just signed up for her wacko newsletter. the bitch really is a wacko. dailywackos.com
I've had friends who were so like Gwyneth: born into money and culture, and completely obsessed with their excrement. Very funny article though, completely agree with Cluckeys and others who find Ms. Paltrow a bit of full of herself.
I give Gwen A- for believing her own stuff, and A for self-promotion. It is a terrific profile or whatever you want to call it.
I think of Six Degrees of Separation, the film which I recently saw for the first time. I didn't expect to see something I loved so much.. Another piece of work to love.
Thank you.
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