The Met Gala, an annual extravaganza of wealth and extravagance, has once again sparked a debate about the gap between the rich and the rest. This year's event, hosted by Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sánchez Bezos, was a spectacle of excess and self-indulgence, leaving many to question the purpose and impact of such an event. While the fashion and glamour on display were undoubtedly impressive, the underlying message was one of contempt for the working class and a celebration of the ruling class's power and privilege.
One of the most striking aspects of the Met Gala is the sheer amount of money and resources that go into creating the event. A single seat at the gala costs $100,000, and a table of ten runs a staggering $350,000. The total amount raised from ticket sales alone is a record-breaking $42 million, not to mention the value of the costumes and other expenses. This level of wealth and extravagance is a stark contrast to the reality of life for many people, including the workers who make such events possible.
The conditions outside the velvet rope are inseparable from those within it. While the guests inside were indulging in luxury and excess, the reality for many people outside was starkly different. The New York City shelter system was housing over 100,000 people, and Amazon warehouse workers were collapsing at injury rates that exceeded those of the rest of the warehousing industry combined. The connection between these two worlds is all too real: the wealth on display at the Met Gala is the wealth that raked in over four decades of class war waged from above.
The Met Gala is a ritual whose purpose is to make the rule of the billionaires appear glamorous and somehow deserved. What the spectacle communicates, in the only language this class still speaks fluently, is contempt for the overwhelming mass of the city's population. The guests inside, costumed as their own self-image, evidently did not consider that the conditions which produced their wealth and the conditions which produced the protest were one and the same.
The phony dissent surrounding the event was as nauseating as the event itself. New York's newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, distanced himself physically from the gala but did not condemn it. Mamdani excused his absence on grounds of 'affordability,' as though the gala were a pricey restaurant rather than a ritual celebration of the social order he was elected to confront. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, several years earlier, had pioneered the art of hypocritical gestures by attending the gala in a 'Tax the Rich' gown. It was an attempt to critique Versailles from a seat at Marie Antoinette's table.
The Met Gala is a stark reminder of the inequality and privilege that exists in our society. While the guests inside were indulging in luxury and excess, the reality for many people outside was one of hardship and struggle. The working class will have to separate them from their bank accounts, and the filthy rich can keep their empty heads, but not their money. Expropriation of the mega-millionaires and billionaires is a social necessity. The United States is controlled by an oligarchic ruling class that is as shameless as it is brutal, and it has rendered itself intolerable by its own conduct.
