Hi! I’m Jen, I write queer books. Stacks & Spoons is where I talk about books, sapphic culture, disability, and more. Subscribe for free here.
What happened to the artist? What d'you got to say?
- Hind’s Hall, by Macklemore
Ahh, the spectacle! The glamour! The flashing lights and floral gowns and outrageous wealth! Yes, look at it! Those explosions you hear are just people’s minds blowing from the stunning fashion, not bombs dropping on family homes. Those screams are coming from adoring fans cheering on their faves, not mothers searching for their children under rubble.
I know, I know. We can pay attention to multiple things at once. We can talk about who was best dressed at the Met Gala and protest the invasion of Rafah. We can feast on the Kendrick/Drake beef and be mad that our tax dollars are funding the murders of Palestinians right now. But one should hold more weight than the other. The most urgent issues should not be pushed aside for what are essentially glorified Hot or Not lists.
We need to reckon with the fact that Met Gala is a gross display of wealth and celebrity worship, making the perfect shiny object to distract us from acts of genocide. (The same happened with the Super Bowl and the Oscars.) We need to notice how a rap war can be used to distract from actual wars. It should worry us that anything Taylor Swift does sparks more conversation than what Netanyahu is doing.
In a previous post, I wrote ‘propaganda is a weapon of war.’ So, too, is distraction.
What does it say about us as a society to be so reliably addicted to celebrity culture that international war crimes can be scheduled on the same days as our star-studded events?
I don’t have the answer to that. I’m a culprit of it myself. I’ve been a fan and a stan. Breaking up with our faves is hard to do, but when our need to be entertained gets prioritized over the rights and lives of others, we need a reality check.
This isn’t to say that fashion and art are frivolous, unserious pursuits. Or that artists, actors, writers, and musicians, don’t have anything important to say. I’m a writer. My friends are writers, artists, and musicians. We have important things to say. It’s just a matter of having the courage to say it.
Writers, especially, have been outspoken in support of Palestine. Most recently, nearly half of the writers nominated for prizes at the PEN America Awards withdrew in protest, leading to PEN canceling the ceremony and the prize money being donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
This week, the book community is fundraising for Palestinians trying to evacuate Gaza. The Gaza Evacuation Fund Book Auction has already raised over $65,000. You can bid on my books here, or see all items here.
Like writing, fashion has been used to break down barriers and spark social change all throughout history. Political statements in the form of fashion have even been made at past Met Gala events.
But this year, our faves posed in $2 million outfits they couldn’t breathe or walk in, and guests paid $75,000 for a seat at a Gala table. At the same time as celebs walked (or were carried over) the red carpet, the US-funded Israeli military invasion of Rafah was being live-streamed. 600,000 children were (and still are) under attack with nowhere safe to go. The only people talking about Gaza were the protestors in the streets outside the event. As much as I hate to compare genocide to a fictional dystopia, it’s hard not to see the similarities between this split-screen and The Hunger Games.
While the Met Gala guests were partying, the musician Macklemore dropped a song called Hind’s Hall. It’s the only diss track that really matters right now. The title references the students at Columbia, who occupied a campus building and renamed it Hind’s Hall. Hind was a six-year-old girl who was the only person to survive an Israeli attack on the car her family of six were traveling in, only to be murdered while waiting for rescue (the two paramedics who went to her rescue were also killed.)
In Hind’s Hall, Macklemore raps about the genocide in Gaza, college protests, police brutality, the silence of the music industry, and even Meta and TikTok. He also announced that all proceeds from the song will go to the UNRWA. So far, Hind’s Hall has had over 26 million views in under 24 hours.
This, to me, is what art is for.
When the world is burning and no one is looking, the role of the artist is to force people to pay attention. The role of the artist is cut through the bullshit, not be the bullshit. The more I think about this year’s Met Gala, the more I think it was just bullshit in florals.
If you, too, are tired of the bullshit, check out this updated action toolkit by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
Bread & Circuses
Ahhhh, the cult of personality