Met Gala criticism: "liberal hypocrisy to celebrate 'known bigot' Karl Lagerfeld"

Criticism of 2023's Met Gala honoree
'Hypocrisy at Met Gala'
Karl Lagerfeld: 'A known bigot'
Famously disrespectful of overweight people
Lagerfeld was also mean to 'ugly short men'
Critical of Muslims
He also had a problem with certain nationalities
He said models who called out abuse were 'stupid,' 'sordid' creatures
All his faults ignored at the Met Gala
Anna Wintour: celebrating the art, not the man
'Suddenly your appetite to find someone’s tweets from when there were 12, has gone'
She calls it 'selective cancel culture'
A problem of 'liberal politics'
'How can we be taken seriously like this?'
This is 'why people don't trust liberals… slippery tactics and double standards'
The public 'replaced their pitchforks with spoons'
This isn't the first time Jamil called out Hollywood
At the Oscars, she thought women looked 'ageless, weightless,' pressured by Hollywood
A few others criticized Lagerfeld
Lizzo's fans said she should've stayed home
Lana del Rey, 'a little too fat,' did not attend the Gala
Criticism of 2023's Met Gala honoree

British actress Jameela Jamil took to social media to share her outrage over the celebration at the “highest level” of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld at the 2023 Met Gala.

'Hypocrisy at Met Gala'

Despite the designer’s controversy, the event was attended by almost all the A-list celebrities, who spoke of him reverently and were tasked with wearing fashion “in honor of Karl.”

Karl Lagerfeld: 'A known bigot'

“Last night Hollywood and fashion said the quiet part out loud when a lot of famous feminists chose to celebrate at the highest level a man who was so publicly cruel to women, to fat people, to immigrants, and to sexual assault survivors,” said Jamil in an Instagram post.

Famously disrespectful of overweight people

The designer, who died in 2019, famously called critics of too-skinny models: "fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly" - as cited in the magazine 'Brigitte'. He also said that plus-sized women shouldn’t be models: “No one wants to see curvy women.”

Lagerfeld was also mean to 'ugly short men'

Lagerfeld infamously told Vogue: "Life is not a beauty contest, some ugly people are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people. The worst is ugly short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life — they are mean and they want to kill you."

Critical of Muslims

During a 2017 talk show, Lagerfeld said Germany’s acceptance of Muslim refugees from the Syrian civil war was an “insult” to Jewish Holocaust victims. Earlier, in 1994, Chanel apologized after one of Lagerfeld's dresses had verses from the Qur’an on it.

He also had a problem with certain nationalities

The German designer also criticized entire nationalities, saying Russian men were “ugly” and that Greeks and Italians had “disgusting habits.”

He said models who called out abuse were 'stupid,' 'sordid' creatures

When the #MeToo movement came for some in the fashion industry, Lagerfeld said if women didn’t want to be in situations they found traumatic, they should become nuns instead.

All his faults ignored at the Met Gala

Despite all this, Karl Lagerfeld was celebrated at the 2023 Met Gala as a great mind. The theme of the event was: 'Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty.'

Anna Wintour: celebrating the art, not the man

Amid the debate about Lagerfeld, which started even before Jamil’s post, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and co-chair of the gala had given her statement to BBC News. She said it was a night to celebrate Lagerfeld’s body of work, not the man.

'Suddenly your appetite to find someone’s tweets from when there were 12, has gone'

The ‘Good Place’ actress slammed the stars, organizers, and audience for “gleefully” ignoring Lagerfeld’s darker legacy. “Nobody has perfect morals, least of all me but… we had a year to course correct here and not award the highest honor possible to a known bigot.”

She calls it 'selective cancel culture'

Jamil was fuming about the double standard in today's "selective cancel culture," where often stars are rejected because of disrespectful behavior, while others are continued to be praised. "It’s one rule for us, and another rule for everybody else."

 

A problem of 'liberal politics'

The actress went on to say that this isn’t only about Lagerfeld, but about “showing how selective cancel culture is within liberal politics, in the most blatant way so far."

'How can we be taken seriously like this?'

She argued that no one would listen to liberals in Hollywood if they didn't have a consistent argument. With the 'hypocrisy' at the Met gala, Jamil said, "We relinquished our right to be taken at all seriously about anything important.”

This is 'why people don't trust liberals… slippery tactics and double standards'

The actress continued: “It’s about showing why people don’t trust liberals. Because of slippery tactics and double standards like this.” She lamented that “If we carry on like this, don’t be shocked when we lose the next election.”

The public 'replaced their pitchforks with spoons'

She said the hypocrisy goes beyond the celebs and the media. “The general public online participated and were entirely complicit in the erasure of the truth last night. They replaced their pitchforks with spoons… to lap that $**t right up.”

This isn't the first time Jamil called out Hollywood

The actress has spoken out before about the injustices she perceived in Hollywood. After the Oscars, the ‘Good Place’ actress called out what she saw as “extreme” and unstainable weight loss on the red carpet.

 

At the Oscars, she thought women looked 'ageless, weightless,' pressured by Hollywood

She criticized the industry pressure for crash diets and weight loss injections and “the images of ageless, weightless women” as “tools of oppression.”

A few others criticized Lagerfeld

Given that Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, was famously disrespectful toward plus-sized women, some who attended the Gala tried to subvert the designer. Lizzo, for example, posed eating fries.

Lizzo's fans said she should've stayed home

Even so, some fans still criticized her for participating at all.

Image: @lizzobeeating / Instagram

Lana del Rey, 'a little too fat,' did not attend the Gala

The LA singer Lana del Rey was also conspicuously absent from the Met Gala this year. Lagerfeld had famously said she was “a little too fat.”

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