There are two sides to the debate of Netflix's The Goop Lab (and yes, I'm aware of how late I am in properly tackling this pile of garbage, but you know what they say about the punctuality of wizards). I wouldn't be fair if I didn't let both camps have their say:
On one hand, the boost given to Gwyneth Paltrow and her mystic alt-medicine has been deemed a dangerous win for pseudoscience (I certainly saw more Instagram influencers try to sell me crystals, seance tickets, and anti-vampire oils after the show dropped). On the other, the show supposedly empowers women and is about the "female spirit", which is one of those things that sound decidedly more infantilizing ("Harnessing positive energy from the universe through the use of soul stones and mediation is the sorta thing you chicks think you can do, right?") than regular sexism. Which side is sounding more rational?
This is the 2015 "Why must we hate what teen girls love" drama all over again. When people say that astrology, belief in ghosts, Twilight, boy bands, and other laughingstocks are interests inherent to women (which must be the REAL reason we mock those things, and so I guess a true ally sticks up for pseudoscience and Products by Brand), that is a far bigger insult than suggesting that faith in pseudoscience is strictly for idiots. I'm not the one saying "women".
The Goop Lab, to be more exact, documents a wider array of alternative healing methods than what you might see in the "Law of Attraction" hashtag on Instagram. These include psychedelic drug use (Don't be a square, maan!), various life extension scams, and mediumship.
And remember, the show is purely meant to entertain, so surely no-one will take these methods to heart and start emptying their bank accounts over pussy candles, enchanted vagina plugs, or someone making "so generic they must be true" guesses about a dead friend of theirs? You read the disclaimer, didn't you?
It is true that The Goop Lab isn't strictly intent on converting you to the Goop side; to make you forego medicine in favor of contacting the dead (whatever that achieves in terms of energy) or taking enough shrooms to believe you did. But how does Netflix's disclaimer correspond with host and executive producer Paltrow, and what she seems certain you should do? Are you aware of what Goop, as a company, actually is and how unsubstantiated and/or downright harmful their products and treatments are? And do you trust that Paltrow, a fan of the United Arab Emirates, is selling you this fakery out of a sincere want to empower women?
Indeed, the show itself may have just done its damage. I don't remember seeing so many people be into this kind of stuff before Goop. I understand that happiness is largely mental anyhow, and that the Placebo and Barnum Effects working together to convince you you're well, so long as you perform the right ritual, is sometimes functionally the same thing as being well. It's just that some things objectively aren't medicine, no matter how persuaded you feel by a glittery, brightly colored Netflix show. This is wrong.
If you fall for routines reducible to "Being positive about everything that happens in life means that everything in life seems positive (and if you notice this, you'll know my $200 crystals are worth buying for added energy)" or "This horoscope said that you will breathe oxygen today, ergo it is proven that distant plasma balls tangibly affect the lives and personalities of people on this particular Mutter Spine spheroid", that makes you a rube. It doesn't mean you're a Woman.
