{"id":265,"date":"2025-05-16T02:22:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T02:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=265"},"modified":"2025-05-19T14:51:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T14:51:23","slug":"the-best-met-gala-weve-seen-in-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/?p=265","title":{"rendered":"“The Best Met Gala We’ve Seen in Years”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Even if we don\u2019t believe in or support the Met Gala, we cannot deny\u2026it\u2019s incredibly fun to look at (and in some cases, critique) all of the outfits on display each year. The Met Gala has always garnered a range of reactions: some praise it as a celebration of fashion\u2019s growth and reach, while others consider it a massive event of elitism, a consumerist distraction, and heavily removed from social realities. <\/p>\n\n\n

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For most viewers of the Met Gala, the rolled out carpet, flashing cameras, and luxurious bathroom selfies exist outside of their frame of reality. It is an event of exclusivity, a public space and encounter that only few will ever be able to access\/be invited to, i.e. not us. That is indeed part of its appeal, but also what makes it so polarizing. And yet, in the month of May, it is the thing on everyone\u2019s lips. <\/p>\n\n\n

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This year, however, things were a little different. This year, the Met Gala\u2019s theme was \u201cSuperfine: Tailoring Black Style\u201d with a dress code of \u201cTailored for You.\u201d Unlike previous themes predicated on White\/European fashion and history (or ones where no one understood the assignment cough cough Camp: Notes on Fashion<\/em>), this year the focus was on Blackness and Black culture, and people everywhere were ecstatic to say the least. Not only were the Met Gala 2025 chairs prominent Black figures in media and fashion \u2014Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell Williams, and Lewis Hamilton\u2014 but all eyes and cameras were on Black attendees, another notable shift from previous years. Such a focused theme and celebration of Blackness in the limelight reminds me of bell hooks\u2019 experience at the cinema, or rather, what she wished it could have been. For the first time, Black audiences may not have needed to develop an \u201coppositional gaze\u201d in order to experience the Met, not needing to \u201cconsciously resist\u2026identification\u201d so as to \u201cnot look too deep\u201d (hooks 212).<\/p>\n\n\n

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This time, it was their<\/em> lives that were centered, their<\/em> history, their<\/em> fashion. They did not need to find a way to make themselves present in an absence of their selfhood, but could see themselves represented in these figures\u2014 adorned in gorgeous attire\u2014who looked like them. And truly\u2026the looks this year were STUNNING and it was so refreshing to see such a commitment to theme, especially by Black attendees (my favorites include Janelle Monae, Teyana Taylor, and Lauryn Hill!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Indeed, as Law Roach so appropriately said, \u201cThey done fucked up and made the Met Gala Black!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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And yet\u2026something about this feels not quite right. Why did <\/em>Anna Wintour choose this theme? Noticing the backlash, was this all just a play to appease spectators of color to raise more awareness and by extension, raise more money? To what extent is the Met a site of tokenism in this one-off occasion where finally<\/em> there is a recognition of Black livelihood? I am hesitant to say that there was no consideration of Black spectatorship, for making a spectacle of Blackness for one night and one night only sends a message: our recognition of your culture is temporary, and yet, by centering it this once, we can control the way you<\/em> interrogate us<\/em>. We are giving you a platform, we are putting you on display, be grateful<\/em> and give us your attention<\/em>. Even the New York Times, in an article titled The Tricky Politics of This Year\u2019s Met Gala<\/em>, wrote that \u201csuddenly the Met\u2026has begun to look like the resistance. And the gala, which in recent years has been criticized as a tone-deaf display of privilege and fashion absurdity, is being seen as\u2026a display of \u2018allyship\u2019\u201d (Friedman 2025). But\u2026is it? Is this truly the most radical act of solidarity and collectivity in our current climate? Or is it a simple motion of performative inclusivity? If Blackness was truly important to the Met, it would be present in every single <\/em>Met Gala. There would be genuine, active, mutual-aid efforts on the part of the Met to support Black communities. So again\u2026 I ask\u2026 to what extent might we imagine this event as sincere appreciation or commodification of Black culture\u2014an event where capturing and manipulating the gaze of the \u201cOther\u201d (the non-elite, the normal, the common) is an essential act for its survival and continuation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even if we don\u2019t believe in or support the Met Gala, we cannot deny\u2026it\u2019s incredibly fun to look at (and in some cases, critique) all of the outfits on display each year. The Met Gala has always garnered a range of reactions: some praise it as a celebration of fashion\u2019s growth and reach, while others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rgsinpop.2025.cmoore.sites.carleton.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}